Disaster and Emergency Committee - 26 March 2024

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Disaster and Emergency Committee meeting for the 26th of March 2024. My name is Councillor Sarah McMahon, Mayor of Hawkesbury. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Dharugan people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples persons of the country. Committee members and members of the public attending the meeting in Council chambers are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden.

I would also like to advise that meetings of Council committees are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council committee meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system.

So welcome. Thank you everybody for your attendance here this evening. I would like to welcome Superintendent Andrew Garner, Commander of the Hawkesbury Police Area Command, and I have apologies from Karen Hodges, Superintendent of the Fire Control Officer, Hawkesbury District Rural Fire Service, and an apology from Hawkesbury SES Commander Kevin Jones, but we do have a representative from the RFS here this evening. Thank you for your attendance. Councillors, we have two councillors missing, as you can see from the floor. Councillor Conolly and Councillor Zemprogno have both indicated they're running late from their other jobs, and they will be here as soon as they can. Are there any declarations of interest?

No. Thank you, councillors.

I just need to confirm the minutes of

The last meeting. Do I have someone move that way please?

Thank you, Councillor Sheather, seconded Councillor Veigel. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dr Marci, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon, absent from the room are Councillor Conolly and Councillor Zamprogno. I declare that item carried.

The first item. Oh, actually, before we go into the items, councillors and those members of the public watching from home, we will do an update from our agency representatives. Based on that, I will hand over now to Superintendent Andrew Garner, Commander of the Hawkesbury Police Area Command, for an update. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for the invite to come tonight, committee members, and for those in chambers and connected online. I'll just provide a quick overview of New South Wales Police Force agency activities, which will also tie into a number of LEMC activities as well. So, as I'm sure you're all aware, the New South Wales State EM Plan was recently endorsed by government in December 2023 and has now been circulated and is available online. From a Hawkesbury and Windsor Police Station perspective, the Resilience New South Wales-funded Backbone EOC project was completed last year, which was an enhancement to the Emergency Operations Centre in Windsor, and including a power generator to run the command in the event of a power cut, a high-tech video conferencing upgrade, and several other associated type enhancements.

In partnership with Philbo, the LEMO, we've conducted evacuation centre audits with our partners and refreshed the list of approved locations for those functions. Throughout the year last year, we provided support as an agency to Department of Primary Industries during the eradication phase of the varroa mite incursion. That included extensive briefings to staff and Highway Patrol in hive movements, queen bee movements, and detecting those from a law enforcement perspective. Through my role as liaison, I observed a bushfire desktop exercise up in the Blue Mountains involving the Blue Mountains Command and Nepean Police Area Commands. That was in August last year. Since then, we've conducted a multi-agency bushfire exercise in September last year, facilitated by Superintendent Hodges from the RFS.

That involved Hawkesbury Police Area Command and the Hills Police Area Commands. Again, with Phil Bow, the LEMO, we've developed and reinforced relationships with local land services and the Hawkesbury District Agricultural Association, specifically with regard to arrangements for the large animal safer place at the Hawkesbury Showground. In addition to that, we've attended the regional emergency management committee meetings as required, the local emergency management committee meetings and the bushfire management committee meetings. Again, back to our New South Wales agency perspective, there's been a very heavy commitment to a skill uplift across the incident and emergency management areas .

So all our staff at sergeant level and above are undertaking a three-day, or have almost all completed a three-day advanced incident and emergency management training package, which is developed and led and delivered internally by police. In addition to that, the senior management team has undertaken what was the Resilience New South Wales training, now Reconstruction Authority training, face-to-face training courses on emergency management, which is a three-day duration. In addition to that, the police have developed an emergency operations controller course, which is a three-day package, which has just commenced, and that was developed under the New South Wales Police Force Emergency Management portfolio, led by...

She's made Deputy Commissioner Peter Thurtell. So that's been undertaken by myself and the Deputy LERCON, Chief Inspector Peter Jenkins, in April this year. In addition to that, we've reviewed, as an LEMC, the WELFAC Evacuation Centre Manual and the Welfare Services Supporting Plan. We've adopted the LEMC Pre-Event Recovery Plan and the SES Local Flood Plan. In the recent weeks, police had a presence at a Hawkesbury Council facilitated meeting in Wiseman's Ferry, which is focused around developing a community network and education on emergency management functions and arrangements in the Wiseman's Ferry area. We had attendance at the recent Disaster Scenario Symposium, which was arranged, I believe, by Peppercorn, as an emergency symposium to educate the elderly cohort of the community.

Moving forward, at the next LEMC meeting, we'll be establishing a position on the spontaneous volunteerism policy as contained within the latest iteration of the State EM Plan. And from an exercise perspective, for the remainder of the year, in July we're going to conduct an evacuation centre exercise, which will be held at the PCYC in July, and a recovery committee exercise at the last LEMC meeting of this year. So that completes the briefing. Happy to take questions if there are any.

Thank

You. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Superintendent. I'm just wondering, does the police station have solar on it? Solar energy? Solar panels?

It does, yes.

It does. Okay, so maybe down the track a battery on there would be good, do you think, rather than a power generator?

It's possible. The Police Property Group have the — that's within their purview from an infrastructure perspective. I'm not sure what they're looking at in terms of battery power in the future, but I could certainly take it on notice and make some inquiries for you.

Great. That'd be great. Thank you. The other question was just around the spontaneous volunteerism policy. Can you just tell, is that like around the response during disaster times of community to step in and undertake some roles where there's gaps?

