Buyback list slashed

By Yvonne Gardiner

TWEED HOMEOWNERS affected by the 2022 floods and registered for the Resilient Homes Program should all know where they stand on the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation’s “prioritisation” list by mid-year.

Many who applied are going to be disappointed, after a harsh cutback in the number of homes eligible for the flood buyback program. That number has almost halved, from 2,000 eight months ago to 1,100 under new criteria.

Last week the NRRC released its flood mapping and analysis of the region to support the rollout of the Resilient Homes Program.

This will be used to prioritise home buybacks, house raising and retrofits.

The maps were described by critics as being inaccurate, of poor quality and unclear.

Homeowners, however, found it impossible to pinpoint certain properties and suggested a search mechanism to clarify how each property was classified.

“We deserve better. We need better communication, clearer information, and a working mapping system. Take our frustrations seriously and make the necessary improvements,” one resident said.

Mayor Chris Cherry said the maps released so far were intentionally only “indicative” as many landowners had not yet been advised of their eligibility under the scheme.

“As such, the NRRC wants to finalise that prior to releasing more detailed mapping,” Cr Cherry told The Weekly.

“The buyback scheme and details released show that many homes that were already identified under the existing VHP scheme will now be offered buybacks, so that is an incredible result for increasing the flood resilience of our community into the future.

“It means that in the next 12 months, all of the highest risk priority homes in the Tweed will be able to relocate.

“Buybacks are truly the only way to reduce the risk of loss of life from future floods, so I totally support the fact that the NRRC has concentrated on using the funding provided to do this.

“Tranche 1 funding of $700 million can only go so far, so the most important thing is that we secure funding for tranche 2 so that more homes can be offered the opportunity to get themselves out of the floodplain.

“If you think about the numbers involved, 1,100 homes across the Northern Rivers is all that it is possible to achieve with the current funding. From all accounts I have heard from residents who have received offers, the buyback offers have been very reasonable, and we need them to be, otherwise people will not have the ability to stay in the Tweed.”

Trail of destruction

The biggest floods in the Tweed’s recorded history left behind a trail of destruction — physically, financially and emotionally.

More than 2,100 homes were damaged and of those, 500 were deemed no longer habitable and an estimated 1,600 people required temporary accommodation.

More than 6,400 flood-hit residents in seven LGAs have applied to NRRC for a buyback, house raising or retrofitting.

The NRRC is currently prioritising close to 1,100 home buyback offers, along with another 340 home raising or home retrofit offers.

“As at 15 June, 2023, 145 home buyback offers have been accepted with eight settlements complete,” an NRRC spokesperson said.

“Under the new flood mapping released this week, homes in all seven local government areas have been prioritised for the program based on the greatest risk to life in most flood scenarios, with the most homes in Lismore prioritised, followed by Tweed.

“The highest priority homes for the program are in areas that experience more frequent, high and fast floods.”

The NRRC is proposing to pay prioritised homeowners a purchase price which considers market value of the property immediately before the February and March 2022 floods.

Meeting with Minns

Joint funding of $700 million from federal and state governments was provided last October to pay for the buybacks, house raising and resilient retrofiitting.

Northern Rivers state MPs and mayors have jointly sent a letter to NSW Premier Chris Minns, urging him to release the second round of funding for the Resilient Homes program, so that the process can be sped up.

“The RHP was initially given funding of $750 million, but when officially drawn up and presented to Cabinet, the figure stood at $1.5 billion,” they say in the letter.

“A decision was made by Cabinet to fund the first tranche and any commitment to the second tranche would follow.

“We are now asking for tranche 2 to come sooner than later so that the RHP can be completed. Some nearly 16 months on from the humanitarian disaster that engulfed our communities, we need to know that as promised we will not be forgotten and that we can recover to bring more stability into our communities.

“It is fair to say we were disappointed with (NRRC) ‘maps’ release.”

The elected representatives have called for a face-to-face meeting with Mr Minns.

Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin expects to secure the meeting within the next two weeks.

“This is encouraging, as we need to have a detailed discussion at policy levels,” she said.

“The missing link remains no comprehensive wraparound economic and environmental framework for recovery, given there was no government or agency preparedness for this 2022 humanitarian disaster.

“Of course we now need that preparedness for future events as well.”

Appeals process

If a homeowner is unsatisfied with the NRRC’s assessment or decision under the RHP, an appeals process has been set up. An opportunity for delayed settlement may also be available, an NRRC spokesperson said.

