Charities ‘Nowhere to Be Seen’ As Flood Victims Raise Money for Themselves

Flood victims across the northern rivers of NSW are lashing charities like the Red Cross in waves. 

They say the charity has “failed” to respond to their needs in the same way they say their governments have. In flood-affected towns, residents are incensed by being left to mobilise recovery funding themselves. 

Volunteer leaders in civic leadership roles across the region say that charities have, for the most part, done little to make themselves known in the towns where they have a presence and have failed to meet the needs of their communities. 

Among them is Russ Berry, who prefaced his concerns about the absence of Australia’s major charities, and the Red Cross in particular, with the fact that he doesn’t actually know “all the facts” related to their presence in the region. He later told VICE that his not knowing could be symbolic of the issue.

“People are just confused. [The Red Cross] might be around, but we aren’t seeing them. It’s still just the community doing everything. People don’t know where to find them, and I think they just don’t seem to be doing a good enough job of communicating how people can get the [grants], or what makes them eligible,” Berry said. 

Berry, who is based in Byron Bay and has been lending his around-the-clock support to flood-impacted communities throughout the Byron shire and beyond, is one of a far-reaching network of volunteer community leaders running the region’s recovery efforts. Together, they have spent the last fortnight coordinating helicopters to get food and supplies out to isolated communities.

He isn’t alone in having no idea where the Red Cross – and others like it – have been since floods struck the northern rivers at the end of February. During the last two weeks, Murwillimbuh local Tom Cornish has been playing a similar role to Berry in his hometown, which sits about 50 kilometres north-west of Byron Bay.

Cornish has been coordinating his town’s entire flood response and recovery effort, aided by the “brawn” of Australian Defence Force troops, who have been taking orders from him and borrowing his tools “and stuff like wheelbarrows”. When asked about what kind of interface he and his fleet of volunteers have had with the Red Cross, if any, he was blunt. 

“I have not had any discussions with them – no idea what they are doing but haven’t seen them. Ask them who they [have been] speaking to,” he told VICE. 

Others in the region were similarly confused at the mention of their name, despite their presence at Murwillumbah’s Tumbulgum Civic Centre, just up the road in town.

Locals who spoke to VICE said that they had become incensed by the Red Cross’s efforts in the region after the charity launched a fundraising campaign in partnership with major Australian TV networks Nine, Seven and Ten on Saturday night. They say it’s outrageous that the charity has had so long to commit to establishing more rigorous relief efforts in the region but have yet to lend them “a hand”. 

According to the Red Cross, more than $25 million in donations were tipped into the coffers by way of its “Australia Unites” telethon on Saturday night. A spokesperson for the charity told VICE that “100% of the proceeds” of the telethon will go directly to people “impacted by the floods”, along with a portion of the funds raised through its Red Cross Floods Appeal, which since March 4 has raised $5.7 million. 

To get any of it, flood victims will have to apply for one of two grants. The first is a “bereavement grant” worth $20,000 to support “senior next-of-kin of those who died as a direct result of the floods” and who have “immediate needs” like funerals and other related expenses. 

The second is a household relief grant worth $500 to help victims secure basic essentials like food, clothing or “personal items” for people who are experiencing “financial hardship”. However, “it’s up to people impacted” by the floods to apply for the grants themselves, the spokesperson said. 

Residents pointed to an obvious challenge: much of the region’s population wiped out by floods are still living without internet, power, or phones. If charities like the Red Cross aren’t working to make themselves known to the communities where they have established a presence, locals ask, how are victims expected to know how to get help?

In NSW, just under 100 Red Cross personnel have been “active in the [flood] emergency response”, working more than “1,611 hours in 32 evacuation centres to date”, the charity reports. Their presence can be seen in towns like Murwillmbah, Mullumbimby, East Lismore, Casino, Grafton, and Maclean, a spokesperson told VICE. 

But not in Woodburn or Broadwater, where floods were among the most devastating – and recent. There, volunteers are still on their own, and crying out for all sorts of support and funding. 

Desperate, they have tried to fill the gap themselves. 

According to GoFundMe, more than 2,005 fundraising pages related to the floods have been created, securing pledges of about $11.8 million from 72,100 donors as of Saturday afternoon. According to one report, the Australian site mycause.com.au had another 135 pages raise $652,876 for flood victims.

Cornish, a civil engineer whose Murwillumbah volunteer hub is doing everything from gutting sodden homes to undertaking mould checks and clearing roads, said the next thing on his list is to develop a full-fledged welfare payments system to fill the hole left by federal disaster funding and what locals have described as an “overwhelmingly” slow charity response. 

“We’re hoping to get our hands on some debit cards that we can restrict use to in just the Tweed area, so we can make sure the money goes straight back into the local economy,” he told VICE.

Efforts like Cornish’s have left residents from towns across the region feeling like the Red Cross has struggled to fulfil its mandate, as it did in 2019-20, when it was reported to have distributed fewer than half the $242 million received in donations to help victims of the Black Summer bushfires.

“All of those funds have [since] been committed to helping people affected by those particular fires,” a spokesperson for the charity said. 

At the time, the Red Cross blamed the payment hold up on more than 1,000 fraudulent claims. Since then, the charity says it has introduced more rigorous measures to “deal with fraudulent claims”. 

But residents of the northern rivers say the charity has left a “bad taste” in their mouths, and that their inaction has come to be “expected”. 

“It's graffitied on cars and placards around the region, to avoid donating to the Red Cross,” one local told VICE. 

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