July 6, 2025

Inside the flood-prone town battling permanent dispossession

Robbie Ku010 mins

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Delia Rhodes has taken a heavy heart since she was forced to leave her ancestral homeland in 2022.
She points out the improvised house she has been living for three years: a shipping container style capsule.

“It has been disturbing during the first years. I have gone through depression. The beginning affected me a lot,” says Rhodes.

An old woman looks serious in a green striped shirt.

Delia Rhodes has been living in a temporary pod village since the floods of 2022 destroyed her city. Fountain: SBS news

The 66 -year -old lives in one of the dozen identical houses aligned in a town in Wardell, NSW. Was created by the state government after .

Among those affected is the small aboriginal community of the island of cabbage, where Rodes comes from.
“Cobbo”, as is known by the locals, is located in the Ballina region and known for its delicious green edges. Until he was devastated by the floods of 2022, he was home to around 130 people, with only 26 houses scarcely dotted throughout the village of the island. He had his own local school, one of the first aboriginal schools in the state.

For its aboriginal residents, the area has stories of relatives and countries: it is believed that tens of thousands of people from the first nations have an ancestral connection with the cabbage tree island.

The sending of container -style pods align a strip.

The residents of Cabbage Tree Island have been living in POD villages in the nearby suburb of Wardell for almost three years. Fountain: SBS news

Its damping of the Richmond River means that Cabbo is considered a fishing paradise, but it is also prone to floods.

In 2022, floods turned the city into a moor, forcing all residents to be evacuated until it was safe to return.
Three years later, they are still waiting.
The community has had no choice but to try to feel comfortable in the nearby Wardell. His pods have become houses, and the public school of Cabbage Tree Island has been relocated to the town.

“There is not much privacy and being here for a long time,” says Rhodes.

Although I lived with my mafia all my life, but to be very close to everyone … it is very uncomfortable.

The fight to overcome the ‘complete dispossession’

The co -chair of the Local Aboriginal Land Council of Jali, Kylie Jacky, tells the descendants of SBS News of Cabbage Tree Island, have a long history of floods, due to the nature covered by the Richmond River.
“Our people know how to manage and respect floods, and some believe that floods are also really important to clean the country,” she says.
But catastrophic water levels in 2022 “had never been experienced in anyone’s living memory,” explains Jacky.

The damage was consistent. At a September 2023 meeting, the former Jali Board voted for NSW government councils that the island of the Tree Cabbage was considered too “high risk” and decided that the village would not be rebuilt.

Jacky says that the decision, that many residents did not know, triggered “agony and anguish.”
“I understand that many of the elders left the meeting with despair. He did not have the feeling of being able to change the course of the path of what, at that time, was the complete deployment of the island of cabbage bowl.”

A year later, residents successfully pressed to revoke the decision, and work is now underway to rebuild the island with a flood -resistant plan.

EX-TROPICAL CYCLONE ALFRED agitates uncertainty

Just when internal policy about reconstruction efforts began to decrease, another storm began to prepare.
threatening not only for wreaking havoc on the island of cabbage trees again, but also to impact the temporal houses of its displaced residents too.

Niki Gill, who has been managing the village of the capsule with a non -profit Christian union since he opened in 2022, says that residents were encouraged to evacuate the capsules before the cyclone for their safety.

A black and white image of a woman with a black shirt and heart -shaped earrings that look serious.

Niki Gill says there was a lot of uncertainty about whether the former tropical cyclone Alfred would affect the POD temporal village. Fountain: SBS news / Patrick Thomas

“There was a lot of uncertainty … we didn’t know how [ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred] I was going to land and what could be some of the impacts, “she says.

“Decisions were made through the SES that this community would be asked to move.”

According to Rhodes, about 70 percent of the residents in the POD town moved to nearby evacuation centers, placing an emotional tension in the city and serving as an alerting reminder of how long it can take them to return home.

Cabbage Tree Island now: a ghost city

Rhodes’s ancestral house is just five minutes from the town of Pod. He currently lacks life.

A large demolished tree partially obstructs the entrance of the city; Shattered windows adorn empty houses; And the school that is once valid is fenced.

Puddle and wet grass in the foreground of a wide area of ​​land with a green house on the left. Other houses are scarcely located in the background.

The island of Cabbage Tree was home to around 130 residents when floods devastated the city in 2022. Fountain: SBS news

But Jackie says it won’t be so for a long time. She believes that the construction of some houses in high terrain could end as soon as this year.

“The island of Cabbage Tree will be the only discreet aboriginal community in NSW that has been designed and rebuilt to be resistant to floods,” she says.

That in itself is a real achievement; [it’s] Something that I am really proud to achieve.

A woman with a colorful dress is in front of a shipping container office.

Kylie Jacky says she is proud that the island of cabbage trees could become the first discreet aboriginal community in NSW designed to be resistant to floods. Fountain: SBS news

A NSW government spokesman told SBS News in a statement that “he was working closely with the Aboriginal Land Council Jali and the community of the island of the cabbage tail towards a safe future on the island.”

“The participation of the local aboriginal community in all decision -making processes has been a continuous priority and will continue in any subsequent consultation.”
For Rhodes and the children he teaches in the local school, the return cannot arrive sufficiently.
“Simply support them and say: ‘Yes, we would all like to return, but hope and will be bigger and better when we get home.’

“As soon as we go home, I think my heart will be much lighter.”

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