Vigilantes, whipped-up by local right-wing politicians and NSW Premier Chris Minns, rampaged through Pine Street in Lismore on March 15.
The mob was harassing people that have occupied around seven houses, which have been left vacant since massive flooding in the region in 2022.
The March 16 Guardian reported on videos of the right-wing thugs: “An individual can be seen trying to smash a car windscreen while someone is inside the vehicle; a person appears to throw a metal object out of a moving car while yelling abuse; in another, fireworks appear to be thrown from a moving car; and in a final video, a ute can be seen performing doughnuts on the street.”
The thugs were incensed that people in desperate need of housing decided to occupy houses on Pine Street, which were among the 700 or so the NSW Reconstruction Authority bought after the last big flood. They are in the most flood-prone parts of town.
The former owners of these houses, and many others, sold on the understanding that these well-made Queenslander-style timber homes in good condition would be relocated to safer ground and remain part of the town’s desperately needed housing stock.
Right-wing councillors with substantial property interests and their allies have used community Facebook pages to vilify the occupiers as “outsiders” and “freeloaders” who are “jumping the social housing queue”.
One local councillor called the occupiers “a cancer”.
Andrew George, from Reclaim Our Recovery (ROR), an activist group that has been campaigning for a democratic and just reconstruction effort since the 2022 flood, told Green Left that the Pine Street occupiers have indeed “come from all over”, because “the homelessness crisis is all over, literally forcing people to move to find somewhere to live”.
George pointed out the occupiers’ stated goals are to protect and maintain the houses for later use. They use the slogan: “Occupation until relocation”.
George described how the several state government programs, meant to address the massive damage of the 2022 flood, have been disjointed and inadequately resourced.
Only a small minority of those requesting a buyback, house-raising or repair have received any help and there was no real support for the promised acquisition of land and relocation of houses there, or for former tenants of buyback houses.
Local developers have also used their influence to severely restrict the number of buyback houses allowed on new developments.
George said that ROR was started by those concerned with bureaucratic failings and “disaster capitalism” in the wake of the 2022 flood. It proposes instead a “community-led recovery and ecological justice”.
ROR has forced the NSW Reconstruction Authority to relate to large public meetings it has organised, and is campaigning for a “People’s Assembly” to be a part of the flood recovery and disaster adaptation programs.
It has helped tenants of some buyback houses to gain a “license to occupy” their homes and argues this arrangement could be extended to the Pine Street occupiers.
But George said the local council, dominated by real estate, property investor and other business owners, has blocked democratic participation in the recovery. The same vested interests are demanding the 700 buyback houses be immediately demolished.
In this context, NSW Labor seems to have decided that demolishing the houses it bought is the easiest option, despite the irrational waste of resources and the fact it does nothing to house homeless people.
That a small minority of these houses are being used by squatters is a convenient excuse to demolish all of them.
In the aftermath of minor flooding, associated with ex-Cyclone Alfred, Minns claimed these house demolitions were an urgent necessity. Pandering to the right-wing 2GB audience he was speaking to, Minns claimed occupiers were “obviously trespassing and putting people’s lives in danger”.
Claims by Minns and local right-wingers that emergency services had to unnecessarily attend the Pine Street houses in the midst of a flood were contradicted by locals who posted photos to Facebook showing the street was very well cleaned up, flood protected and empty, well before residents were advised to leave the area.
Sue Higginson, NSW Greens Legislative Council member and a Lismore resident, said: “Premier Chris Minns has chosen to punch down on my community, on the frontline of the climate crisis, spreading lies and stoking division rather than addressing the real issues we are facing.”
George called for a community defence of the Pine Street houses if and when demolition becomes imminent. ROR is also circulating a petition to demand the threatened houses be relocated.
Rachel Evans, a housing activist and Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Sydney, told GL she supports the Pine Street residents and others taking action to win the basic right to genuinely affordable housing.
“The right will always scapegoat the vulnerable to deflect from their greedy profit-first anti-social approach. There are so many solutions, including community-controlled public housing, a cap on rents and strict controls on landlords. Eliminating capital gains tax exemptions and negative gearing incentives would also go a long way to help make housing the human right it should be.”
[Sign the “Stop the demolition of buyback homes in the Northern Rivers; Demand real Flood Recovery” petition here.]