NSW Flood Inquiry & La Nina threat — impacted community members respond
The long-awaited NSW Independent Flood Inquiry was released by Premier Dominic Perrottet in Lismore today, where he announced his government’s response to the report recommendations.
The independent report investigated recovery and reconstruction efforts following the floods which devastated the Northern Rivers and Hawkesbury-Nepean region earlier this year.
The Bureau of Meteorology has declared a La Niña ‘Alert’ warning of the potential for a third consecutive year of extreme rainfall and flooding.
The following spokespeople are available: IMPACTED COMMUNITIES
Rebecca McNaught, community organiser with Resilient Byron, who helped draft a submission to the Inquiry from her local community, said:
“Our community is kept awake at night by the prospect of another La Nina event which I think puts an urgency to implementing the recommendations. These disasters cost the government and local communities billions of dollars in clean-up, recovery, and disaster payment costs. We need to learn the lessons and learn to live in a turbo-charged climate.
“These disasters take a heavy toll on the health and livelihoods of NSW residents, this was incredibly evident at the flood debrief event we held in our local community. Investing in readying our communities, supporting community leadership and valuing local knowledge and information during disasters is really important.
“There needs to be a whole-of-catchment approach to land use management and planning. It’s complete madness to continue building on flood prone land – and we’ve seen plans going ahead for large scale developments, approved by the NSW Government on land that was inundated near Byron Bay just months ago.
“The 2022 floods aren’t a one off. Our atmosphere is warmer, holding more water. Climate change is worsening floods and other extreme weather disasters in New South Wales. We need to invest a greater proportion of disaster related funding before disaster strikes.”
Location: Northern Rivers, NSW
Dr Jean Renouf founder and chair of Resilient Byron, academic at Southern Cross University and local firefighter, said:
“Now that the BOM has announced that we are in La Nina watch, we have to expect more possible floods, and just this prospect is enough to make the recovery from these latest floods even harder.” Location: Mullimbimby, NSW
AGRICULTURE
Peter Lake, Northern NSW cattle grazier who has been experiencing the effects of climate change on this farm, said:
‘’We haven’t recovered from the impacts of last years’ flood, and new warnings of a La Nina for the third consecutive year is a great concern. We’ve made the hard call to not do crops this year, it’s too big a risk. The change in climate makes seasons too hard to predict and management decisions increasingly difficult. ’’ Location: Ulmarra, NSW
Robert Quirk, sugar cane farmer who was impacted by three floods this year, said:
“The climate is changing faster than farmers can adapt. The predictions around La Nina for more wet weather has meant we’ve had to put crops in sooner than usual, as we anticipate the weather turning. Had the drainage channels been better, the damage to the agriculture community wouldn’t have been so severe.’’ Location: Northern Rivers, NSW
