“Limboland”

BY KATE COXALL

Last week, on Friday, angry residents and business owners protested in an event organised by ROR (Reclaiming Our Recovery) with the Knitting Nannas, in front of the closed NRRC (Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation) office in Lismore, where they say “the journey has been just smoke and mirrors”.

Many residents who had been waiting in what they have called “Limboland” were dismayed to receive phone calls, sometimes more than one repeating the same information, telling them simply “you are ineligible” for buybacks, retrofits or house raising, something many say they were waiting on, before they could move forwards.

In a bizarre move by NRRC, new maps were released, the same week, showing flood risk zones which did not take into account any flood data from the 2022 floods. On street’s where neighbours died in their fully inundated homes in 2022, residents received calls to say they were not eligible, due to not being at high risk, as found out, by ABC’s Bruce McKenzie.

Peter John Somers a Coraki resident attended and said “I have experienced dissatisfaction with the Government Schemes and processes, which is why I have come today. In 2017 the floods came into my home in Coraki just above the floorboards, in 2022 they reached the fan height on the ceiling in the first flood, the second flood, it reached halfway up the wall.”

“When I bought my home, the real estate agent didn’t tell me I was buying in a flood zone.”

‘My home is basically written off, I have been waiting a year and a half to do something about it, and I should have fallen into the criteria for the Buyback or house raising, but received a phone call yesterday telling me I was ineligible, and given no other options, but an appeals process.”

Cathie DosbaThomson, a Social Worker who had been working at the hospital after the flood said “hundreds of people have been called at once, with staff reading from a script, to tell them they are suddenly ineligible, many who have received little to no prior contact after application, many still living in tents in their lounge room, unable to move on, to rebuild and recover because they have been waiting for the past 18 months to know what to do, many with no walls, still suffering immensely.”

Pete Clout from South Lismore received a phone call saying “they have changed the mapping, and subject to the new maps, he is now ineligible for anything”.

Emotions charged, he told the Northern Rivers Times “I near drowned in my living room, I lost everything, and this waiting game has just been such a nightmare!”

“I have had no case manager, I have just been waiting and waiting, all I had received was a text to say I was registered. My neighbour opposite me has received a buyback, I had 2.7m in my house to the tops of the door frames. I was born here and have seen every flood since I was a child, and they aren’t getting better, they are just getting worst and we are being fed lies.”

Members of the protest spoke directly to The

Northern Rivers Times about their suicidal thoughts due to this news being “just devastating, and feeling like we are all alone in this, with lies and no way forward in sight.”

Janelle Saffin who was in attendance, said “This is my community, I always stand with my community, they are hurting and I am here secured $150 million to go towards flood mitigation projects in the Northern Rivers, this money was allocated out of the 2022/2023 financial year. Today is June 30, the end of the 2022/2023 financial year. $100 million of this is yet to be allocated.”

In regards to the Resilient Homes and Buyback program, Senator Davey who met with Federal MP Kevin Hogan, was reminded that “Anthony Albanese told the people of with them to let them know that in Sydney this week I took the feelings and messages directly to the NSW Premier, I got the other 3 MP’s for the North and the 7 Mayors with me, so we moved as a pack, and we told the Premier exactly what’s going on here.”

“He said he acknowledged that the process happening here for the Northern Rivers Communities is not working, and is not good enough and he promised to have a ‘reset’ taken.”

“The two Ministers will be up here [this] week and next week, Minister for Planning this week, and Minister for Planning and Minister for Emergency Services next week. We put Tranch 2 to him, and the 6000 homes requiring support, 2000 then 2000, then another 2000, and he asked for time, but is considering it.”

In response to Kevin Hogan’s press release on the same day, blaming Labour for the botched rollout, despite the Coalition Government being in power for the initial months after the floods hit, where he said “16 months ago I

Lismore ‘no-one would be left behind’.

Ms Saffin said “I never beat up on the Coalition Government last year, I worked with them to get the best outcomes for my community, and at least we got some things, some commitments and I got the Resilient home program, Scott Morrison didn’t deliver it, that happened under a Labour Government Federally the State government took 6 months to do it, and also, when you are in the opposition, State or Federal, just get out and work with the Government of the day.”