It is, in a nutshell. It is about, in those emergency situations, obviously you have a lot of people that are wishing to volunteer and help out, and it's coordinating and appropriately tasking and managing those individuals. So the policy is around that, and from an LEMC perspective, we need to look into how we might manage that, who would be the appropriate people to coordinate and manage those resources, and the impact on the functions of the LEMC and how they can or potentially can't be used in emergency situations. Thank you. That's very refreshing to hear. Thank you.

Any other questions, councillors? No? Thank you, Superintendent. I appreciate that. I'll just check with our RFS representative, were you giving a report today on behalf of Superintendent Hodges?

Yeah, please. Come on up to the public podium. That'd be lovely.

Thank you.

There we go.

Thank you very much for having me, everyone. For those of you I haven't met, my name is Luke Roberts. I'm currently one of the operational officers, level two, at the Hawkesbury District, managing the community risk portfolio. Well assisted by my 2-1s. As mentioned, Karen extends her apologies. A last-minute funding situation occurred, so herself and Ethan, the acting 2IC, are currently working through on that. Just a bit of an overview in terms of our incidents and response over the last kind of six, seven months. Since July 2023 , we've responded to over 1,020 incidents, the majority of those being village-type incidents, structure fires, motor vehicle accidents, that kind of stuff. But our guys are kept fairly busy at the moment, even without a bit of a lack of bushfires.

So it's encouraging to see our guys putting in the work there. Month stats. About Oakville, 10, 20 incidents. That's across the Hawkesbury and also into the Hills and into the Blue Mountains and Cumberland area. A significant operational period for them. Obviously, that's pretty much a job a day for them currently. So Oakville doing some really, really good work there, and their volunteers are really, really putting the effort in, particularly assisting other adjoining districts. Capability-wise, we have been extended the offer of a flood boat. That was about 12, 18 months ago, but we're getting to the point here now. We believe at this stage we're going to be locating that vessel at Freeman's Reach Station, so on the other side of the river, so we can assist the SES during those significant floods that we had.

I don't have a firm date on it, but I'm told it is coming, so that's obviously a fantastic capability for us to include, along with our flood rescue kits, which were released over the last few months. We now, as a service, have the ability to undertake flood rescue, not swift water, so just static. But we did notice that during the floods, a lot of our brigades were doing the best they could with no equipment or training for flood rescue, so now it's been rectified. That's a fantastic capability for us as well. Hazard reduction-wise, obviously we've seen the Blue Mountains are currently putting a couple of burns in, a bit of smoke in the air. We are having slightly different environmental factors in the Hawkesbury, so we're probably a couple of weeks off just in terms of vegetation management and the fuel moisture getting to the point where we really want to put these burns in.

So yeah, rest assured, we have the burns ready and shell-ready to go. We just want to wait for those conditions so we don't end up, you know, not completing the burn effectively, so it provides less protection for communities and doesn't reduce the fuel load. I've got a couple of other pieces there. In terms of the next-run risk plan, we completed workshop two of two over the last month or so with all other partner agencies. We're developing a five-year risk plan that is essentially going to kind of encompass our annual works program. So instead of preparing one every year, what we'll do is we'll look more strategically, and over that five-year plan we'll identify areas for risks, treatments, based on some modelling provided by the University of Wollongong, and we'll implement that with our partner agencies.

Most districts didn't get to a workshop two. We obviously had a lot of discussion . There's obviously a lot of interest in specific areas, particularly around Bilpin and the old Gospers Mountain burn scar. But I think we're moving in a really good direction, and all agencies have come together, so that's fantastic for us. Community risk matters overall. Obviously, we had significant pressure to burn, particularly from our Deputy Commissioner, and we're working with them, demonstrating the current conditions. And as I said, we've got these burns ready to go. We just need the right weather for them. Training-wise, we've had significant courses. There were 120 participants over the last three months.

Those courses ranging from drivers, advanced fire, fighter, fire behaviour, and some of the guys have also done some flood rescue training in conjunction with the SES. That is all I've pieced together. Anyone have any questions, any of those issues, or anything I can speak to?

Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam. Look, with the burn-offs, how did you go last year in relation to the amount you wanted to do? Yep

Yep. So we didn't get anywhere near as many as we wanted to done, mostly due to that high moisture. The floods really put a spanner in our planning and our execution window. We did manage to execute three as the RFS, and national parks, I believe, completed five to seven. That's across the Cumberland and Blue Mountains National Parks. So, yeah, not as many as we would like, and there really is... My team and I are getting all these burns ready to go, so when we do get the opportunity, we're going to capitalise on it. Expect a couple of smoky weeks when we do get to that stage, but we're really trying to kind of catch up on that target. Like you mentioned, it was delayed.

The smoky weeks are okay. Yep,

Yep.

Is there any other frustrations you have that limit the burn-offs?

Not necessarily. I think over the years, the process has become more refined and requiring more steps to jump through. I think they're all required. So making sure we do our due diligence with environmental protection, Aboriginal cultural heritage. There are additional steps that weren't necessary there historically, but I think they're all important. They all need to be addressed. It just does mean that myself and my team, when we start to burn and commit, we have a lot of work to do before we can get to dropping the match on the ground.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Luke. I'm just wondering, some time ago we had a presentation about, I can't recall the name, but the Bilpin Wollemi containment lines program. The Strategic Fire Trail Program Yes. Has that been implemented as yet? I know it started. Has it been completed?

It hasn't been completed, no. We have completed three sections of that around the Fruit Bowl, the north side, and the last one of Skates, I'm afraid. So we are working on that still. I believe there was 12 stages, and obviously it's significant funding required. We're talking the millions and millions to implement these trails. Jamie Carter, who was our Strategic Fire Trails person and manager, he's taken us a comment to Forestry, so we're just in that interim stage at the moment with his... Ms. Flynn, I'm getting my head around the process, but we plan to continue all those trials, but I think realistically it's probably a five to ten year implementation to get the entire package complete. But we are chipping away.

Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Luke, how are you going for volunteer numbers, given that so much of the LGA relies on the RFS for property protection? How are we set with those brigades?

I think the service in general goes through peaks and troughs. We quite often get a lot of volunteers join up post, obviously, seasons like, you know, 2013, 2020, 2019. I'm not seeing an impact on our operational capability at the moment. There is speculation that the numbers on the books may not represent the true figures. I couldn't speak to that, but I think in Hawkesbury at the moment, our numbers are allowing us to maintain operations as needed.

No other questions. Thank you, Mr. Roberts, appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay, councillors, we'll now turn to the reports for determination, item 3.1.1. Do I have someone wishing to move that way? Yes

Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather, seconder?

Councillor Veigel. Thank you. Before you begin, Councillor Sheather, if you don't mind, just after some discussions with staff today, there needs to be a point four added to the recommendation. I need to see if you're happy with that. Point four would be to adopt the minutes of the Floodplain Management Subcommittee, to then send to Council for the purpose of adopting the recommendations of the committee. It's purely a procedural point that was left off the agenda. Would you be happy to add that as a point four, Councillor Veigel? Happy with that to second that? Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, as I was elected chairman of the Hawkesbury Floodplain Committee, I'd like to thank the staff and the organisation that give support to that group. It's been, I believe, a very successful committee. Certainly the attendees of that committee are delicate and dedicated to what they're there for, and the authorities and the staff work well with the group. Apart from the minutes, and they're pretty, if you want to read through them, but it's a process we're going through on different projects. But I've picked out some things that are relevant, I think, for councillors in relation to, well, things they might be interested over and above just reviewing what's in the documents.

The first one is in— Attachment 5, 3.1.1, and in the document it's 3.1.3. It's linked to relevant information that there's, I know there's about six, I think, in there, but if councillors are interested in what's happening in relation to floodplain management, both within council and the state, there's links in there that were passed on to the committee. That's why they're there, to bring people up to speed in relation to the activities, both state-wise and council. The next one is

Attachment 7, 3.1.1, and it's combined Rivers Community Engagement. It's the McDonald, Colo, Webbs Creek, Greens floodplain study that's been done. It's been underway for some time. The reason that I brought it to the council attention, we'd sent out letters to everyone within that catchment, and the response was 44, which is a lot greater than we've ever had before. Redbank, I don't know how many went out there, probably 10 times the amount, and we got, I think, eight back. So the community down there are certainly interested in what we're doing and how we're going about it. The study that was done in the McDonald River, their representative, Louis Abbey, he made a request to try and get the extension further up McDonald Valley than where it was, and it has been.

I'm not sure the extension is not going right to the end of the housing, but it's certainly going up a bit further, and that was reported through the authorities at our last meeting. And then within the document, there's a map, which is Attachment 17, 3.1.1. It's a graph indicating the floodplain management program. It's times and schedules that the activities of the committee have deadlines and the like to keep to with particular programs. If council's interested in that, that's available. In relation to our last meeting, it's the review of the Hawkesbury floodplain risk management study plan. It had come to the committee. It wasn't adopted; it was to be looked at further. But there's a Section 1 and Section 2.

Section 2 was inclusion of the following management options. This was questions that was asked of the committee to have a say in what other things we would like that review to be looked at. One of them was currency Creek bypass, levee at Wilberforce, a high-level bridge on West Portland Road, raising Springwood Road in the sections at low, considering that hopefully down the track, not too far, we'll have a bridge across to get to Springwood Road, floodways and flood drainage. That's the gates and that that was spoken about within council, for them to be further assessed. to assist Council in opportunities that may be available, and assess flood evacuation routes. So that's those things they're looking at, above all the things they were looking at.

But the thing that come to the committee—

Councillor

I'll

Just get you to finish that point. Your time has expired. But just finish that point.

Okay. On page 15, there's three things that I think the Council should discuss. It's raising the flood level to a one in 200 level for housing, and a one in 100 — that's plus freeboard, which is 18 metres — one in 100 in relation to commercial industrial, and additions or redevelopment of existing development below the one in 100. They're going to have massive impacts on our community, and I don't know whether we need to deal with it today or it needs to be dealt with as a separate item, but it'll be a big issue with our community.

Thank you very much, Councillor. Just before I go to the next speaker, I'll just tidy up point 4, if that's okay with you. I'll just make changes. Adopt the minutes of the various — put the word various in there, yep — floodplain management subcommittee meetings as attached, so that we're referencing the ones attached to this item, not just any particular meetings, if you're okay with that, Councillor Veigel. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just around your point four, I just had a question, and I was going to ask for the inclusion of something. Just regarding how we are to get this information into the future, we've got, I think it's eight or eleven or something, have come to us, and I don't consider that acceptable, that it's that long before councillors are aware of it. So could we either have it come more regularly to council directly if we're not going to hold these meetings, or could we at least councillors be provided with the business paper and minutes? I'm not sure how it wants to be done, but I would ask for that so that we're aware of it.

We discussed this exact matter today, considering the mechanism to get them to council is to come to this committee first. The general manager did inform me that meetings have been set for the next two quarters for this committee. Those meeting dates were set, and if there was nothing on the agenda, then the committee wouldn't have to meet. However, we do now realise we need to keep meeting as a mechanism for these minutes. So that's the intention to fix it that way.

Thank you. I'm very pleased to hear that because it won't go unnoticed that I have for a long time pushed for that very thing to happen. But I'm really pleased to see these updates and to see this amount of work that is now being done. I was pleased. I am glad to see the scheduled meetings because it really shouldn't have to wait 18 months for a notice of motion to be brought to have a meeting around such an important issue such as emergency management. And if we can have access to those, that would be really, really good. I welcome the program for the floodplain risk management projects, and I've just got a few points and some questions to raise from the subcommittee minutes.

