Premier coy over second

Pressure is being applied to the NSW Premier and the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) by local political leaders around the $750M Resilient Homes program (RHP).

The program is aimed at assisting flood-affected residents with house raising, retrofits and buybacks.

Lismore MP, Janelle Saffin (Labor), released a co-signed letter to the media last week, which calls on her own government to do more around its delivery.

The June 15 letter is addressed to NSW Premier, Chris Minns, and contains the signatures of four north coast MPs, and seven mayors.

Byron’s beachfront was filled with local music and punters for Saturday’s Byron Music Festival. Organiser and Byron Music co-owner, Nick Sergi, told The Echo it was a beautiful family day. ‘There was a strong local crowd, and the quality was there with 65 bands performing’. One of those was Byron reggae/rock band, Drop Legs, who formed in 2014.

Lyn

The plan to turn the old Byron District Hospital site into a community hub is set to take a significant step forward this week, with councillors to debate and vote on the multimillion-dollar refurbishment of the site on Thursday.

Four years after NSW Health sold the dilapidated site to Byron Council for $1, the plan is to turn the site into a multipurpose hub, featuring education, community and commercial precincts.

But the project’s budget has blown out by an additional $650,000, forcing Council to once again draw on its reserves, which will worsen its already shaky financial position.

This week councillors will vote on a recommendation by staff to accept a tender from Blaze Projects to undertake the refurbishment of the site at a cost of $6,531,578.

While the Blaze proposal was the cheapest of the five tenders received by Council, the report in this week’s Council agenda reveals that it is still $650,000 over budget.

Staff have recommended that the money be taken from developer contributions currently being held by Council.

This is money that Council puts aside to spend on basic community infrastructure.

‘All compliant tenders were over the initial budget,’ Council Project Officer, Michael Crosbie, and Development Planning Officer, Christopher Soulsby, said in their report.

‘This is a very tight construction program that carries significant risk with respect to meeting the [state government] grant deadline’.

‘Other risks associated with the project are the potential for unforeseen variations caused by building deficits that are not immediately visible until construction has commenced.’

The refurbishment of the site

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It reads, ‘The Resilient Homes program was initially given funding of $750 million, but when officially drawn up and presented to cabinet, the figure stood at $1.5 billion.

‘A decision was made by cabinet to fund the first tranche and any commitment to the second tranche would follow’.

Apart from requesting more certainly around funding of the programs, the letter asks that the co-signed discuss with the premier ‘the NRRC and its remit’.

It reads, ‘It is fair to say we were disappointed with their “maps” release’.

Last week, NSW Premier Chris Minns (Labor) told Sydney-based journalists that he was ‘willing to look at a second tranche of floodfunding’, but said that only $90M had been spent of the initial $750M in funding.

He said, 145 offers had been issued, around 1,000 homes could be bought back, while eight offers have been settled.

‘There’s a long way to go, and we need to make sure the money committed is getting out the door’, he said.

When asked by a journalist if the rollout was moving too slowly, Minns replied ‘I don’t think it’s too slow’, but admitted he was not across all the detail.

Member for Page, Kevin Hogan (Nationals), said in a press release on Monday, ‘We still have no answers on why the original 2,058 homes identified for buyback in our region has been halved to just 1,091’.

‘Labor didn’t even have the decency to be upfront about the cutback, letting the news slip out via the release of barely legible maps from the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation.

‘In the same week, Labor let the bad news out that the buyback numbers for Lismore and our region had been halved, Federal Emergency Services Minister, Murray Watt, announced the same scheme in his home state of Qld would be boosted by another 300 homes,’ Mr Hogan said.

‘There seems to be a disturbing pattern here, with Minister Watt earlier in the month announcing $250 million for flood warning systems, with Qld getting priority on that as well.

‘I shouldn’t have to remind the prime minister that he promised to govern for all Australians and that we are still trying to get back on our feet after the biggest disaster Australia has seen this century.’

See related story, page 4.

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