Australia's most flood-affected postcode will have to wait for flood gauge upgrades until the state and federal governments agree on who will pay for ongoing maintenance costs.
Lismore was at the epicentre of last year's most expensive natural disaster in Australia's history that also claimed four lives.
The city was not prioritised in this week's federal government announcement of $236 million over 10 years to fund improvements to flood warnings.
Emergency Services Minister Murray Watt said Queensland would be first for the roll-out of flood warning infrastructure because it was the most disaster-prone state.
The minister acknowledged Lismore was also "incredibly flood-prone", but said the new funding relied on the NSW government agreeing to ongoing maintenance costs.
"Once we can reach that agreement with the NSW government, we can commit those funds," Senator Watt said.
"I think it would be fair to assume that will be in the millions of dollars each year."
A spokesperson for NSW Minister for Emergency Services Jihad Dib said preliminary discussions were underway to ensure the state received its fair share of federal funding.
"It is clear in NSW that an ongoing issue remains gauges sitting on different properties owned by different entities," the spokesperson said.
"Fixing that will be both the work of the state and federal government and was recommended by the Flood Inquiry."
$15m for improvements unallocated
Senator Watt pointed to NSW receiving $15 million in federal funding last August to support councils over the next four years to install, upgrade and operate flood warning gauges.
But that money is yet to trickle down to local councils and water authorities.
Lismore City Council applied for grants last year to install 12 new gauges in the upper catchment as well as three flood cameras at key locations.
Asset manager Scott Turner said the funding was twice rejected by the state government because the council's flood plain study was not finalised.
Mr Turner said waiting for the federal and NSW governments to agree on how the $15 million would be spent was "frustrating but not surprising", given they were working to incorporate recommendations from the Independent Flood Inquiry.
"It's fair to say that people [in government] understand the issues, but the wheels of government do turn a bit slowly sometimes," he said.
"We would like them to get it sorted and resolved as quickly as possible so that we can roll this out for the benefit of our community."
He said his council was also in the dark about who would manage the funding announced this week and how it would be allocated.
Gauges top priority to stop disaster repeat
A long-time advocate for flood mitigation around the Lismore area, Richard Trevan, said the city deserved top priority.
"The main gauge for Lismore, where all of the readings for all of the communities are based from, doesn't have simple things like stream flow attached to it," he said.
A CSIRO report highlighted the urgent need for more rainfall and river height data to feed the Bureau of Meteorology's models and for the SES to issue alerts.
Terania Creek catchment in the hills high above Lismore recorded some of the highest rainfall during the February 2022 flood event.
The lack of gauges along the creek meant river heights were severely underestimated and contributed to an underestimation of the flood peak at Lismore.
Mr Trevan, a member of the Lismore Citizens Flood Review group, said Lismore had around 50 rain and river gauges that did not work in the 2022 floods.
"Taking nothing away from everybody in Queensland, we are talking about the most vulnerable community in the entire nation," he said.
"Everything stems from preventing as much damage as we can through early warning, and unless you have that sorted out, you experience what we have had."
He said the cost to government of putting in the hardware was nominal in comparison to the cost of the disaster.
"We have had the most expensive natural disaster in national history, not only through government assets, but the private sector and community on an individual basis.
"Early-warning systems are a priority, it really comes down to that."
