Northern Rivers flood rebuild stalls due to funding bottleneck

A parliamentary inquiry into the nation's disaster resilience heard scathing evidence from Steve Krieg, who said the Northern Rivers community had been forgotten and forced to beg for money to rebuild after the 2022 disaster.

"I've stood shoulder to shoulder with two Prime Ministers, two Premiers, I'm a professional headnodder at a press conference now," Cr Krieg said.

"[They] promised no one will be worse off and no one will be left behind. Well you've got a whole region that feels like they've been left behind, we're being forgotten."

Reconstruction of Lismore and the Northern Rivers region has stalled, as the local councils wait for the money the state and federal governments pledged to the rebuild.

"When you have to ring high level bureaucrats to say 'please put $11 million into our bank account so we can keep this work going'... it feels like you're pleading and begging for something that was promised," Cr Krieg said.

"[The Albanese] government announced a $30 million levy wall pump upgrade in February, our council is ready to go, we've got the staff, we've got the knowledge, we're ready to spend your $30 million," Cr Krieg said.

"We don't know where the money is, we don't know how to get it."

Other councils in the Northern Rivers, such as Kyogle and Tweed Shire, have been forced to shut down disaster recovery projects for weeks at a time because government money didn't come through.

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Several landslides from the 2022 disaster have yet to be dealt with due to insufficient funding. Lismore council has the "staff, skills and expertise" to fix, but not the bankroll.

"There is a landslide just north of here that cut off two villages, kids that used to be able to get to school on a bus in 10 minutes, now it's taking them an hour and a half each way," Cr Krieg said.

"We could be in there tomorrow, [but] we can't afford to fix that road as a council, that is another $20 million fix. We need to do better at releasing funds when they're needed to get on with the job.

"If you want to find a perfect storm of bureaucracy gone mad, welcome to Lismore."

The nation had to improve the way it managed and funded disaster recovery Cr Krieg said, if not for his community, then for the next town or city that has to rebuild.

"Because unfortunately it's going to happen again in this country, and the lessons we are learning on a daily basis need to be taken into consideration and improved on," he said.

"What's needed is the guarantee of funding. We can fix it pretty easily, if we know that we can afford to fix it."