Our iconic street art heart was yet again the backdrop for another gathering this morning as Mayor Steve Krieg and key local business bosses met with media to urge further government funding as we pass four months since the flood disaster.

Summerland Credit Union, Norco and Mountain Blue Farms are three major employers in the area who all face an uncertain future as details around the Anchor Business Support Package announced by the Coalition three months ago remain unclear.

Mayor Krieg took up the introduction and expressed some trepidation at the task of securing funding to ensure Lismore’s economic future.

“It’s something that you wish you never have to do and that is to fight for the businesses that are, what we call, anchor businesses in our community - those that have been here a long, long time, they employ many hundreds of people,” Mayor Krieg said.

“It’s a real honour to stand here with Michael Hampson, John Williams and Andrew Bell who are the bosses of three of our big businesses that drive the Lismore economy. We’re four months post-flood as of yesterday and things are slowly progressing in Lismore but as with any natural disaster, it’s not going to be fast enough. One thing which is a frustration - there’s no question about it -is the speed in which money has been rolling out. Not only to businesses but also to residents. It’s something that I’m advocating for every single day, down to Macquarie Street and to Canberra as well,” Mayor Krieg explained.

“My thinking as the Mayor of Lismore is that we’ve got to look long term – what’s Lismore going to look like in five or ten years time? I shudder to think of a Lismore without Norco, or a Lismore without Mountain Blue blueberries. We’ve got to do what we can right now to ensure that our staff are employed and these businesses have every opportunity to rebuild,” Krieg added.

Norco CEO Michael Hampson said that the lives of all 240 employees of the historic company could be further impacted if the company is forced to stand them down.

“We’re now at a point which is absolutely critical where these packages need to become larger and they need to start getting to people’s bank accounts sooner rather than later so we can maintain employment of hundreds of people in this community. Norco has been in Lismore for 127 years, we generate a significant amount of economic activity with 55 million litres of ice cream that we manufacture at our Union Street site,” Hampson said.

“The original money that the government has provided us runs out on July 15th. Unfortunately, as terrible as this sounds, we will have to lay off 240 people from this town, which will have a devastating impact on the recovery of Lismore. 44 of those people lost their homes, their cars, every single possession. We call out to both State and Federal government – we don’t care which one, we’re not fussy – but we need the anchor business package to go from 50 to 100 million dollars,” Hampson explained.

“It’s cost us about 20 million dollars so far, we’ve got a 70 million dollar rebuild, plus another $20 million of working capital. We know another anchor business, Sunshine Sugar have a $45 million cost. We know a lot of other businesses that have got 5 and 6 million dollar costs which are only looking to get $200,000.

"We need the government to stand up and help these businesses because it’s important for the long-term future of Lismore, the Northern Rivers and the entire community. Behind all these businesses are people – real people that have real lives that need real help and support,” Hampson continued.

“Some of the funding application processes for the larger businesses only came out last night, that’s four months on,” Hampson added.

Mr Hampson is referring to yesterday’s announcement from Minister for Emergency Management Senator Murray Watt, stating that applications are now open for the Large Anchor Business Support Grant Program, to help the Northern Rivers recover from this year’s devastating, widespread floods (Anchor Business Grants open for flood affected businesses).

The announcement explained that large businesses crucial to the long-term economic prosperity of the region can now apply for their share of the $44.3 million grants package, funded by the Australian Government.

The program will provide financial assistance to help businesses that employ more than 200 people get back on their feet quickly, increase resilience to natural disasters and help people return to their jobs.

It is a joint initiative of the Australian and NSW Government under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, and comes on top of existing support for small and medium sized businesses.

“When I visited Lismore this month, I held roundtables with local representatives to discuss the recovery progress.

“We want to help local industry get back to business as soon as possible but also help to future-proof them, by improving resilience to future natural disasters,” Senator Watt said in the media statement.

Summerland Credit Union CEO John Williams also expressed his solidarity with the business leaders present.

