Community members have rallied in the northern New-South-Wales town of Lismore against the demolition of houses in the city’s flood zone. The group says the NSW Reconstruction Authority’s demolition program directly contradicts their mandate to reconstruct and make the region resilient.
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00:00The Premier, Chris Minns, is making good on his promise to demolish houses here in Lismore
00:07and across the region that were affected by the 2022 floods.
00:10The State Government has bought back over 700 houses across the region.
00:15When Chris Minns found out in recent times that squatters were living in some of the
00:19houses, he came out and said that it was not practical to move them.
00:24We bought those houses so that we could keep communities safe, so that no one would live
00:28there and to have squatters move in off the back of that is completely unacceptable.
00:33So I've made a decision in conjunction with the Reconstruction Authority that we are going
00:37to demolish those houses.
00:39So the State Government has already demolished 50 houses and we've found out recently that
00:44another 62 are going to be demolished by the middle of the year.
00:48This is playing out right here, right now in the streets of North Lismore.
00:53At least two people have been arrested here this morning as they gather here to try and
00:58fight to have the houses relocated rather than demolished.
01:02There's red tape, there's bureaucracy, there's roadblocks, there's everything.
01:06Everything you could imagine to the point where nearly everyone has given up hope of
01:10being able to move a house and when they do get some hope it's then taken away again.
01:15Decisions they're making now go against what they said last year.
01:20Are the houses suddenly unsafe or is the politics suddenly unsafe?
01:25The New South Wales Reconstruction Authority's stated aim has been to relocate, reuse and
01:30recycle as many of the buyback houses as possible.
01:35But people here today are questioning that commitment.