100-million dollars in Commonwealth funding has been announced for a series of long-awaited flood recovery projects in the northern rivers region of New South Wales.
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00:00 It's a picture perfect day here by the Richmond River near Corakay, but this area was smashed
00:07 in last year's floods.
00:09 The Emergency Services Minister Murray Watt has announced the latest $100 million for
00:15 flood mitigation and resilience projects for the region.
00:19 We want to see these communities come back even bigger, even better, even stronger in
00:24 the future.
00:25 This is a flood prone region of our country and we do need to do more.
00:28 All up, the Commonwealth Government has spent well over $1 billion on flood mitigation and
00:35 flood recovery support in this region and every single dollar of that is deserved.
00:39 $48 million will go to raising roads and evacuation routes in West Ballina and $14 million for
00:46 improving the drainage system in Byron Bay.
00:50 The CSIRO shortlisted more than 60 eligible projects and 36 of those have been funded
00:56 so far.
00:58 The CSIRO is still working on its flood modelling project to recommend big picture flood mitigation
01:04 solutions.
01:06 The solution for Lismore is not in Lismore, the solution for Ballina is not in Ballina.
01:11 Most of these flood solutions at a catchment scale are far upstream of where it's happening
01:16 and you need a model to do that.
01:19 So maybe to get the right solution and get it fixed for once and all, two years wait
01:25 is not much.
01:26 The solution is waiting for 50 years.
01:28 Until those major mitigation plans become a reality, people in this part of the world
01:33 will just have to hope history doesn't repeat.
01:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]