There's a number of presentations that have been given within there, and my first question would be: when would other councillors get to either hear a summary or to— there's no summary in here of that; it just says there was one. So when would we hear what was given, what information was given?

General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor. I guess there is no formal mechanism at this particular point in time. The reality is the committee was formed, the subcommittee was formed with particular members of council sitting on that, and as I understand it, there's not necessarily a formal mechanism in place for reporting of that other than through the minutes per se. And it's possible if, for example, council wished to, we could provide copies of presentations or slides or something similar, perhaps appended to the minutes, but that would be the extent of it. Okay,

Thank you. That would be wonderful because if the information isn't coming back to the committee, then, or the councillors aren't giving us an update, we don't know what's been said, and therefore we can't really have anything—you know, we're none the wiser. I'm really pleased to see some attention being given to the electricity supply issue, which I've always maintained has been an issue, but some people in here didn't think it was an issue. But it's really good to see that it's being addressed. It was resolved in the September minutes here that an assessment of all flood evacuation routes be considered. I'm just wondering if that's happened yet.

Manager Strategic Planning.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So that work's still underway. So there's preliminary work that's been done in terms of assessing a number of options. So there's still further work underway in terms of that, and that will be brought to the final draft report will be brought to councillors as part of a briefing session and then subsequently the council meeting for formal adoption to go on public exhibition. Great,

Thank you. The next question was around not proceeding with the McGraths Hill levee, and I noticed that that's a decision that's been made by the subcommittee, but it's not been brought in the report to Council. I would have thought that really it should be being decided by the Council whether to proceed with something, unless—I mean, there's no detail around it, so I don't really understand what that's about. But I would think that it has to be acknowledged if there's been a decision to not proceed with something that was proposed, that we should be making a decision formally on that. I'll just leave that until maybe somebody can update on that after. With regard to the Molino Stewart review, is there a timeframe for the final report? Director of City Planning. Yeah,

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. That was actually received yesterday, and it will come to a future Council briefing.

Thank you for that. That's good, because I'd be interested in the next likely next steps around that, because from what I have read of it, it sounds like a very major thing that we're going to have to approach. And when we get that report, can we have some idea of the level of liability connected for the Council around that? The next question was regarding the Pitt Town evacuation route, which from what's written in here doesn't seem likely to be done in the foreseeable future. Have we done any further advocacy around that beyond what we did in 2022?

Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor—no, sorry. It continues to be a point on the advocacy agenda. We did consider it for grant funding, but the requirements to stump up the 50% co-contribution meant it was unviable.

Okay. Council, I will just add there, we did send out a joint media release today with the State MP, and that was part of the points that we made in that media release that we still didn't have answers on.

Thank you. I haven't seen that. Thank you.

I was also wondering if there'd been any progress around our plans or strategies around community battery storage, and I just asked the superintendent about that before. I was just wondering if what the likelihood would be of the new RFS headquarters and/or the SES in that precinct to have a standalone power supply, if maybe that could be taken on notice or something, if when we're getting that planning coming back, if we could be looking at that. I think I did have another question, and I can't see it, so I may just leave it at that, and I'll think about it before the council meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have to agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett that I'm actually a little bit dismayed to see how much information has come to us at a single meeting of this committee. And I'm wondering, had we not had Councillor Lyons-Buckett not put up a notice of motion to have this committee convened, when we were actually going to ever be briefed on this information. This is significant information that affects not only the safety of our residents, but also our future planning decisions . We've got eight meetings over 11 months with no information to council at all. I don't think when those of us who voted for the subcommittee, for the floodplain subcommittee. voted for that committee, that subcommittee to come into existence, we were anticipating this siloing of information.

My intention in supporting that committee was that there would be increased community consultation and additional advice given to flow back to Council, and that hasn't happened. There may have been community consultation. There may have been information from DPI, for example, but that hasn't come back to the Chamber, and I find that really troubling. This is a really important— these are all really important issues, as we've seen over the last three years. I don't know why it hasn't got back to the Council, and I think we need a better mechanism for reporting. I'm a bit concerned to see a subcommittee referring matters to a consultant , and that decision hasn't come to Council at any point.

The other committee that exists, the Heritage Advisory Committee, is forever jumping through hoops just to have a meeting, certainly not making any recommendations for consultants to investigate things.

There needs to be an information flow mechanism. I would like to see copies of presentations given to councillors. I would like to see forewarning of presentations that are coming to the floodplain. Management subcommittee be given to the whole of Council so that we can choose to attend as observers if we wanted to. If people don't want to come, that's fine. But if people can attend and they want to, then we should be given the capacity to do that. We should at least see the minutes before eight of them come to this committee. There's two things here that Councillor Sheather has raised, and I thank him for that, that I would like to discuss as a Council, perhaps in a roundtable, perhaps in a briefing.

The raising of the flood levels that Councillor Sheather has referred to, I think we do need to have a discussion about that. And I would like us to have a discussion about these physical modifications that the committee has suggested be further investigated. I don't know where they've come from. I don't know what a Wilberforce levee is. I don't know what a Currans Creek bypass would look like. I don't know why some of these have been selected over others. And frankly, as the governing body, I think we need to be back in the know. There's some really interesting stuff in here, but the combined rivers study, I think, has yielded quite a lot of really interesting information, particularly about people saying that they're not likely to evacuate.

I think that's something that we have to be really mindful of. And I wonder how many of those people would have made those decisions prior to their experience with flooding, and how many of those will necessarily be robust decisions with future flooding. The connections with various communication services that they rely on for warning of events and the length of service outage, I think, are really useful information for us, but also useful information to be passed forward.

