Last night Mayor of Lismore Steve Krieg recorded an interview with ABC's Four Corners program that was broadcast last night.

In the interview he mentioned that the Lismore rebuild needs an autocratic approach, Lismore City Council cannot do it on its own, it needs help from the State and Federal Government and he later said, "You actually need to sack the council to make this happen."

As social media blows up with comments speculating what Mayor Krieg meant during his interview, the Lismore App went to the source and asked him to explain his comments in context.

"It's pretty self explanatory in a lot of respects, it was a 90 minute interview and I got a 15 second grab which was obviously, probably some would say the most controversial, but at the end of the day the context behind the the interview was the devastation through Lismore. How do you rebuild a city? And I think you can't lose sight of the enormity of the task that's facing the whole city over the next three to five years and and to be able to do that properly."

"It's still my opinion, that you you need focus and you need direction and how you achieve that in businesses is by having a singular focus."

"I think that democracy is the most valuable asset that we have in Australia. We're very lucky to live in a democratic society where people are allowed to say what they believe and I don't think we can ever take that for granted."

"But I do believe that in the rebuild of Lismore, in particular, when you're talking about 45,000 people that live in our LGA you need to be able to make decisions without, necessarily, emotion. As harsh as that might sound, but sometimes you need to make decisions based on the long term best interest and I don't know if council is the best way forward for that."

Is that is because it is a divided council?

"It's never an easy council. And I know that I'm very new to this role. I know have made mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes, but I'm human."

"The underlying factor behind all of this is I love my city. I love the community. And believe it or not, I actually really enjoy every one of the councillors who have been elected but the infighting, the squabbling and the rescissions and all of those sorts of things only go to make the rebuild more difficult."

Does the rebuild vision differ from councillor to councillor?

"There's no doubt about that. You know, from my perspective, I want Lismore to grow and thrive and prosper and you know, I've got a five and a 10 year plan in my head, which I probably haven't clearly articulated because at the end of the day, it's only my view. But, I know that other councillors have very, very different polar opposite views to mine."

"I know that there's people upset with my comments from last night but I think you've got to go back to December 4 and realize that myself and my council colleagues were given the mandate to to come in and make a change and to make a drastic change."

"If people were happy with the way council was performing in the past, I wouldn't be sitting in the Mayor's chair. It's as simple as that."

"At the end of the day, I think the overwhelming majority of people that live in and around Lismore, just want to see their town get back to what it should be and what it deserves to be. I've said the whole way along Lismore deserves to be the best Regional Centre in, not only New South Wales but in Australia.

"How we achieved that is going to be very difficult under the current circumstances that we find ourselves in council."