The flooding catastrophe that struck NSW’s northern rivers area a year ago has so far cost taxpayers $4.6 billion in grants and recovery costs, Crikey can reveal.
Most of that — $4.2 billion — has been earmarked for infrastructure improvement projects and for rebuilding things like roads and schools. The remainder — $400 million — has been paid out in grants to individuals and businesses.
State taxpayers footed most of the bill, $2.8 billion, and Commonwealth tax money paid for the rest.
NSW Flood Recovery Minister Steph Cooke told Crikey: “From my perspective as a minister, I can honestly say that I’m never fully satisfied with the progress of how or how smoothly or efficiently things are running. I know that we can always do better, there’s no question of that.
“However, I think it’s important to balance that by saying I’m very grateful to everyone who has been involved in the flood recovery efforts over the past 12 months. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.”
A year ago today, the Wilsons River in Lismore reached the record-breaking height of 14.4 metres, more than two metres higher than the previous record. About a month later, the levee that protects Lismore was breached again as flood waters rose to 11.4 metres.
Between February and April 2022, 13 people died due to the floods, according to evidence to a state parliamentary inquiry last year. More than 4055 properties were destroyed to the point of being uninhabitable, a further 10,849 were damaged, and 8100 were “inundated with water”, according to the inquiry’s final report. In the northern rivers area, which includes Lismore, about 4000 people had to be evacuated.
The NSW government said at the time it had committed $1.6 billion in state-funded support for flood-affected communities, but by May, less than 8% of that money had been paid.
NSW Nationals Leader Paul Toole said at the time that grant payments had been delayed because of fears “fraudsters” would try to take advantage of the assistance, and because of the “unprecedented volume of applications”.
Crikey asked the NSW government earlier this month about how much of the $1.6 billion had been paid out, but was told it wasn’t possible to say because of the number of funding packages that had since been announced. However, government officials said all lodged grant applications had been marked as completed by Service NSW as of this week.
The official response to the 2022 floods was widely criticised for being too slow and ineffective. The parliamentary inquiry was especially harsh in its assessment of Resilience NSW, an agency set up after the Black Summer bushfires two years earlier, which the report said had “demonstrated some of the biggest failures of the NSW government’s response to the floods”.
The state government ended up scrapping Resilience NSW and replacing it with a new body, the NSW Reconstruction Authority.
Before 2022 was over, several more floods had hit NSW, drenching communities in the Hunter region, the Central Coast and Sydney’s Nepean area, among other places. The total bill for the 2022 floods landed at about $6 billion, $3.7 billion of which was paid by the state government, and $2.4 billion by the federal government.
A NSW government spokesperson told Crikey the money had been committed to more than 30 support packages.
“A significant proportion of this funding is in the form of reconstruction and repair projects, not individual grants, including clean-up, waste removal, emergency accommodation, road repairs, road betterment projects, critical infrastructure (sewerage and water) repairs, restoration of council-owned amenities and infrastructure, replacement of school infrastructure, council rate waivers, health initiatives and more,” the spokesperson said.
“To date, more than $850 million worth of grants have been approved and paid to households, primary producers, rural landholders, business owners and councils.”
Cooke said the funding and infrastructure upgrades, coupled with a new warning system run by the State Emergency Service, should make sure officials and residents are better prepared next time a flood hits.
“Should we face something similar in the future — and I certainly hope we don’t — I think across the board, the response will be better and the move into recovery will be a lot quicker, and that can only benefit communities everywhere,” she said.
There is wide-spread un-repaired flood damage throughout the Northern Rivers. Here at Upper Main Arm, 15 km from Mullumbimby, the road was not passable for two weeks after the flood. There has been no significant work since the road reopened to (robust) vehicles; it remains dangerous and gets worse with every significant rainfall event. Work is not scheduled to commence until the middle of this year. Thousands of people remain homeless over the wider area. Emergency housing is still to be completed. Nobody should be calling the recovery complete.
The article says the money has been variously “spent”, has “cost” (past tense) $x and has been “completed”. Elsewhere it admits the money has been “earmarked” rather than spent. That is closer to the point. The fact is that a year after the event thousands of people are living in makeshift shelters while still paying their mortgages and insurance companies are still arguing over claims.
Somebody needs a rocket under them. Somebody in Government needs to take command and actually do something!
I once lived in Lismore and went through many floods. This was unprecedented, and so, severe blame for the unforseeable is unfair. General government effort has not been good because of our three levels of government and lack of fine leadership, compared with, say, the Cyclone Tracy response. Extremely difficult, costly, harsh, revisionist, radical measures seem necessay, all up and down the NSW floodplain areas.
Cat3 cyclone Seroja did severe damage here 2 years ago. Lots of unroofed buildings still. My daughter’s house still uninhabitable. My next door neighbour, an 80+ year old lady on her own is still in a small caravan (42° today) while her rental house awaits work. WA props up the rest of the country, but nobody can tell me why. But keep complaining, you spoilt selfish gits. Rebuild on the same flood-plain.
Neoliberal misgovernments’ preferred option is to blame the victim, while, if the need is too visible to TV coverage to be hidden, paying out as little as late as possible, preferably to mates and donors.
“Moral hazard” never appears in relation to the grossly lax non-regulation of banks and gambling hells, but instantly appears in the corporate media in relation to assistance to uninfluential individuals.
Not widely mentioned is that the US has over 3 million climate refugees, whose circumstances naturally quickly degenerate under such impacts. To prevent similar here, prompt extensive assistance is required – remembering cash is useless in the first week or so.
Our neoliberal Misgovernments are incapable of that.