Harper Dalton is a real local, Lismore born and bred. After living in social housing and being raised by his grandparents, Harper has an innate sense of wanting to help others in our community. Lilly Harmon sat down to learn more about Harper's life.

I grew up here in Lismore and have been here pretty much my whole life.

My grandfather was a part of the Aquarius festival in Nimbin, so my family has a lot of history here, as you would say. He was a part of the Tuntable Falls community, one of the festival's first settlements. When it was first the farmers, then came the hippies, all living together in the same community. Nimbin is one of our greatest tourist attractions, and I see it as a real asset to our region. 

I was raised by foster grandparents from around the age of six, attending Lismore Public School and then briefly Lismore High, ending up at Richmond River, where I completed my Higher School Certificate.

I come from a low socio-economic background, which I think is a very important part of my story in terms of where I’ve ended up today. I’m now a social worker with a master’s degree in social work. Having my own experiences coming from public school, living in social housing with my mother, and growing up with my grandparents in a type of unofficial foster care arrangement.

This is what gave me that push to want to help others going through difficulties in life. I am where I am today because of the love I was shown by people who had no obligation to help me. It made me want to care for those doing it tough and those who need a leg up in society and show that anything can be possible in life, even if you come from a low socio-economic background or you have had hard times. 

Once I finished my HSC, I floated around a little bit. I was 18 and just figuring out who I was as a person, as typical 18-year-olds do when freshly out of high school. I was trying different things and trying different communities.

I lived at the Billen Cliffs for a while, which is a multiple occupancy community out the back of Nimbin and Kyogle, and it was a beautiful experience. It's a caring and unique community out there. We are lucky to have so many unique communities and villages. 

After about a year or two, I ended up working at a few different cafes. I worked at the YWCA, which was underneath the conservatorium at the time. It was a community initiative to have young people gain employable skills and complete a certificate at the same time.

It was a community cafe and was training younger people from typically disadvantaged backgrounds. It truly allowed me to gain many skills and make many connections within the community here in Lismore, and I was fortunate to have Renee English as a supervisor who was coordinating the program at the time. 

After that, I went on and did a Cert IV in community services, then my diploma. Then I went to university and did a Bachelor of Social Welfare. Then, after my bachelor's at Southern Cross, I did my Master of Social Work in Sydney.

Going to Sydney when I was 28 allowed me to balance my work during the day at Odyssey House, a not-for-profit organisation for those experiencing addiction, and attending lectures at night until around eight or nine pm. I worked extremely hard during this time, and everything, in a divine way, kind of fed into itself. 

Of course, then COVID hit. So when everything went online at my university, I took it as an opportunity to move back here to Lismore, away from the exorbitant rent in Sydney and be back in the community. That brief period is the only time I’ve lived outside of the Northern Rivers. Then I came straight back because Lismore will always be home to me. 

When I came back here, I was able to buy my house over in South Lismore before house prices skyrocketed in the area, and I loved that little house. I just knew if it was any time to buy a house, it was then. Otherwise, I’d be priced out of the market, and it would be nothing.

(Harper enjoying life at the Lismore Farmers Markets)

I really missed the feeling of being able to drive 30 minutes to the beach and even less time to the rainforest. It was a multifaceted decision, but it was the best choice to move back here, and I couldn't imagine growing old in any other place but in our beautiful community.

When I came back, I was still working for Odyssey House remotely, but when that contract ended, I started working for Good Shepherd. It’s an organisation that provides no-interest loans to those on low incomes to be able to afford white goods and things like that.

There was another loan around the time of COVID that allowed people out of work because of the lockdown to afford rent and utilities. It enabled people to keep up with their rent and feel secure in those uncertain times of lockdowns. Then, I worked at the Northern Rivers Community Legal Center as a social worker before I finished my Masters of Social Work in late October 2021.

My graduation was to be in Sydney a month after the February floods, so I could not attend that because my house flooded, and I was so busy doing all I could to clean it out.

(Cleanup mode post-flood)

After I finished, I had the mentality that I’d be able to have a break from studying and just be able to work part-time but then came the flood, and that started a lot of other work, both physically and mentally advocating for our community, and I did a lot of media at the time. 

After the 2022 floods, I created the Relocate Lismore Homes Facebook Group, which has been fundamental in our recovery now.

Thankfully, all I was fighting for in the community was completely backed, including by our local member Janelle Saffin. It has now been enshrined into the policies and is an option for anyone offered a buy-back. It's not perfect, but it's the first type of initiative, to my understanding, in Australia, where a voluntary house purchase scheme works cohesively with house relocation officially. I found from those experiences that it is how I feel inspired and was called to action. 

How I feel motivated is simply from being in the community and in the community advocating. The clean-up was really hard, and I wanted to have a break after finishing my master's degree. But since then, I have found many silver linings from the flood in terms of community engagement, community development and community advocacy.

I know all of my neighbours now and many more people than I ever would have if the flood didn't happen. I feel that the flood united our community, and that is what gave me strength to get through that time. 

