Tracey Randall: Lismore business owners’ list of demands ahead Scott Morrison’s Lismore visit
Flood-hit operators have a list of demands ready for Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he touches down in Lismore. Here’s what they want.
QLD News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Lismore residents are calling for the federal government to extend its JobKeeper scheme - widely used as relief payments during the pandemic - to help hard-hit operators pay staff as they salvage their businesses.
Lawyer Tracey Randall, whose Woodlark Street law firm of 14 years went under in the record-breaking deluge, said the federal government needed to be held to account over its response.
She has compiled a list of demands from locals to bolster recovery efforts.
It has been outside her firm among the rubbish and debris for the past few days for residents to add their suggestions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to visit the disaster zone on Wednesday having been in Covid isolation since last week.
“A lot of businesses feel they haven’t had a great voice in the media because they’ve been in the shops trying to get wet things out and get things moving along,” Ms Randall said.
“I decided to put the board up so that people can ... add things to the list, I’ve done a walkaround to try speak with them too.”
A minimum upfront $50,000 grant to operators is needed, as is a subsidised insurance scheme to encourage people to rebuild and invest in the area once more, according to Ms Randall.
A lump sum grant for homeowners of the roughly 900 Lismore properties deemed uninhabitable is among further requirements.
“(The community is) really grateful that something, some messaging about what we need is getting out there,” she said.
“I’m regularly sending it to the powers that be so they can keep across it.”
Mr Morrison needs to declare the Northern Rivers floods a national disaster, according to local demands.
“Like a lot of people have said, I haven’t seen a great presence on the ground,” Ms Randall said, touching on her meeting with NSW premier Dominic Perrottet earlier this week during his visit to the flood-ravaged town.
“The news cycle moves on but we need to get the message through that this is not just normal flood,” she said.
Susan Dayas agreed, saying it was a miracle there were not more deaths.
“That’s just down to the locals getting in their tinnies searching and rescuing people - that’s the only thing we had,” she said.
“Where was the on the ground assistance, why has it taken a week for the army a week to get here?”
‘Where’s Scotty?’ Lismore residents slam government response
“Where are you Scotty?” Kayla Youngberry said.
She is standing barefoot in mud outside her South Lismore home as three volunteers from New Zealand and Spain and her elderly father hose the garage and scrape mud out of the bathroom.
This is what the flood response has felt like to the people Lismore.
Most of them in the Southern and Northern parts of the town haven’t seen someone from the Australian Defence Force in their street.
The piles of valuables and ruined possessions that line the roads were placed their by the homeowners themselves and the smell emanates from them with vigour.
Mrs Youngberry is an aged care worker and says she knows “how it feels to be abandoned” by the government.
“The government are like a deer in headlights when it comes to this stuff,” she said.
“They don’t care, it makes us angry and frustrated, it will happen again we’ll probably lose a lot of people because they will move and never come back.
“Unless the government helps us how are we supposed to rebuild?”
Lismore residents have been livid with the federal government’s slow moving response to the flood crisis which is now entering its second week.
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he will make a trip to the Northern Rivers as soon as he exits Covid-19 isolation, but his presence won’t be enough.
Long-time locals of the town say they have barely seen anyone from the government providing support on the ground with residents and strangers working day and night to fix the place themselves.
Kayla Youngberry saw five ADF personnel walking down Webster Street in South Lismore who were surveying damage to the homes.
Driving passed them she said, was a mini-van of the Lismore mud-army crew, volunteers helping people clear out their homes.
“Who needs the army when you’ve got the mud army?” she yelled at them.
The recovery now turns to how to rebuild and while residents are thankful for the government’s $1000 disaster payments, the clean-up and reconstruction of Lismore and the Northern Rivers will cost billions of dollars.
John Bergin and Jeff Mace have no confidence in the Morrison government to provide the support they need.
They work in admin and finance at St Vincent’s Hospital in Lismore and their was inundated up to their chest even though the flood level on their home was reconfigured to 14 metres a few years ago.
As the last week has gone by, the only person they have seen who isn’t a volunteer approach them for help is the electricians.
Other than that, complete strangers have arrived with sandwiches, water, brooms, mops and even Americans from Chicago offering beer to cool off.
Mr Bergin and Mr Mace say they were saved, evacuated, sheltered, fed and supported by volunteers.
“I have very low opinions of the government, where’s Scott Morrison?” Mr Bergin said.
“(NSW Premier) Dominic Perrottet is here in his clean white shirt he flies in here, he doesn’t get in here and help people.”
Mr Mace knows that people in the community have solutions to make Lismore floodproof but he says the government doesn’t have the guts to back them and support them with money to make it happen.
He welcomed Premier Perrotet’s visit but is still unclear about what the plan is going forward.
“What are you going to do about it? We still don’t know what they plan to do,” Mr Mace said.
“Even if they said we can floodproof this town, there are people here that know how to do that people have solutions but it’s about money.
“(To Scott Morrison) flood mitigate this town, spend the money and you will never hear Lismore complain again.”
Originally published as Tracey Randall: Lismore business owners’ list of demands ahead Scott Morrison’s Lismore visit
Doctors urge LNP against scrapping pill testing at Schoolies
The Australian Medical Association has urged the LNP to keep pill testing at Schoolies next month amid warnings a super-potent synthetic opioid has been detected in the state. HAVE YOUR SAY
Covert cameras installed at homeless camp after escalating violence, fires
CCTV has been installed at Musgrave Park by Brisbane City Council to combat rising tensions in a move that Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner believes will outrage the Greens.