“With a customer base of 34,000 and a head office in the Lismore CBD, our teams have been working tirelessly to support the community and our customers who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the floods.

"We are proud of our contribution to the Northern Rivers community and to the economic prosperity of the region. Like many businesses in the CBD, we experienced significant property damage as a result of the flood. On one hand, we have a significant investment to rebuild our buildings and re-establish back into the CBD but on the other hand, we also have increased risk from floods, particularly now that the Lismore CBD is effectively uninsurable from a business perspective,” Mr Williams said.

“We want to re-build, we think that’s part of our responsibility not only to our customers but also to the broader community. The recovery of the CBD will be business-led,” Williams added.

“To put it simply, the current funding packages are not enough to support major businesses nor for the full economic recovery of Lismore,” he concluded.

Norco’s CEO Hampson further explained that the company has already received some welcome funding since the flood.

“We have received two tranches of 2.857 million dollars, 5.6 million together, which has gone just to employing our people, which has been fantastic. They are very appreciative of that. During that time, we’ve used that money and sent our people out into the community. They’ve been working for agencies such as Resilient Lismore, Koori Mail.. helping other businesses and residents,” Hampson explained.

“We want to be here for another 127 years so if this package moves from 50 to 100 million we will be here supporting the community and continuing the employment of 240 fantastic people that make the best ice cream in Australia. We believe the cost of rebuilding from where we are at the moment would be between 60 and 70 million dollars,” Hampson added.

“We cannot afford to keep paying people unless we’re making a product that we can sell to customers. So, unless we get this funding, we will need to stand those people down in the interim period whilst we work out a process with the government to get the ice cream factory up and running,” Hampson said.

Ecosystem of local business

Hampson spoke passionately of the relationship between larger businesses in our community.

“Our friends at Sunshine Sugar have 500 sugar cane farmers who crush the cane and make refined liquid sugar and of course, in ice cream, there’s a lot of sugar so we buy a lot of sugar from them. We’re all joined in this connected economy of Lismore and the wider area. We need the government to stand up so we can keep everyone employed.”

“If we don’t get that funding from the government then that ice-cream factory has got an absolutely perilous future. We’re not confident in how Lismore is going to survive without that facility doing 55 million litres of ice cream, employing 240 people, having 100 visitors a week all staying in motels, eating in coffee shops, having dinner in restaurants, a beer at the pub of an evening – that activity, also the support we have from other local business providing goods and services – if that doesn’t happen, the economic future of Lismore is absolutely in doubt,” Hampson said.

“Lismore is the cultural and spiritual home of Norco, we’ve not had one thought that says let's abandon Lismore in its time of absolute need. We’re on the bank of the river but our factory is actually quite high. It will survive a 1974 flood no problems at all. When we rebuild – I do have hope the government will help – we will do some further flood mitigation works to the facility to increase the height of various key electrical components and put on flood doors to keep water out so we can continue manufacturing product and employing people,” Hampson explained.

If the extra government funding flows, then Hampson is hopeful the ice cream too may flow again by Christmas.

Mayor Krieg concluded with a reminder that this is not only a natural disaster but a humanitarian disaster.

“For me, it’s all about people. I’m one of those people worried about opening my own business back up, not being able to staff it. Losing something like the Norco factory not only affects Norco employees but it affects the whole community.

"My message is all about the humanity of this. We need to make sure that we can maintain not only these anchor businesses but every single business that is in our local government area so that no matter what you do, everyone’s got the opportunity to work and to have input into the growing, thriving hub that will be Lismore into the future.”

The Lismore App was told the State Government has added $15 million to the Anchor Business Support Package today, bringing the total to $59.3 million. This is still well under the $100 million being asked for by Lismore large businesses.

Businesses that have been directly impacted by the floods are invited to submit up to three proposals detailing their recovery needs and how they would use funding in accordance with the program’s objectives.

Applications close on 26 July.