The , um, the Redbank Creek study, I think is going to prove to be also interesting. I don't think we've got enough robust data to look at at this point. But I'm certainly keen to hear more of this information and discuss more the Molino Stewart study and those other two matters further as a whole council.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak?

No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just touch on a couple of comments made by the councillors. With the flood evacuation of Pitt Town, the proposed levee is going to be looked at in conjunction, possibly with the bypass. It's in the same location to see whether there's opportunities there. That's done by government departments. It's not—we won't have any say in that. It's an option that they would look at, and that's all. And to what degree, I don't know. It's there to be looked at, and that's it. In relation to the additions that were offered to the consultant, that was a committee questionnaire, I guess, for anyone who wanted to provide information. And the committee was asked to put one in individually or collectively.

And so some made some choices, and it was put in through the committee. So it wasn't the committee, direct and consultants or the like. We were asked to make comment on particular projects that might have an impact to lessen flood damage or life in our valley. In relation to— To get information to councillors, I don't know how we do that. A lot of the discussion we have is, like most committees, I guess, take it or leave it type thing. We try and put in recommendations, outcomes. The rest there is there for information on issues discussed. And that's one of the reasons that I suggested in one of the documents, there's a whole heap of information in relation to council direction or policy, and the same with the departments and the sort of things they look at, and where there's opportunity for individuals or council or councillors to make a contribution if they wish.

So a lot of that information is there. I guess part of the problem is, how do we get it out there? How do we let people know it's available? And I don't know. We discuss that every meeting, how we communicate with the public. It's on the websites, it's on council's documents, everything, but there's that much there, if you don't know what you're looking for, it's pretty hard to find it. But in saying that, like I indicated with the raising of the floodplain and stuff like that, that's something that we really, as a council, the implications of that are going to be massive in our community. We're talking about 15, if it's lifted to 18 metres, we're talking about 15,000 homes that it's going to have an impact on.

And we're talking about development below the 100, and it talks about the proposal to minimise any activity in that zone, extensions, alterations. We've got thousands of activities that happen below one in a hundred. That's going to have a massive impact in our community, and it's things that councils need to be aware of. I think the staff need to brief us on the impacts that that's going to have in our community, and that we need to seriously look at how we're going to deal with that. At the end of the day, whether the decision to lift it is going to be made by us, but I think we have to have a goddamn say in it. So, Madam Mayor, in relation to the information coming to the councillors, I'm not sure how we do that.

We've discussed it ourselves in that regard. It's frustrating when you see comments made, but you don't know what's behind it, and to assume things is not good, or normally not good. So information's important. So if there's some way that we can deal in that in some sort of report or something, I'd be only too happy to support that. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Thanks

Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vago, Councillor Sheehy, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Impragno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 3.1.2, status summary on flood recovery. Councillor Conolly, seconder please. Councillor Reardon, thanks Councillor Conolly.

Yeah, I'm moving that we accept the report, but I had a couple of questions about Cornwallis. It says in the report that at present there's three separate processes underway. I just wanted to understand what does it mean, development of the procurement approach?

Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, so the proposal that was put forward by the adjoining landowners is feasible on the basis of who they're proposing to use as a contractor. Given that there are two projects, one is the restoration of the riverbank, one is the restoration of the Cornwallis Road and the drain, a balancing act has to be performed in terms of how, and we're proposing the state undertakes the procurement of those works as a single project, in essence, utilising a single contractor. The state has available to them pathways to do that. Council doesn't, but that's in a nutshell what the process is in terms of developing that procurement approach.

If I can follow up, like how long does that take to work that out?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I'm not in a position to say. It's a matter that Public Works are moving through with the contractor.

Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, a couple of questions, Madam Mayor. On page, excuse me, 116, excuse me, in background it says— However, there would be an as yet unqualified cost to Council through legitimate costs or lack of supporting information. What's meant by the supporting information?

Through you, Madam Mayor. So, as it's, I think, outlined elsewhere in the report, to make a claim under the DRFA, particularly for emergency works or immediate reconstruction works, we need to have photographic evidence of, for example, the road closed sign put out in front of the floodwaters, generally geocoded and timestamped. Whilst our staff did their utmost to get photos that met the mark in terms of that evidence basis, their priority was firstly their own safety and the safety of the public, and then getting around to all of the road closures. And on occasion, the simple fact of the matter was that they took a photo which either didn't show the location accurately or they forgot, given that, you know, a great number of these road closures were being undertaken at night as well.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. So some of this sounds like it's frankly just silly, really. I mean, I get that it's public money and the federal government wants to make sure that we're not siphoning it off for some, you know, grand purpose, spending it on swings or something exciting. But this is a bit—it's surely a bit— it's the decisions made by office wallahs who are not actually dealing with the problem on the ground, I would suspect. This would actually be really useful stuff, I think, for us to take to the ALGA conference and particularly the Friday session where we get to talk directly to the ministers about problems. And I think if you can give us stories and dollar values and— And make it, yep.

It's a room full of councillors who are happy to listen to a story in front of a minister that everybody is happy to stick the boot into at the time, let's face it. If we've got a story, a good story, a reasonable story to tell, then I think that's the venue for us to be doing it. I think we've probably missed the boat in terms of putting an motion unless we do that late, or we cobble it together in the next few days. But certainly the Friday session with the assembly and the Assembly of Council, whatever it's called these days, is a good space for us if we can be provided with enough information to sell the story. It's what representation have we made by both the federal member and the minister around the problems with the approach to this?

Would you like to answer? I can answer after you as well.

