Northern Rivers floods: Residents to sue government over new highway

Residents of flood-devastated towns in the Northern Rivers say they were ignored on a major highway project which has led to a proposed class-action lawsuit against the state and federal governments. Here’s why.

Victims of the devastating floods in the Northern Rivers are launching a class-action lawsuit to take on the state and federal governments over a highway which they say has “turned their town into a dam”.

Residents from small river towns like Woodburn have put their names to the lawsuit, claiming the $5 billion upgrade to the M1 Pacific Motorway had “impacted” major flood levels, and put them in danger.

Locals confirmed they would take their actions to the courts at a community meeting on Monday and said the M1 upgrade, completed in 2020, acts as a dam wall that holds water in the towns and doesn’t allow floods to drain naturally into waterways.

Vanessa Allport lost everything she owned in her Woodburn home of almost two years.

“Our town is like a dam, people were saying during the first flood they could hear waves crashing against the highway so don’t tell me it’s not a dam,” she said.

Vanessa Allport lost everything in the floods from her Woodburn home but is now preparing a class-action lawsuit against the state and federal governments. Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

“People stood up at the consultations when the project was proposed and some people said that exactly this would happen.

“This class action is designed to target the state and federal governments to get us the compensation and changes we need because we all feel the highway has impacted on the level of flood and the amount of time the flood stays around.”

In less than 12 hours, 280 of the 360 homes in Woodburn signed up to the class-action, with over 500 from Wardell to Grafton.

The residents claim the highway upgrade prevents flood water from adequately passing through.

In the major flooding event in February, the residents said the new highway acted like a levee wall, making river rises in towns like Woodburn and Coraki catastrophic.

The water also travelled further south, inundating communities like New Italy and Grafton, 96 kilometres south of Woodburn.

Video taken at 4:14 at Woodburn

Posted by Rotorwing Helicopter Services on Thursday, March 31, 2022

These issues were discussed at community meetings in 2016 when the project was proposed but locals feel their expertise was cast aside.

“A hydrologist that is from the area came here and says he noticed that the natural waterways have been disrupted and that we have a case (against the governments),” Ms Allport said.

“The costs of the damages is unbearable, I know I’ve probably lost $80,000 from my renovation, I can’t rebuild because that would be like throwing money in the river.”

River Street in Woodburn was under water after major flooding of the Richmond River for the second time in four weeks. Picture: Paul Stanley-Jones.

Lawyers from Crouch Amirbeaggi in Sydney made contact with Ms Allport, and Nick Crouch from the firm has committed to take the case.

Government, departments respond

Just a day after it was revealed that residents would look to a class-action lawsuit, Transport for NSW have responded to flood-affected residents.

“The Minister for Regional Transport and Roads has asked Transport for NSW to engage with landowners living alongside the Pacific Highway at Woodburn, which will begin to take place over coming weeks,” Transport for NSW said.

“Transport for NSW is committed to understanding the recent flood events and how they interacted with the highway and communities. This work is expected to take some months to complete.”

The department also reaffirmed the work done before the Woolgoolga to Ballina upgrade saying minimising the “impact of the upgrade on water flow and drainage was an important objective during the design and construction of the highway”.

They also said predictions around the impacts of the upgrade on flood behaviour included flood impact models and assessments of “more than 200 different design scenarios”.

“We have provided the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) and local councils with information about our flood modelling process and the predicted flood behaviour associated with the upgraded highway.

“Overall, we assessed over 200 configurations of bridge and flood relief culverts across the Clarence and Richmond River flood plains. During the detailed design phase of the project we were able to increase bridge openings in the EIS by about 18 per cent for improved flooding outcomes.”

Residents turn heat up on ScoMo, Albo

While litigation for the highway will drag out for an extended period of time, residents of river towns have the upcoming federal election in mind where they believe they can use people power to turn seats.

Lyndall Murray has lived in the region for over a decade and ran a makeshift triple-0 call centre from her home in Evans Head during the February floods.

Lyndall Murray is taking a class-action lawsuit against the state and federal governments because she believes they’ve made Richmond River towns less safe from floods. Picture: Nicholas Rupolo.

She realises an opportunity to hold the balance of power in seats like Page and Richmond and is making this call-out ahead of the election part of a two-pronged approach to fixing the situation.

“We need 8000 people in our database to swing the Page vote, we need 1000 people in Tweed and Byron to swing the vote,” she said.

“This approach is to harness power of our collective vote to get commitments to get the Labor and Liberal Party to show us their plans.

“Mr (Anthony) Albanese has been silent and Scott Morrison came in here for a few days in Lismore and hasn’t committed extra funding for all the North Coast.”