When Matt Dwyer, a panel beater, and his wife, Tracy, bought their South Lismore business in 2006 they were told the 40-year-old workshop had only ever had about 15cm of flood water across the concrete floor.
Over the next decade the couple repaired thousands of cars, employed local people, trained apprentices, sponsored the local footy team and the go-kart club and raised three children. They also spent what they estimate as $1m on equipment.
After being partially inundated by flood waters in 2017, the couple prepared a comprehensive flood plan to handle future events. Or so they thought.
“We implemented our flood plan, we came in here on the Sunday [27 February, before this year’s first flood], we lifted everything up, we have a mezzanine floor, we got all the customers’ cars out,” Tracy says.
But their preparations were in vain when a wall of water – 3.5 metres high – swept through the workshop, submerging most of their equipment in the process.
Tracy, 48, and Matt, 52, estimate their losses at about $500,000. Insurance companies had refused them flood cover, they say, and while they had business interruption insurance, they have since discovered it did not cover flooding.
What they are eligible to apply for is a $50,000 small business grant from the NSW state government which, while welcome, is considerably less than the $200,000 soon to be available to businesses with more than 20 employees.
“I don’t think the grant criteria should be based around staff numbers because the cost of plant and equipment here is so expensive to replace and repair, and that’s not being taken into account,” Tracy says.
The couple are not alone in questioning the criteria, speed and bureaucracy involved in the state government’s business grants program.
Jane Laverty is the regional manager of Business NSW – Northern Rivers, which operates as a chamber of commerce for the area. She has supported about 200 affected businesses through a hub based at Lismore’s Southern Cross University, alongside Service NSW and the Rural Assistance Authority.
She agrees it doesn’t make sense for flood grant amounts to be decided based on employee numbers, not on the damages a business had suffered.
“That doesn’t seem fair in anyone’s mind, and we have certainly been speaking to the different agencies and giving them these case studies so they can understand the challenges and those that may fall through the gaps,” she says.
Many other small businesses are struggling to survive while chasing down the paperwork required for the grant. Meanwhile, it is 10 weeks after the floods and a grant of up to $200,000 for medium-sized businesses with more than 20 employees is yet to open for applications.
“There really is no time to lose now because businesses are bleeding every single day of costs and if we want businesses to come back … that means getting some funds in bank accounts and a plan to move forward,” Laverty says.
According to Service NSW, of the 14,964 applications lodged for the small business grant less than 15% have so far been approved. Nearly 40% have been rejected, and a further 36% sent back to applicants for further information.
Kylie O’Reilly and her husband, Matt, invested their life savings in a mushroom farm near Evans Head 15 months ago.
Their six-acre mushroom farm was returning a profit and employed 12 local people. The floods knocked down 12 of the property’s 15 sheds and 1.7 metres of water engulfed the couple’s home – they were rescued by boat. They estimate their losses at more than $1m, having also been deemed ineligible for insurance.
The couple, both in their 40s, have applied for three flood grants (business and primary producer), as well as the 13-week no-income payment. They were rejected for three of the four, while one flood grant application is still pending. As primary producers they were told they didn’t qualify for a small business grant. But their property was deemed too small for the farming grant they applied for.
According to the office of the NSW agriculture minister, Dugald Saunders, about one-third of applications for the $25,000 and $75,000 primary industry grants have so far been approved.
That equates to about 90 of 266 applications for the smaller grant and 680 of the 2,332 applications for the $75,000.
“The NSW government is working as quickly as possible to complete the high volume of special disaster grants applications,” Saunders said.
Kylie described the grant process as “messy” and lamented the lack of communication between government agencies.
“Matt and I lived in Switzerland for 10 years and neither of us spoke French, but living in that country was easier than coming back, going through a natural disaster where we lose everything, and trying to rebuild ourselves,” she says.
“We are stuck. We are both wanting to get on with life and make decisions about whether to rebuild the farm, but we don’t have $1m in our back pocket.
“You can’t imagine the mental stress this causes. We are trying to do the business and trying to get ourselves back into our home.”
Many of their staff are also without an income and some, aged in their 60s, can’t find new jobs. Kylie and Matt are currently living in a caravan.
The Lismore state MP, Labor’s Janelle Saffin, says grant processing needs to be faster and the grant criteria, including a focus on counting employee numbers, must be reviewed.
“I think it should be on damage,” she says.
Saffin has also been critical of the off-farm income rule – making some farmers ineligible for producer grants if spouses earn more than 50% of their couple’s income from anything that isn’t the farm’s primary produce. Many farmers have partners working off-farm.
“It just does not recognise the nature of farming in our region,” she says
A spokesperson for the NSW department of primary industries said a Rural Landholders Grant had been developed, which could provide assistance to those who do not meet the 50% on-farm income criteria.
For the O’Reillys and others around Lismore, though, it is the range of grants being managed by different departments, with different criteria, that can lead to confusion.
The Greens NSW upper house member Sue Higginson, who lives in Lismore, said the difficulty accessing grants was compounding trauma and preventing recovery.
The NSW minister for emergency services and resilience, Stephanie Cooke, directed questions from the Guardian to Service NSW, who said teams have been working seven days a week to assess applications as quickly as possible. They pointed out nearly 94% of small business grant applications have been processed.
Asked about the nearly 6,000 business grant applications so far rejected, a spokesperson said “ineligible applications include those who have not provided evidence that they are operating in a flood-impacted suburb or that their business assets or equipment have suffered direct damage”.
The Dwyers reopened their workshop for the first time last week, using up all of their retirement savings to get machinery fixed and the building rewired.
“I feel like this is worse than starting from scratch,” Tracy says. “It feels like we are starting all over again, but we are starting with a heap of damaged equipment and there is so much uncertainty.”
With their adult son also working in the business, the couple had been thinking they would soon be able to wind down their work commitments and take the odd trip away.
“We’re at a point where we should be working four days a week, not seven,” says Matt.
“And Lismore is now just an empty shell … our business depends on other businesses.”