“This means that, if homeowners wish to stay in their property until they find alternative accommodation, and it is safe to do so, the NRRC will agree to a delayed settlement of usually up to one year. This explains the time between offers being accepted and settlement.”

On June 8, NRRC announced that 296 buyback offers had been approved and 131 of those accepted.

Initial assessments had been carried out for 1213 registered homeowners, 364 valuations undertaken and four settlements complete.

On June 2, the NRRC released the Draft Resilient Lands Strategy, under the $100 million Resilient Land Program.

The draft strategy sets out next steps to identify a sustainable pipeline of land and housing to support the relocation of residents impacted by the 2022 floods. Twenty-two sites have been shortlisted for housing, with the first sites expected in early 2024.

NRRC has opened a Homeowner Popup at Shop 7, 41-45 Murwillumbah Street, Murwillumbah, offering a mix of drop-in and ‘by- appointment’ sessions.

‘By appointment’ sessions can be booked with case managers or via the Resilient Homes Program info hub: phone 1800 844 085 or email resilienthomesprogram@ nrrc.nsw.gov.au.

The Weekly welcomes comments and stories from readers about the Resilient Homes Program. Email editor@theweekly. net.au

Letter of the Week

You

More trees please

It is sad to see the shade-providing trees on the post office end of Main Street, Murwillumbah, replaced with bright pink stumps.

The ambience and beauty of the town was enhanced when the tree plantings were introduced.

Tweed Shire Council must replace these trees as soon as possible, in my view.

Dianne Robinson, Murwillumbah Telecross concerns

It is not only the volunteers who are upset by the recent and sudden changes. The clientele are too.

I used the service for a number of years, a safety measure I put in place because I’m elderly and live alone.

My widowed mother, at my age, fell out of bed and broke her hip, then crawled agonisingly to the phone over several hours, going in and out of consciousness (it was before mobiles or even cordless).

I resolved that would not happen to me.

My Telecross call was always a reassuring start to the day, and I enjoyed talking with the volunteers, a different one each month. Some were chatty, others business-like and to the point; both were welcome.

The new arrangements gave me a different person every day, still always pleasant, but very brief.

Some did not even ask if I was well, which was always part of the conversation before, checking on my wellbeing — rather the point of the service, I had thought.

Also, the new callers were from all over the place, rather than near enough to have a good understanding of local conditions.

Annoyingly and inconveniently, the new calls were frequently way past my designated time of 8.30am.

There’s a reason I chose that time: it’s when both I and my cat are up, breakfasted and bathroomed, and before I need to go out for the various medical appointments, etc (which are not every day, but often enough).

With paybacks as low as 5 years, solar batteries are essential for lower bills and freedom from price rises and blackouts.

I thought about it and realised I now have helpful new neighbours, as well as other friends who are not far away (no-one’s all that far away in Murwillumbah); also I keep my mobile phone on my person when I’m here alone.

And I’m not without people to talk to. So, I cancelled my service. I believe there are others coming to the same conclusion. Well, good, I suppose it will ease the load.

But what do people do who are not in my position?

Yes, there is now a Telechat service for the isolated, but that is far from a daily option. The perfunctory nature of the new calls is not encouraging for people to share real, practical problems or needs.

Rosemary Wade, Murwillumbah

Tough being a climatologist

It’s tough being a scientist these days when people who don’t understand that the scientific method is self-correcting describe your work as “flawed junk science”.

And who would be a climatologist when every man and his dog reckons they could do a better job than you?

D W Allen asks if polar bears are more numerous and invading towns because hunting was stopped.

Short answer, no, that’s old fossil fuel propaganda in my opinion.

He proposes that our 2019/20 record bushfires could have been caused by a lack of controlled burns.

When do you safely burn when the fire season in northern and southern hemispheres is almost year-long?

Trump blamed the 2020 California record fires on not enough raking; congresswoman Taylor-Greene blamed Jewish space lasers.

Blaming not burning when there is no window to safely burn is no more helpful.

Since then there have been record fires in Europe and Canada.

Our oceans have been operating for

Ph: 0475 75 75 10 A millions of years on a global conveyor belt current which has sustained ecosystems and fisheries by burying carbon and circulating nutrients.

Unless you have solar batteries you are facing serious increases in energy costs. 888 Solar Tek have installed hundreds of solar battery systems in the Northern Rivers in the last 8 years. If you have existing solar panels we can easily retrofit solar batteries to store your power for overnight use. Why buy more expensive electricity when you can use more of your free solar power?

