28 May 2024 - Disaster and Emergency Committee

Good afternoon and welcome to the Disaster and Emergency Committee meeting for the 28th of May 2024. My name is Councillor Sarah McMahon, Mayor of Hawkesbury. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Dharug and Darkinjung 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 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 will 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 made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the committee, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting.

This request relates to both your address to the meeting and any answers given in response to questions from the committee. As a courtesy to others, it is requested that mobile phones either be turned off or turned to silent. The general manager received from Councillor Wheeler a written request to attend this afternoon's disaster and emergency committee meeting by audio-visual link, as she is unable to attend the meeting in person. Councillor Wheeler has been admitted to the meeting and is able to participate until the committee decides by resolution whether to accept her request. Can someone please move that Councillor Wheeler be permitted to attend the disaster and emergency committee meeting on 28 May 2024 by audio-visual link.

Moved Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Deputy Mayor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. All in favour. Thank you. Apologies. I have an apology from Councillor Conolly, an apology from Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Zamprogno is attending late from work. I don't have an apology from Councillor Dogramachi or Councillor Veigel, so we'll just note their absence. Okay, B is on his way, trying. He's overseas. So he'll be on Zoom. Is that what he said, Councillor? Oh, he is here. Okay. Well, we'll see what happens. That's what I thought he was too. Yeah, thank you. As required by the Code of Conduct, committee members are required to disclose any pecuniary and or non-pecuniary interests in relation to matters on today's agenda.

Are there any interests to disclose? Councillors? I will just disclose that we will be receiving a presentation from a member from the RFS, and I am a member of the RFS. There are no registered speakers for this committee meeting. However, the first item on the agenda is the confirmation of previous minutes. Can I please have someone move that way? Councillor Reardon and seconded Councillor Sheather. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon and Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler. Absent from the room are Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramachi, and Councillor Zamprogno.

I declare the minutes carried.

Madam Mayor.

Yes. I'm not sure whether Councillor Wheeler heard you in relation to declarations of interest, because I know she's involved with RFS as well.

That would be a matter for Councillor

Wheeler. Yeah, I just wanted to bring it to her attention. Okay.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll allow Councillor Wheeler to make a declaration if she so wishes. Okay, item three on the table of contents is an agency update. In that regard, I would like to welcome our official guests to this afternoon's meeting: Superintendent Andrew Garner from the New South Wales Police, Mr Ross Chivers from New South Wales Ambulance, Ms Rebecca Tolk, also from New South Wales Ambulance, Mr Ian Stubbs, New South Wales Fire and Rescue, Mr Ethan Parker, New South Wales RFS. We also have a representative from Endeavour Energy. I'm sorry, sir, I don't have your name written down. No, what was it? I'd like to say it.

Tony Bearwinkle .

Tony Bearwinkle, thank you very much, from Endeavour Energy, and we have apologies from Kevin Jones from the New South Wales SES. In that regard, I'd like to ask Superintendent Andrew Garner if you'd like to address the committee. Thank you.

Table again. Like last time, so I would have been able to read off the laptop, so I apologise for bringing that up, but I have all my notes on there to refer to. So, obviously read the meeting papers today, which give a detailed summary of the flood event of the 5th of April, which is obviously the purpose of the meeting today, to examine the response to that. So I’d propose to rehash the entire event, but rather give a brief summary from the LERCON and the LEMC perspective of our activities through managing that event. So from the committee perspective, we began warming up, if you like, the LEMC in the days prior, once the weather forecast was known and disseminated from the SEOC, or the State Emergency Operations Centre, and we began circulating that advice as per normal practice to provide situational awareness to the committee members to enable them to, in essence, prepare for the event that was coming.

We had our first LEMC meeting formally on the 6th, I believe, Friday the 6th. My dates are wrong there, but definitely Friday the 6th, the 5th, Friday the 5th. I was in Borambat at the time, and commenced there. And then we met daily for the next seven days. And over that time, generically speaking, we monitored the situation, monitored the SES products which were delivered throughout in accordance with the Australian warning system. You know, that ranged from advices to Watch and Act to then evacuation orders, which were obviously reviewed by us and, you know, and actioned accordingly and shared among the community. In line with those, the SES advice products, the Richmond Club was activated first as an evacuation centre, and then some time later in the following days, Panthers at North Richmond was opened on advice from the SES.

