Push for inquiry into NSW floods

NSW deserves a thorough investigation of what happened in the Northern Rivers flood disaster to ensure a similar catastrophe is never repeated, Labor says.

Opposition Leader Chris Minns is calling for an upper house parliamentary inquiry to “make sure … it doesn’t happen again”.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the chief health officer had a central role in leading the response, as did the commissioner of the rural fire service in the bushfires.

“My concern about the flood response over the last two weeks is that’s not the case in NSW,” Mr Minns said on Thursday.

“The worst thing that could happen, worse than even the floods … is if we don’t learn from the mistakes that were made.

“We want to find out what has gone poorly and make sure mistakes are corrected.”

In the 24 hours after flooding began in Lismore on February 28, the area’s communication system failed, stopping SES communications, Mr Minns said.

SES infrastructure needed to be in place in local communities, and the government needed to ensure the emergency response teams were properly resourced, he said.

Meanwhile, a political fight has broken out between NSW and the Commonwealth over the allocation of disaster funding by the federal government in flood-affected areas.

Liberal upper house member Catherine Cusack, from the Northern Rivers, said she was quitting the party over a decision to allocate Commonwealth disaster payments on partisan lines.

Funding has been given to Nationals-held council areas Lismore, the Clarence Valley and Richmond Valley while not being made available to Byron, Ballina and the Tweed Shires, which are Labor seats.

“The idea that being a flood victim in a National Party-held seat makes you more worthy than a flood victim who is in the Richmond electorate … is probably the most unethical approach I have ever seen,” Ms Cusack told the ABC.

She has informed Premier Dominic Perrottet and the Liberal Party of her intention to quit.

“The whole Northern Rivers should have been given funding according to their need, not according to their LGA. It’s unprecedented,” she said.

The NSW government has been working on an additional flood response package valued at up to $1 billion, to be jointly funded by the state and federal governments, according to multiple reports.

The funding will look to help people whose homes were damaged in the floods after assessors found some 95,000 homes in northern NSW were damaged or destroyed.

Push for inquiry into NSW floods
Independent Information