So, through Madam Mayor, as outlined in the report, there is an independent review underway into the disaster recovery funding arrangements undertaken by Andrew Colvin AO. That , as limited as we were in what we could put into that request for submissions, I think I snuck it in there about the need for evidence. As an officer, that's the extent that we've made representations. Clear

Clear, Councillor Wheeler, we, myself, I meet with the state member and federal member sporadically with our relevant staff, and we have raised multiple times the inadequacies with the DRFA and the funding, not just in terms of the evidence requirement said today, but in terms of the slow pace to get the money to us and the red tape around it. So that's been made direct to our local state and federal representatives, and we will do so again at our next meeting. There's actually a request on the table for one now, so that'll be set again.

Thanks. What sort of dollar value, can we put a dollar value on what we've lost here?

Through you, Madam Mayor. In terms of the gap between what was claimed through immediate reconstruction works and emergency works and what was approved and paid to us, I'd have to take the exact figure on note, but it's in the order of half a million.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, question, Madam Mayor. On page 120, we've got minor landslip packages. We've got 36 out of 37 done. The next paragraph, we've got 5 out of 37 in major landslips. Was the 37 minor and major, or both the same?

Director of Infrastructure. Yes

My understanding is that, miraculously, both had the same number, both categories.

Okay, on

With the clerp round one, we're talking about upgrades to various riverbank support recreation spaces, Argyle Bay Reserve, Memorial Reserve, Howe Park, one of Two Slumps and Churchill Reserve. What's happening with the other slumps?

Through you, Madam Mayor. The second slump, my understanding is through, I think it's clerp round two, the Community Assets Program. We've wrapped it into one of those. We were in the situation where we had to demonstrate the extent of the slumps attributable to each flood and depending on whether they fit into clerp one or clerp two. So that's my recollection of it.

So, Governor Philip Park is through CLERP Round 2, or the Community Assets Program.

Okay.

Did I see somewhere in here, in relation to Valley Way, that some of the funding that we thought might be coming might not be coming for the works at Valley Way?

Through you, Madam Mayor, no, I don't believe so. I don't know that we've submitted the final claim for Valley Way, but it's not my recollection that there's any shortfall in the funding that's been provided following the approval of the business case for the Betterment. There was a reference to, in one of the other reports, I think there was a reference to an application under the Betterment Fund for Valley Way, which was unsuccessful, but that was not for the restoration of the culvert. That was for some other works, which I can't recall the detail of at the moment, I'm sorry.

Thank you. Under insurance, in 2021 there was $4 million in relation to damage, although there was a limit of council insurance estimated annual cost exceeded $5 million. That was for 2021. What about 2022?

General Manager. Yeah, thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, we're still, as we've said in the report, Councillor, we're still working our way through that 2021-2022 claim that is extraordinarily complex in its nature because of the repeated events. That said, as we've said in the report, our initial estimates we're thinking are likely to be in the order of $2 million. We don't think we're likely to hit the sub-limit on the insurance out of those events. We don't think.

We need to make up, for 2021, the million dollars, we need to make the difference up as a council. Is that what you're saying? Can I

Perhaps clarify that figure. That figure of five million, I believe we've still been working on those figures over the weekend, could actually be substantially higher than that. What is included in that, though, is effectively some written-off assets, some damage to the ferry master's house and those sorts of things that have contributed to that.

Any other councillors wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly.

No, the only thing I was going to add was if we're asking the question about the gap between what we spent and what was funded, it'd also be really interesting to look at the gap between how much we've — not so much the gap, but how much we've lost by delaying some of these works years in terms of construction costs, if they'd just been decisions made more quickly and works done more quickly.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMarn. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 3.1.3, update on Riverbank stabilisation matters. Do I have someone wishing to move the recommendation?

Anybody?

Councillor Conolly, seconder, please. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Conolly. Not necessary. Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. In the second paragraph, we've got more than 200 sites within the Hawkesbury LGA area which impacted by flooding between 20 and 21. That predominantly slips. And considering the report and the document that was offered on our behalf to the government to try and get some

Easy access, I guess, that hasn't been forthcoming, how many of the 200 have put in applications to Council to rejuvenate their banks?

General Manager.

Through you, I'm going to have a best estimate of this, but to my knowledge there were two. Yeah. Both of which hit significant trouble with state government agencies who hadn't, at that particular point in time, established their position on the restoration of those riverbanks and frankly became too difficult at that particular point. And for those two, we took an approach of working with them in a slightly different environment through the regulatory regime.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. In reading the attachment, the submission that was put in to try and fast-track the proposal, in reading that, it's not hard to see the frustrations the General Manager spoke of. But I'd ask the question, in relation to the Hills, they give open slather, behaviour self-but do it. Do you know if there's any legal action by any authority or individual against the Hills Council for any action that was taken in relation to Riverbank restoration?

General Manager.

I couldn't speak to that, Councillor, I'm afraid. We have addressed at length the approach that the Hills had taken on some of those matters, and we have taken a slightly different approach in working with affected landowners who have those significant repairs, inviting them to come and work with Council, and we have indeed worked with them to serve orders on some of those affected landowners, and those works are in progress.

Madam Mayor, while I appreciate that we've got regulations to follow, so have the Hills. Now, I don't know how they got out of it, but no one's in jail over it, and I don't know of any action that was taken by any authority under any circumstances for works that were done. I don't know of any landholders that put asbestos or concrete or stuff in where they shouldn't have done, and I have a little bit to do with the river. It concerns me that when we say we've got 200 properties that's affected, there's 30 kilometres of land slip along our river. It's not one property, landslipped all the way from Windsor nearly to Lower Portland, on both sides of the river, and there's substantial— Damage done, and likely to be more done because in some places where it's slipped, it's slipped banks three to six metres, because most of the riverbank is about ten metres deep, and a good half it slipped.

