Summer is here and with summer comes floods. At least, in the past few years, that seems to be the case. Homes, businesses, and farmland across Queensland and New South Wales have been severely hit by flooding as La Nina takes over and the (usually dry) land struggles to cope.

Some towns have been all but wiped out, a shell of their heyday. Others have spent months rebuilding homes and businesses, only to be hit again as heavy rains return.

There has been some reprieve for homeowners in some areas. The Queensland Government’s flood buy-back scheme, called the Resilient Homes Program, has come during desperate times for those who simply can’t continue to live in their property post-flood.

What is the Buy-Back Scheme?

The scheme offers three options, buy-backs, house-raising, and home retrofitting, and it’s a great option for those living in flood-prone areas that seem to be impacted by flooding regularly as the effects of climate change grow worse.

In Queensland, there have been over 5,000 registrations of interest, with more than 560 of those requesting the buy-back program, 1400+ for house-raising, and almost 2,000 for retrofitting.

To date, though, there are only about 50 properties that have been approved for the buy-back option, which includes an offer made based on a valuation pre-flood and post-flood (the owner can decide which offer to take).

It’s not just Queensland that has taken the program on board either. There are also towns in New South Wales with around 6,000 homes in the flood impacted Northern Rivers region (Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Tweed, etc) eligible for the scheme. But does it stretch far enough?

Why isn’t Sydney included in the scheme?

While Northern New South Wales has been included, other flood-prone areas like Western Sydney have been left to fend for themselves - essentially because it’s simply too difficult to include the State’s capital.

According to veteran Sydney Plumber, Joe Rantino, the issue is that with climate change, rising sea levels and the infrastructure challenges of Sydney's geographical lay out, the buy-back scheme would need to address an ever increasing area of the city. 

The expense for the government was another thing keeping Sydney out of the scheme. In a recent news report, NSW Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres stated it would cost at least $5 billion just for the government to buy back every inundated home in the Hawkesbury region alone.

“But,” Rantino says, “the weather over the past few years has clearly demonstrated that La Nina cycles will be increasingly devastating for Sydney.

“So, isn’t it better we do something about these properties now, before it gets a whole lot worse?”