The New South Wales government has approved fewer than 400 disaster relief grants for flood-ravaged northern rivers businesses, despite receiving almost 8,000 requests for help since applications opened almost a month ago.
After the state’s north was left reeling by weeks of devastating floods, the government announced grants of up to $50,000 for small businesses to help pay for cleanup costs, repairs, replace damaged stock and to lease temporary premises.
But one month on, less than 5% of the grant applications – or just 377 of the 7,965 received by Resilience NSW – have been approved by the state government.
Fewer still have been paid out. Funds have been released for 267 applications, worth about $3.9m.
The government has rejected more applications than it has approved, with the emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, blaming the delay on flood-hit business owners providing “incomplete and missing” documentation.
The state government has rejected 657 bids for relief, worth $12.15m.
Almost 2,900 applications worth $46.9m are still being assessed, while Resilience NSW is waiting on more information from applicants in 3,298 applications worth $62.2m.
Byron Shire mayor, Michael Lyon, said there was “massive need” for business relief grants across his shire, where towns like Mullumbimby were hit hard, and the broader northern rivers region, particularly in Lismore.
Lyon said the state government must explain why it is taking so long to assess applications, given the immediacy of the need.
“There’s no doubt about the need, we’ve had several CBD areas in the northern rivers, I know Mullumbimby was badly affected, and there’s a lot of businesses that actually have businesses from home, in places like Ocean Shores,” he said.
“I would suggest that there is definitely a need in our shire and lots of other shires. It would be very interesting to find out why there are so many delays. Approve or reject, yes, but [for them to be] outstanding, that’s not really good enough.”
The grants are intended for small businesses and not-for-profits that were directly damaged in the floods and plan to re-establish themselves in the same region. The money can pay for a range of work, including cleaning, safety inspections and debris removal, and can be used to buy materials and equipment needed to immediately resume trading, or replace cars, damaged stock or internal fittings.
Cooke said that the government had been processing about 400 applications a day, and would increase the number to 640 over the coming week.
“Around three-quarters of applications received so far are incomplete and missing key documentation,” she said.
“Service NSW is working with customers who have lost documentation in the floods to progress their applications as quickly as possible.”
While payments of up to $15,000 are available on the basis of quotes of estimates, larger grant applications require businesses to provide evidence they have already spent the money.
The Ballina Greens MP, Tamara Smith, said those restrictions were “absolutely cruel”.
“What I find bizarre is that you now have a whole class of business who can’t apply because they don’t have $35,000 on hand and, of the people who can muster it, there are these delays in paying the money out,” she said.
“It’s a lot of bureaucratic bungling that people just cant afford.”
Murwillumbah district chamber of commerce president, Rebecca Whan, said the delays in processing the grants were “pretty concerning, to say the least”.
Whan said some business owners in flood-hit Murwillumbah had just $14 in their bank accounts. She knew of local business owners taking on work as part of clean-up crews to bring in enough income to keep their businesses alive.
The cash grant was the first step in rebuilding, she said, and re-opening for many businesses would “simply not occur in many cases” without it.
“There are a lot of emotions and it’s very distressing for a lot of them,” she said. “If you’ve got financial stress on top of everything else, it just breaks the back of people at the moment.”
She said the grants were time-critical for many businesses, as delays to cleaning and the removal of debris allowed mould to spread, creating a health risk and raising the prospect of buildings being deemed uninhabitable.
The delays meant many towns ran the risk of having empty shopfronts “for months on end”, which will create a ripple effect throughout the CBDs that could last years.
“People need a glimmer of hope,” she said.
