This weekend marks four years since the floods of February 2022 – Australia's biggest natural disaster.
Important questions we need to ask. How many metres have been taken off the next flood? Do businesses in the CBD and industrial estates feel safer? Do people have confidence to invest in our region? How much flood-free land has been made available?
State and federal Governments promised new land and new housing. The Resilient Lands Program was established to unlock land, yet not one home has been built. Some examples:
• The Crawford Road site in East Lismore will have no new residents for up to 2 more years.
• The North Lismore site will not have relocation homes for up to 2 more years.
• The Mount Pleasant Estate development in Goonellabah continues to be delayed.
It will be close to six years after the disaster before a single home is delivered. The Reconstruction Authority was established to speed up this process. If this is considered a quick process, then something is clearly wrong.
The buyback scheme has also failed. It's moved half a street and left the other half there. How does that make the community any safer.
Flood mitigation is the only strategy that will deliver long-term safety and certainty for our region. Yet to date there has been no meaningful engineering work done to reduce the level of the next flood.
Recovery has been driven overwhelmingly by local families, farmers and businesses who have poured their savings into rebuilding homes, reopening shops, restoring farms and getting people back to work.
We await the CSIRO Flood Mitigation Report in June. Governments must commit to funding and delivering recommendations to take 2 metres off the next flood.
The federal and state Labor governments need to do better, in ensuring this region has a safer and prosperous future.
I can't help but think if this disaster had been in Sydney, things would be happening much quicker.
