Around 150 people gathered in intermittently wet weather in Lismore on Saturday to share frustrations over the NSW Reconstruction Authority’s management of recovery processes for disaster impacted homes.
Event co-organiser Duncan Wilson told The Echo on Monday he thought community legal action would probably be necessary to prevent more housing demolition and the weekend’s rally was largely symbolic.
The Reconstruction Authority last month said 112 demolitions had been ordered across the Northern Rivers as part of its Resilient Homes Program, with at least 50 having already happened and another 62 due to happen by mid-2025.
Most of the homes were in Lismore, including in North Lismore’s Pine Street where squatters from near and far attracted media attention last year for occupying houses sold to the state government through the program.
Disappearing houses in a housing crisis
Mr Wilson said the housing crisis in Lismore had been getting worse for years.
‘We’ve got disappearing houses, a lot of people who need somewhere to live and the RA has made it very difficult for people to get licences to occupy,’ he said.
‘Initial offers of land swaps never really came to fruition, we’d like more transparency around that and there was nothing salvaged from any of these houses,’ he said.
The RA last week said more than 350 homeowners included in the buyback program, or more than half the program participants, had saved materials from the houses for reuse.
Homeowners were said to have taken windows, doors, solar panels and systems, ceiling fans and air conditioning, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, fittings and appliances, sheds, rainwater tanks, fencing and carports.
The announcement came about a month after the agency said 63 tonnes of hardwood had been salvaged from buyback home demolitions for reuse, with the rest understood to be going to green waste where it would be mulched or potentially incinerated.
Meanwhile, Mr Wilson said he followed a demolition truck from Lismore to a centre on the Gold Coast where he saw materials dumped rather than salvaged.
He is calling for more transparency around the recycling of bought-back houses, as well as costs of demolition compared to house relocation.
Tiny houses to be presented to RA
Protestors on Saturday heard from speakers including members of The Greens Sue Higginson, a Member of the NSW Legislative Council and recent federal candidate for Page, Luke Robertson.
Community groups Reclaim our Recovery and House You were also involved in the weekend’s protest, Mr Wilson said, but key organisers like himself were acting independently of organisations.
They facilitated brainstorming sessions for local housing solutions on Saturday, he said, and created miniature cardboard houses containing direct messages to authorities.
Protestors tried to deliver the houses to the RA but hadn’t made an official appointment and planned to make a second attempt, Mr Wilson said.
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