A Message from Rebecca Woods CEO Bogal Land Council CFO Bandjalang RNTBC
Rebecca Woods is the CEO of Bogal Land Council and the CFO of Bandjalang RNTBC.
“We had a very successful and positive event launching our submission from "A Bundjalung Nation Flood Response" - a response to the devastating floods which heavily impacted our whole town in February to March this year.
This response gave suggestions and clear recommendations, and a way forward to the NSW State Government from our perspective.
This work was jointly undertaken by Bogal LALC and Bandjalang RNTBC in the Coraki and we had been working with the Jali LALC (Ballina) as the other most severely impacted Aboriginal community in the region and our closest community.
The NSW State Flood Inquiry was open to every single person and organisation to submit a report, and it is the responsibility of any person/group/organisation to do that work. We have been working with a registered charity Currie Country Social Change Aboriginal Corporation which has been supporting us pro bono in ensuring we are speaking to the government at every opportunity.
We are a small organisation and could not do the work required to also take care of our people alone. Together, we are meeting the heavy requirements of devastating flood impact.
We had also provided direct oral evidence to the Upper House Inquiry in Ballina, which was separate from the NSW State Flood Inquiry.
We gave evidence and testimony on behalf of our people and communities of Bogal and Bandjalang to the Upper House Inquiry to ensure the Upper House Inquiry understood the pain, impact, and trauma for our people, the lack of help, assistance, and care shown by local and State Government in the chaos of the floods.
We responsibly provided written recommendations to the NSW State Inquiry to ensure our voices, perspectives, and solutions were known to the government…”
Read Rebecca Woods’ full and complete statement here.