I found out that my grandparents after the flood, and my grandparents' house was relocated after the 1974 flood. Goonellabah exists as it does today in response to the 1974 Flood. Lismore has the state's oldest house voluntary purchase scheme, which was created in response to the 1954 flood. The two biggest floods prior to February 2022 were in 1974 and 1954. Both of those floods opened up new horizons for Lismore in many ways. 

In 1954, they started the house voluntary purchase schemes and the buybacks of houses, so we’re essentially just repeating the past in a different way. Then, in 1974, they opened up Goonellabah for a subdivision.

My grandparents, who worked their whole lives as teachers and didn't have much money, were able to buy some land there, which was cheap at the time. They purchased a house that was actually bought under the voluntary house purchase scheme at the time and was getting sold for relocation, and a car yard now sits at that site. So they bought that house and then moved it up to Goonellabah. 

When I was staying with my grandparents, I talked to them about their journey with their house because the house they relocated was completely flooded prior. So they had to renovate it completely, but it's never flooded since then, and it was well worth it. 

Prior to the flood, I bought my house, and it was on the ground. It's a very modest house. I bought what I could afford because that’s what we’ve always been told growing up as part of the Australian dream of being a homeowner. I bought a house that I wanted to raise before the next big flood, and that was my script I’d tell people when they’d ask why I bought a ground house in South Lismore. 

I was actively engaged with the voluntary house-raising scheme through Rous County Council, but unfortunately, they told me there were hundreds on the list, and there were only three per year that they were offering. But if I'd raised my house, it would still have flooded based on the highest that it could be raised in engineering safety protocols. My house still would have kept about a metre of water through it, but that’s better than to the ceiling. 

(Harper on the roof of his South Lismore house after the big flood)

It's not enough to just raise houses in high-risk areas where climate change indicates and reports indicating we're going to see more floods and at a more frequent and severe level. So, having that background and knowing my grandparents' joy seeing their house and how it has never flooded again when it was relocated to Goonellabah truly influenced me to make the Facebook page. It's a beautiful historical home; they've lived there now for over 30 years. 

Still today, I've been quoted $110,000 to raise my house without stairs, that's just putting it in the air. However, I've been quoted $76,000 to relocate my house. So it's actually cheaper to relocate a house than it is to raise it, and it's typically done by the same companies. I thought, okay, this is a thing, and it has to be done. We've done it in the past, so we can do it again.

To my understanding, we had one of the biggest disasters in our country's history and the worst flood recorded in Australian history at the time. So, we need to do things differently, and that's why I created the group. I'm still surprised at how overwhelmingly the community got behind it and how much people want to relocate their homes because of their love for their homes and our community. 

We now have the gifting policy, and people are really wanting to see these homes relocated and not demolished. I recognise in certain circumstances, homes may need to be demolished, but I would dare say that the overwhelming majority can be relocated. I think that it would be a travesty to see some of the most historical hardwood homes that are irreplaceable just to be demolished.

That was also a driving force that these homes are beautiful and are simply unmatched in their workmanship and timbers. You talk to people who have come and visited Lismore; one of the biggest things they remark on is all the beautiful homes and the beautiful Queenslanders.

My biggest concern was that these homes shouldn't be demolished; that's our community identity and our history. We've also shown in the past that we can do this, and now that we have an official policy, we can do it better. 

I would also argue that it wasn't just me. I may have started it, I may have gotten the ball rolling, but from there, it became a snowball with the community, and without other people's support, none of it would have been possible without the overwhelming backing from the community and from State Member Janelle Saffin. I even spoke to the council about it, and the Councillors at the time voted unanimously to support house relocation. It's all of those factors together that really made this enshrined properly in public policy in how we navigate our recovery.

I do know in the 2001 Flood Study in Lismore, it was recommended that the voluntary house purchase scheme had a house relocation framework. I think that, unfortunately, with Lismore, we weren't as forward-thinking with climate change as we could have been.

I think the council definitely, and still is, leaving a lot to be desired in terms of how we navigate our recovery, but I think slowly, it is definitely getting better in terms of council input. Unfortunately, I think they've taken a backseat so far, so I'm really happy to see the council trying now to be more of a driving force in our recovery.

I'm hopeful that other areas impacted by floods can learn from our mistakes and that we're actively learning from our mistakes and how we recover in the future. So I think from here, it can only get better.

I'm very hopeful and optimistic that Lismore, in the future, can be a leading example to the rest of the world on how we manage recovery and that we can learn from the mistakes that have happened so far rather than just being stuck in a negative loop. Yes, it's been bad, but I think we have to move on from that in terms of, okay, we can learn from the mistakes.

I know the state member is actively involved, and things are getting better over time. So I'm hopeful that the council, the state government, and everyone can work together so we can keep our community identity and cohesion. We can see our homes relocated to flood-free land and be better positioned in the future for when we will inevitably have more floods.

I am hopeful of representing our community in the future and will be running for council next year. It’s a labour of love, and I love Lismore, so that’s why I am going to do it.