Just one homeowner in the New South Wales northern rivers has received a grant to elevate their house more than two years after the flood disaster and the government has spent less than half of the recovery funding it committed to the region.
The government has also drastically revised the number of people it says have applied for financial assistance to 1,426 compared with the more than 5,000 applications it said it had received in October last year.
As the state again deals with damage from heavy rainfall, northern rivers locals have renewed their calls for the government to fund what they say is a $700m shortfall in the resilient homes program.
Chels Hood Withey, a Main Arm resident and community advocate, says it is “terrible” so few people have received assistance to raise their house.
“For two years, when you’ve got thousands of homes, it’s really not good enough,” they said. “The travesty of this program is it never lived up to what they promised.”
Hood Withey wrote to the NSW premier, Chris Minns, earlier this month on behalf of the local Community Disaster Action Group, saying that lives had been “shattered” and asking him to provide the “full $1.5bn that was initially promised”.
The former Coalition state government announced the resilient homes program after flooding wiped out parts of the northern rivers in early 2022.
The commonwealth contributed 50% of a $700m pool of funds. Eligible homes would be raised, flood-proofed through a process called retrofitting or purchased by the government in a “buy-back”.
Locals have repeatedly expressed concerns about the seemingly arbitrary nature with which support has been offered. The assessments are based on historical flood mapping rather than the 2022 floods.
Mullumbimby resident Nikki Malone said accessing help felt like a “lottery”. Her application for a house raise was rejected because her home was deemed to be about 30cm too high, she said.
“Every time it rains, which is a lot here in Mullumbimby, the anxiety is through the roof,” she said. “You think you’re going to wake up in the middle of the night and have to escape.”
A man who lives on the same street, who asked not to be named because he was concerned it could jeopardise his grant, received verbal confirmation that he was eligible for a house raise about six weeks ago but is yet to receive anything in writing.
“It’s such an arbitrary thing. They are haphazard – they buyback one person and lift somebody else but don’t lift the nextdoor neighbour,” he said.
In nearby South Lismore, Wally McGregor had to wait on his roof with his partner and young children when their home flooded with 1.7 metres of water.
McGregor said his family had to clean out mud, mould and debris, tear out the walls, and rewire the house without any government support for a retrofit.
“It all sounded very positive to begin with,” he said. “We just waited and waited – it must have been over a year – to hear anything.
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“My partner just got a call … saying ‘you won’t be eligible for any of the funding’.
“We’re hoping for buybacks – that didn’t happen. Hoping for some sort of land release and that didn’t happen … We’re resigned to the fact that we’ll just live as best we can where we are and hope for the best.”
The NSW emergency services minister, Jihad Dib, disclosed through the recent parliamentary estimates process that the government had spent about $325m from the resilient homes program by the end of January.
As of 8 March, 336 applications had been received for a house raising or retrofit, Dib said. Only one homeowner had received any money to lift their house.
Dib said 1,090 people had applied for a buyback. Of these, 339 had been completed, 577 offers had been accepted and 141 offers were “in progress”.
He said the resilient homes program had received 1,426 applications and 882 of these had been accepted. In October last year, the government said it had received more than 5,000 applications in the Tweed, Byron and Lismore council areas alone.
The government did not explain the discrepancy in the figures.
Dib was unavailable to comment. A spokesperson for the NSW Reconstruction Authority said the program was “not a simple rebuilding exercise”.
“More than 14 eligible homeowners have already completed their own raise or retrofit and we’re now working with these people to reimburse them,” they said.
In the budget last year, the NSW government committed $100m to a “new community restoration fund” for the northern rivers, with some of this money to go towards a “second instalment” of the resilient homes program.
A federal government spokesperson said it “understands” the NSW government was prioritising people who faced “the greatest risk to life” and that a lack of tradespeople and construction materials was hindering the process.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said he is ready to consider a formal request for a second tranche of funding for the program. The NSW Labor government is yet to make a request.
The premier was contacted for comment.