And to those of us that look from the outside, I guess you'll go down in 12 months' time, it'll be overvegetated, trees will be growing in it. What the hell? We've had 156 floods. It's just another one. But for people who own the property, it's a loss. And it could be detrimental to their property. It could be detrimental to the activities on their land, cattle especially, and the like. In lots of cases, I suspect they would fence it now because it'd be dangerous for animals to be walking along there. And aside from that, most people are pretty proud of their properties and want it to look good. And this is not the last flood we're going to have. And I'd like council to look down the track of how we're going to deal with this and not wait till it happens.

The first one started in 2001. We're now halfway to 2004, and in reality we're no better off. And as someone who's the authority to help the residents through this situation, I think that's pretty ordinary. So I don't know whether we need a notice of motion to look at how we deal with this in the future, but I know another 200 properties in a couple of years' time, and I suspect that we're going to have a bit more rainfall, that they go through this again. I know it's frustrating for the staff not to be able to deal with it. Let me tell you, it's very frustrating for the property owners. So, Madam Mayor, I'd like some discussion on how we might deal with this in the future. It doesn't have to be here now, but certainly with you and the general manager, of how we might look.

We're not the only council that lives on a river, by the way. And there's plenty across the world. Somebody's got an answer somewhere. So, Madam Mayor, if we can keep that in mind and discuss it later.

Thanks, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Like Councillor Sheather, I would like to see this process advanced. Just because Hills hasn't got into trouble for what they've done doesn't mean that what they've done has been a good thing, you know. And I don't like open slather approaches, particularly when we're dealing with riparian zones. I think we also have to come to a realisation that this is a dynamic river, and the edges of it are not going to remain the same forevermore. And this idea that we can buy and sell that and control the edges of the river, and we know from our own land at Yarramundi, for example, just how much that has changed. And I think we're selling a false sense of security for people if we tell them that they can make these changes and that they will last.

And I think the other problem with that approach of letting people do whatever they want is that the approach on one property has a knock-on effect to the next property down. And I think we've seen that particularly on Redbank Creek, where people have done works, and because it's a smaller system, it's much easier to see those impacts where, you know, for example, putting in heavy walls out of sandstone or sandstone blocks and concrete and things causes then a rapid erosion of the next property down as the water— As the water forms and eddy into that space. I think council is trying to do the right thing here, and we're not being heard seems to be the short answer. I too would like to have a discussion about how we advance this through a state parliament that is busy dealing with a whole lot of other things, and getting this aspect of flood recovery heard in amongst all the other discussions of homelessness and waste and emergency evacuation and all of those things, I think is really difficult.

I think we, like with most emergencies, I think we're really focused around the emergency itself and not quite as well focused on recovery. I think we've heard a lot from the state and federal government about preparedness for the next one and resilience without talking about what we do to recover those spaces in between. And I think we've seen too, because of the magnitude of the disaster in Lismore, and then the disaster that happened in Forbes and those surrounding areas that happened sort of hot on the heels of the recovery, the Hawkesbury has been forgotten in some of these processes, and it's up to us to make sure that we are heard properly. We have the potential with this to set up a system that's used throughout the state, and I think if it's worthy of that, then it deserves to be recognised by the state government.

I think we need more advocacy around this, and I think we need more targeted advocacy where each of us uses the connections that we have to push this through the process at the state government. And I think it's also time to do some soft advocacy. The mayor and the general manager have had meetings with the state and federal member, but I think too it's time to have them sitting around the dinner table. And potentially discussing the problems that we have in a less formal setting, and taking some of the heat out of the discussion, perhaps, and hoping that they can then take these matters forward. Because we've done all this work to have it just fall into someone's pile during a parliamentary term, I think is really demoralising.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Reardon. Yes

Madam Mayor, I thought your MIMO today was most interesting, that the Hawkesbury has been forgotten and that we've been working, trying to work with the state and federal government, and despite some financial assistance, we need more help. I thought it was a very good MIMO. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. Just for those who haven't seen it, as Council lines bucket has stated, it was one year and one day since the new state government had come to power and still not a word on flood mitigation, more importantly than resilience and recovery, but mostly mitigation. And try to make it as non-political as I can, but there is a political element to it, but we need answers on flood mitigation. And from what we're told, the DAP won't come out till the middle of next year. To me, is just not good enough. And we have a 98% dam all around that area and a declared wet season coming up. So, you know, I rightly ran into a farmer today in the lineup for my son's school blazer, fearful of the next rain event coming because we have a full dam and we don't have answers.

So thank you for raising that, Councillor Reardon. I do hope that that is picked up by some of the mainstream media, but to me it seems like floods are not interesting to talk about unless the water is up to our necks. When the water goes down, there doesn't seem to be interest. But it is up to all of us as elected representatives to keep advocating for that. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly? No? Okay. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Jurek, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon.

I declare the item carried.

The next item is 3.1.4, Hawkesbury Flood Plain Drainage Review, Molino Stewart study. Councillor Sheather, seconder please. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of questions.

On page 128, it's got future works, and again it mentions Valley Way as the first one, but it goes down to quite a few others. And it says, funding becoming available sooner. The word sooner, that doesn't mean we haven't got it. It's just that we could do with it a bit quicker?

Is that a question you would like answered now?

Because most of these projects I think have been done, but it hasn't got detail like Greens Road, Lower Portland improvements and resilience of the structure. I suspect that's the Greens Road

Yeah, thank you, Councillor. The director of infrastructure wrote this, a lot of the detail, for that question specifically, and he has had to leave the meeting. So can we take that on notice?