Last month the Antarctic flow (and hence the whole system) has been found to have dropped by 30 per cent since the 1990s, due to melting icecaps.

“Record” now regularly precedes the words: fire, storm, cyclone, flood, temperature, heatwave and drought. Human endeavour will be increasingly challenged in a hotter climate and change is accelerating due to positive feedbacks in the system.

We get out of fossil fuels and start drawing down carbon, or admit that we don’t give a rats about kids, grandkids, etc. By the way, there’s nothing clean about nuclear waste.

Alan Watterson, Hastings Point Camphor laurel discussion

In reply to Mr Bill E. Goatt (Weekly 8/6/23), thank you for your response.

Weeds are an important topic to me, but I’ll spare you my extensive resume. However, I have made it my life’s mission to rid this valley of exotic plants and restore the natural Australian bush.

This is one of the many reasons I volunteer at the Caldera Environment Centre, whose stall you can find at local markets, and we will also be hosting World Environment Day festival next month – where you can learn more about camphor laurels and other environmental threats to the Tweed.

I run my own successful ecological restoration business that employs local people to work on private and public land controlling the myriad weeds that invade the shire.

Despite the assertions of Mr Goatt, camphor laurels (and other weeds) can perform ecological functions. This is not an excuse to procrastinate, but rather an understanding based on years of experience in the field.

Camphor laurel has also been in the area for more than a century, and has to some extent filled the niche of obliterated rainforest.

Birds such as the flock pigeon will eat its fruit and disperse its seed through the landscape and the fact it is such a widespread weed demonstrates how desirable the fruit are to native birds – and shows the historical extent of land clearing for agriculture.

Camphor forests can be surprisingly diverse, acting as a nursery for other plant species including many threatened species.

It is a myth that camphor laurel is a biological desert; sure, they are not great, but there are far more troublesome weeds to worry about.

If every camphor laurel was removed overnight, the Tweed would be a barren moonscape!

Too often land clearing is conducted under the guise of ‘weed control’, with little regard given to the diverse native species, both animal and plant, that do exist there.

Dr Samuel K Dawson, Murwillumbah (Caldera Environment Centre)

New Tweed Mall plus light rail

Tweed Mall redevelopment will be a great boost to Tweed Heads, bringing much-needed housing particularly for downsizing retirees, thereby giving families the opportunity to buy their current homes.

Stacked apartments are a rateable bonus for councils and give the wider community more ‘icing on the cake’.

However, the dense housing will require more efficient transport to reduce bottlenecks in Tweed.

The Queensland Government has offered New South Wales the opportunity to extend their light rail that is proposed to end at Warner and Chalk streets, Coolangatta.

An extra 500 metres would take the rail to Tweed Mall, bringing the large project extra infrastructure, tourism and money into our community.

A win-win for all!

I hope this offer by the Queensland Government can be pursued by our State Member Geoff Provest. Susan Holt, Tweed Heads

Camphor is not a resource

In response to Barry Reid (TVW Letters June 15).

The only use for camphor is for fuel at the co-generation plant. If they had “many uses” you’d think people would use them, fight over them, monetise them, but they don’t. They are not a resource.

I haven’t seen any proof of your assertion that they are a food source for native pigeons on the property I live on. There ought to be a myriad of native pigeons in the camphors, but there isn’t.

I don’t believe the seeds are ‘pooped’ either, what I have seen is currawongs regurgitate them skin-blackened but almost intact, which leads me to believe they are somehow duped by a very, very thin edible coating and therefore not much of a food source, if at all. I don’t think a 30-year-old report that asserts evidence, then says “maybe”, has any credence. I’m sure if you search back you can find puff pieces on asbestos and DDT also. Camphor laurels look like a forest but they are in fact a desert. Birds don’t nest in them, there is next to no insects or life in the canopy. At least not having to worry about wildlife in them makes cutting them down easier. The only things I’ve seen that like them are worms and centipedes when they are decomposing. They need to be eliminated but, regarding your climate change worries, I would say when you cut a tree, make sure you plant another one.

Lachlan Creagh, Cudgen

Please note the views on the letters page are that of the letter writer and not of the Tweed Valley Weekly. Letters must include a suburb and contact number for verification. Letters may be edited for length or legal reasons. Send your letters to editor@theweekly.net.au.