In terms of flood recovery, last week was busy when two important reports were released.

First, was the Flood Housing Response Audit followed by the State Disaster Mitigation Plan.

The Lismore App sat down with Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin to get a flood recovery update including her thoughts on the reports.

"In one sentence or concept, there was no public policy framework around disaster recovery," Ms Saffin began.

"The 2019/2020 bushfires were massive disasters everywhere. Everyone talked about lessons learned. Not one. If at all, they were lessons identified but not learned and not documented."

"So we get to 2022, a massive disaster here and not one learning from three years before. Resilience New South Wales was established to actually do things differently. It clearly didn't do anything differently, if it did anything at all, because I'm not sure what they did."

"That was where this report (Flood Housing Response) started. Where it is now, we need a plan about transition. June 2025 is when the leases run out in the pod villages, and it's under the state environmental planning policy."

Under that existing policy, the pod villages would need to be demolished after 5 years.

"Certainly you can change things if you need to. When all of this was being done and with the NRRC I said come June 2025. What happens? It can't be like a kind of a Cinderella moment at midnight."

"I said there has to be a plan and some work has started with the RA (NSW Reconstruction Authority). They are taking it really seriously because they know that it's in their lap, the absolute lack of planning. So they've started work on that thinking about it, and what can we do?"

"I said there may be some areas where people have to stay and there may be some areas where they can go. We've got the 412 dwellings coming on at East Lismore, but that won't be till '26 and we've got the 64 dwellings in Lismore and we've got other things happening around the district, but there's got to be a plan."

"The Minister for Housing last year did offer, through her office, to have a housing roundtable and I said just wait a bit because we had a lot of other we were doing but I've said we need to do that over the next two months. But I want everyone at the table."

"One of my frequent critiques is different agencies doing different things. We need everyone around the table together. DCJ Housing for the Northern Rivers do terrific work with minimal resources, I see them do really good things for people. They're competent, they're kind and I've worked with them for years. They weren't really involved in any of all of this early which was a tragedy. You had Public Works and Crown Land working on sites and developing so you didn't have the social thinking in there. It started like that."

"And then they got different community housing providers, and I said to them, why don't you just get one with social recovery built into it and a social recovery agency? No, they didn't do that. I said, why don't you get private land? No, they didn't do that. And I offered them some through people that came to me and it was good land, not pie in the sky. Originally, I said to them early on, get caravans and put people in their driveways, or at home with relatives, all of that. No, no, no."

One of the recommendations was for the NSWRA to put together a plan by August 2024, do you think this will happen?

"I think so, I do, because everyone is absolutely seized with it. They get that June 2025 is not far away and we have a severe housing crisis."

"I did say very publicly that I can't abide if we've got no nowhere to put people, we can't throw them out, I can't abide that at all. That's me as the local member."

The East Lismore Pod Village has a 94% occupancy rate, why isn't it 100%?

"I've asked that question and I've been told that sometimes people move out and it takes a few weeks to fix it up and transition over, so it's not a deliberate vacancy, it's a transitional vacancy. That's what I'm told.

The Housing Audit also said that there were 724 people on the waitlist for temporary housing, where are they?

"Some of them I know are still in motels, some are living with relatives and some have gone away. That's why I said I want DCJ Housing front and centre with all of this."

Ms Saffin has been in direct contact with some of the still-displaced 2022 flood survivors. What is their headspace like?

"There's collective trauma but individually people cope differently, so some people are I'm okay I've got a roof, I'm okay while for other people it's just a lot harder for them. There is no certainty for them, something we all crave because we're human."

RESILIENT HOMES

As you can see by the table above, the focus has been on House Buybacks and not on House Raisings and Retrofits.

"People are being rung now," Ms Saffin explained.

"I'm told the House Raising will be looked at first but they will look at both because some of them will be a house raising or a retrofit, it will be either or, so it's both there."

For those who have registered with the Resilient Homes Program and have not received any interaction from the NSWRA, Ms Saffin said you should get the phone call in the coming weeks.

As far as Tranche 1 funding is concerned, the NSWRA have not quite spent the $700 million. "But we are close," Ms Saffin said. That would mean NSWRA will start to spend the $100 million as the first part of Tranche 2.

Are there still conversations within the Labor Party about more money for Tranche 2 funding?

"I certainly am. I have that conversation as much as I can. So, I haven't forgotten about Tranche 2 at all. We were led to believe we would get Tranche 2, and yes it was a senior bureaucrat who led us to believe it, but no one ever repudiated it at the time at the government level, the former government at the time."

"Our Premier now said he would honour what the other government did so that's the way I look at it. That very senior bureaucrat, public servant told us that would happen. I do know the background and that didn't come out of thin air. And then no one in government anywhere said no, that's not the case. If they'd said that that week, we would have known they didn't. So my position is the community's position as the local member. And I continue to advocate that."

The State Disaster Mitigation Plan talks about restricting development in high-risk areas. Yet residents in South and North Lismore have not been offered house buybacks because they are not at high-risk to life. Then in the Temporary Housing Audit report it says that climate change means there will be more frequent and intense storms. What is high-risk?

"As a lay person, it's what I would call high risk, if you sat on your roof for nine hours, if you were trapped in your ceiling then I'd say that's high-risk."

"Every government accepts climate change is a factor in these extreme weather events, every government accepts that, it doesn't matter about the political brouhaha we hear."

"We're not moving everyone everywhere, not just here. I care about here because I live here but I look at the state. For years, there has been a voluntary house purchase and house raising with very minimal funding and it relied on councils putting forward those projects, but of course, they didn't do it because they had to stump up money too. So a lot of that work wasn't done."

"Look, some of that will happen but it will happen over time. There's no magic answer that I can say they're all going to be moved today. No government will just do that, but are they planning for it? Yes."

What about the patchwork quilt streets of South and North Lismore?

"It is being discussed but no one really knows what to do about it. That's the reality. I said very early on to David Witherdin, hire a cultural coordinator. They're people who work in planning and with local government, and they understand space and all of that. We still don't have one now and I say why not?"

"It's an ongoing conversation. I don't give up. We've got a lot of fantastic staff, but I'm not sure we've got an audit on the type of stuff we need to respond to this recovery. I'd still like to see a Recovery Coordinator."

"Mal Lanyon was our best Recovery Coordinator and I noticed when reading the auditor general's report, that there are a few timelines in there about August when things sort of dropped off and I knew they were things he had his hand over and that's when he left. I know we've got coordinators, we've got recovery, but we don't have our own standalone recovery coordinator and our social recovery coordinator."

"I've been told we're going to get a Social Recovery Coordinator, so that's a good start.

"I'd like the bureaucracy to feel our sense of urgency. We still have it, I haven't lost it because I have to work with everyone daily. I can't go oh, well, I tried that and that didn't work. I go, Okay, I'll let that go for a couple of weeks and I go again.

FLOOD WARNING SYSTEM

As we know too well, on February 28 2022, there was no warning about the flood that was about too unfold until it was too late. Systems are changing.

"What happened at Christmas time, the SES would normally wait for the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) to dot every I and cross every t for what they can put out. Now they're going ahead. They've had the briefing from the BOM and then they're making their own decisions. I saw that at Christmas time and the New Year when I was there. And that's welcome because that means they're saying it could be a problem here and we're getting ready."