Greens MLC Sue Higginson has accused the state government of ‘a secret Labor deal to cut funding from 1000 flooded homes’.
The Northern Rivers based MP says her office has obtained data showing only one per cent of the 4000 raises, retrofits and relocations initially promised by the then-coaltion state government have been finished in the three years since the 2022 floods and landslides disasters.
‘This is a mere 41 homes,’ Ms Higginson has said via media release this week.
The figure ‘exposed the shocking failure of the Minns Labor Government to assist Northern Rivers flood survivors,’ she continues, ‘with thousands of homes still at risk from increasingly frequent and extreme flooding’.
1000 homeowners missing out, says Higginson
Ms Higginson says the documents also revealed that current Labor Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reduced funding for house-raises and retrofits by $100m, impacting 1000 flooded homes.
She says she’s calling for the initially promised $1.5 billion for 6000 house-raises, retrofits and buybacks, adding that Labor Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin called for the same ‘before her elevation as Minister’.
‘They could have found more money, which is what Labor promised to do, but instead they effectively robbed Peter to pay Paul,’ Ms Higginson says.
‘This was a political deal, done in the dead of night with no consultation and no transparency.
‘Labor needs to come clean to the 1000 homeowners who won’t get a raise or retrofit because of this decision.’
Ms Higginson has also accused Labor Premier Chris Minns of demonizing locals seeking to live in some of the empty buyback homes owned by the NSW Reconstruction Authority as part of the Resilient Homes Program.
‘He has pitted flood survivors against one another, and stoked fear in our traumatised Lismore community,’ Ms Higginson says.
‘All the while, he was reducing the number of flooded homes that would get support.’
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