Yes. Yeah,

Thank you. Yep

With the discussion on page 129, with the Molino Stewart report, there's a comment made about agricultural practices that may have an ensuring with drainage problems. When that was discussed, it was Benson's Lane, and it was in relation to the practice of turfing. And I spoke to one of our managers about getting confirmation of how much soil is taken off in a roll of turf, because it was indicated it was 50 mil. I know it's not that, but has it been clarified by our staff through the Turf Association or whatever the organisation may be, to how much topsoil is disposed of in relation to a cut of turf? Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. We'll have to take that one on notice as well, but they are being written down.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Appreciate that. And in relation to the report generally, if other councillors may comment on it. I don't think there's much in our budget for next year in relation to the issues, which is a real concern. We're spending money on reports like this, and there's a reason for it. There's a conscious effort by the community council to rectify a problem. Now, part of the problem's been taken up with this washout in the lowlands, and it's sort of overcome the other issues, which is a daily occurrence with floods up to a one in 20-year event in the lowlands of Richmond. This report deals with it, the same with Bushy Lagoon at Woolworths.

But we haven't got a program either on the floodgates, and it's just not the fixing the floodgates; it's the operation and when they need to be opened and closed, all that sort of stuff in relation to predicted flood heights and all that sort of stuff. We keep putting it off. There's 156 floods we've had. We've been here 230 years. The average suggests that we're in line for some more. So the longer we put it off, the more problems there's going to be. And I know there's issues within this report about private properties and the likes, and we've got to work with property owners. But I don't know that we're even asked them, are they prepared to do their portion if we do ours? So I don't know.

I don't believe there's any money that's proposed for the funding for next year. That'll take us through to 26, and that bothers me, that we're going to have an area at the back of Richmond that the last statistics I've seen is $88 billion a year comes off those lowlands. And let me tell you, since the 21-22 floods, there hasn't been, that impacts our community greatly. And we're here to try and rectify those problems. And I know we've got a lot of things to spend money on, but flooding and fires seem to be talked about a lot. But when we come to mitigation, where we can actually mitigate the height of water, we do very little about, and it's concerning.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I have to agree with what Councillor Sheather has just said. I'm also concerned that we are not addressing this issue in terms of backing it up with some funding, because I haven't read the whole report, obviously, but from what I have seen and what I know about the issues around the drainage down there, it is something that's going to be very difficult to address, expensive, I would imagine, and challenging in many ways, but also something that holds quite a big liability for Council. And I think that, you know, we didn't have floods for a long time, and we didn't perhaps upkeep the, you know, the investigating into what may happen in the future around some of these things.

In terms of the, I did raise some questions also before about the Molino Stewart study, that when we have the briefing, if we could have something around what exactly that all means and the next steps into the future about it. With regard to the future works, where it says these were grants that were applied for and not funded, is that correct? Not successful in the grant funding. Are these mainly grants from the Reconstruction Authority, or are they a whole range of grants?

Page 128. It's the one under Future Works that you were speaking about, Councillor Sheehan.

General Manager.

May I have to take the detail of that one on notice, Councillor. I think that's— I'm certainly aware of a number of grant programs where we have, through things like the Disaster Ready Fund, through Betterment approaches to DRFA, there are a number of programs there where we may have applied for that. Certainly happy to take it on notice and get you a list of those particular programs.

Thank you. That would be good, and some detail around there, because I'm not sure. I'm assuming they're all council-owned things or we wouldn't be applying for them, but I'm not just sure what sort of resilience to a structure we were talking about, because I know at one stage there was quite a few grants we didn't get, and I was wondering, Madam Mayor, am I wrong, but did you have a meeting with Reconstruction Authority around that? And if so, could you tell us if there was any outcomes, and did we get any feedback on that?

That meeting, I think I did put it in an email to you all, but that meeting really was just an update of the status quo of where we were at, where I learnt that the disaster adaptation plan won't be coming out till June next year. I think the state one was coming out sooner than that, and the two areas they were prioritising were the Hawkesbury and the Northern Rivers, and we were first in terms of that, but that's all we got. They did send out to the community, I think it was last week, an email asking if they wanted to be part of a community feedback towards all of that. I still personally believe it's moving too slow. I did ask the Reconstruction Authority when they were here whether the now Premier's commitments before the election to levees and evacuation routes stood.

They had no detail on that. I then asked if they came up with a suite of recommendations for flood mitigation based on their new studies, what would that mean? Would that have a commitment to funding? They couldn't answer that either. So we really are sitting in limbo right now as to any mitigation measures at all. And so the only real answer I got out of that was no report till June next year. Okay,

Thank you. And you did send an email to that effect, I just— I just wondered if they'd specifically addressed around the grant funding, but that would be interesting because that's a lot of money to have missed out on there if those projects are projects that we really need to get done. And, okay, I think that's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I just might raise the issue there that the state budget is coming up, and I think we will all be very keen to see what line items relate to the Hawkesbury, particularly the Pitt Town evacuation route, which was there when the Upper House inquiry sat in 2022. That and Cornwallis were the two issues they highlighted as needing acute funding now. So Cornwallis obviously is going ahead with some level of funding, but there's nothing yet for the Pitt Town evacuation route. So I'm very keen to see if that's included in the budget. Any other councillors wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather, not needed. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Jirik, Councillor Lyons-Bucket, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon.

I declare the item carried.

We now move to general business, and I'll be cautious about topics raised in general business, given we don't want to address, introduce too many new things to the agenda. Any things you wish to raise, councillors, there? No? Okay. Thank you, councillors. That's the end of the agenda. I therefore declare the meeting closed at 5.17 p.m., thanking again the representatives from the various agencies for your attendance. Thank you.