As communities in northern NSW work to rebuild their lives after devastating floods ravaged the area, Health Minister Brad Hazzard and morning show host Karl Stefanovic have gone head-to-head over who is at fault.
Ahead of the east coast “rain bomb” prompting deadly floods to hit the region, defence officials offered NSW their help on two separate occasions, it was revealed on Sunday.
Tensions are now rising between both the NSW and federal governments over the handling of the disaster, with Mr Hazzard being slammed with questions about who is responsible.
“Who stuffed up here?” Stefanovic queried on Monday morning’s .
Mr Hazzard defended the comment and said members of government had been working “flat chat” during the crisis.
“In past experience, working through certainly the Covid war in thxjmtzywe last two years the teams, federal and state work very well together,” he said.
“It depends on the information you have as at the day as to what decisions are made, a week or two later people are instant experts. I’m going to stay out of that one and talk about Covid.”
Stefanovic told the health minister Commissioner of the SES Carlene York was prepared to “accept responsibility”, unlike Mr Hazzard.
However, he refused to respond.
Mr Hazzard said: “Karl, as I said I was asked to do an interview on Covid. I will talk about Covid. I have given you more views on that, let’s move to COVID”.
The host pushed the questioning even further, accusing Mr Hazzard of “bouncing away” from the question.
“You can’t answers questions about people being left in their homes, about not getting the right emergency, the level of co-ordination between the State and Federal Governments dropping the ball? You can’t answer questions like that?” Stefanovic said.
Mr Hazzard said he answered the question, claiming the governments “worked together extremely well”.
“I think that trying to cast blame is not actually helpful,” Mr Hazzard said.
“There will be a review and that will indicate whether there are further learnings that will happen in the future for any other similar situations.”
However, Stefanovic did not seem impressed as he stared at the minister.
“Karl seriously, I don’t need to have all of that trust at me,” Mr Hazzard responded.
“I was asked about Covid, I’m here to talk about Covid, I want to talk about Covid we are having forecasts we could see double the number of Covid cases in the next four to six weeks.”
It was on Sunday revealed defence offered NSW its help from February 25 – three days before the deluge began.
Based on Bureau of Meteorology planning and advice, Commissioner York said the SES had carefully positioned resources around NSW in the days before the weather system hit.
When the ADF got in touch on February 25, flooding in the Northern Rivers region — which went on to be one of the worst hit — was predicted to be at “minor to moderate” levels.
In the early hours of February 28, when the floodwaters hit, it was instead “above anything we have experienced in that area”, Ms York said.
Mr Perrottet has promised a review into the state’s emergency flood response — which he admitted fell short — part of which will be why it took so long for ADF troops to hit the ground in the worst-hit areas.
Meanwhile, further reports from , claim the State Government made three requests for the ADF to hit the ground in Lismore, but was offered less than 300 on the same day the Morrison Government said it had 2000 ready to go.
NSW made its first request on February 27 ahead of the disaster, but did not receive confirmation about numbers and only became aware of the promise of 2000 via a journalist, who received a statement from federal Emergency Services Minister Bridget McKenzie late on March 4 that said the troops were ready to go if the states requested.
Hours earlier, the ADF had informed Resilience NSW commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons 280 troops could be provided to commence the clean-up in Lismore.
By March 5, the number being cited by the Federal Government had more than doubled to 5000 — but again NSW was not formally told. Two senior NSW government sources told the paper the ADF was also blindsided.