After, obviously, as is per normal, the Yarramundi Bridge was closed at a point in time and then followed by the North Richmond Bridge, with the Windsor Bridge remaining open throughout through some careful management. The traffic situation on the western side of the Windsor Bridge, specifically around Goreck's Lane and Hibbert's Lane, became an issue of focus for the committee, which was managed with the design and implementation of a traffic management plan to manage that. And on note now post that, there's an opportunity to build that plan into a pre-event plan for future use, should we need to activate that again. And on that particular issue, I wanted to commend the work of Transport for New South Wales, the Traffic Management Centre, Hawkesbury Council and Police for their collaborative approach and decisive action on that matter to implement that so quickly.

And that ran until some other roads were opened and eased the traffic on that particular laneway. As we flow through the community information element, which is actually covered in the meeting papers, which notes that all the emergency management partners and the LEMC committee members all shared only content from the Combat Agency and the SES in terms of advice products, warning products. The Council's emergency dashboard was a massive success , if you like, in this incident. I think it was the first test of that in an emergency situation. That obviously is a hub, a single source of truth for all related information for emergency management, for flood or other, and on this occasion obviously flood, but it points to the SES for the advice around the water element, the riverine flooding and flash flooding and those advice products.

And as I said, is relied on as the single source of truth. And I note in the papers there was extremely high level of traffic to that site, which I think, you know, potentially it was a proof of concept up until now, and it's been used very, very successfully. So I think the council should be commended on that initiative, and I think it really has set the benchmark for community access and community information in terms of those situations. I do note in the papers that record it, there was some instances of advice being shared on certain platforms, which wasn't SES advice. It was different advice, which was not in alignment to the SES advice. And, you know, there's obviously potential for that to create hysteria and panic in the community.

And as noted in the papers as well for that particular reason. So I think, I guess, you know, if there's a takeaway from this and if what we can share around the community is that the combat agency is the single source of truth for all information in relation to that particular emergency. Anyone interested in sharing or supporting community through pushing advice out through different platforms should only be pushing that combat agency advice. And, you know, if it helps, they could simply refer them back to the Hawkesbury Emergency Dashboard, which is the point of truth there, and the SES products even pointed to the Hawkesbury Council Emergency Dashboard as well as a source. So I think, you know, as we move on and I guess the community response evolves, if that can be reinforced through any opportunities we have out through community to just redirect people to that source.

From there, effectively the situation flowed on, no pun intended, and then we really transitioned into a recovery phase, which was managed via the recovery committee, which is led by Will Barton. As chair, and I really do want to thank Will for his leadership in terms of running that and his dedication to that role. So I won't speak anymore on the recovery committee activities. I think I'll leave that to you, I assume you'll speak at some point, or you may or may not, but I'll leave that to Will anyways, chair of that committee. So moving forward from us in terms of LEMC, we're conducting an after action review on Thursday at the police station to really examine the response, look at what went well, look at areas for improvement with a view to that continuous improvement model for learning and for the next iteration of whatever emergency management situation we face in the Hawkesbury.

So that'll be conducted. From there, we'll review those action items and see what actions are required of us to improve plans, our prevent plans, emergency management plans and the like. And through the LEMC, we'll act on those. I guess in closing, I wanted to thank the LEMC for their professionalism and dedication during that event. I think they really are, as a group, it really does function very well. The relationship is very strong. We turn to all the partners. The contribution of each is selfless, really community focused, and I think the community should be really proud and know that there is a really high-functioning committee of people there that are looking after their interests and are serving the community to the highest ability possible through their agencies.

And as a sidebar, I suppose. I personally, with Phil Bowe, the LEMO there, went and attended Panthers at North Richmond and the Richmond Club a couple of weeks after the event wrapped up, just to personally thank the management of those clubs for their support to the community by operating as evacuation centres during the event. I presented them with a certificate of appreciation on behalf of the LEMC. And I think it's important to note that operating as an evacuation centre does fundamentally change the business functions or business operations of those venues. And they note that in the board notes and in the operating model, their takings, their attendance by the patronage, and that is not a concern at all for the boards of those clubs.

Their focus is on community, and so they do that purely just to support community at whatever cost it is to the operations of the club. So I just want to note that for community perspective into the management of those clubs. But that's pretty much all I had to add. I'm happy to take any questions if there are any.

Thank you. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Linesbockett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for that, Andrew. That's really good to hear all of that. I'm just wondering, given the type of flood that that was and the incident of the really incredibly high intensity rainfall, is that being factored in? Like, obviously there were a lot of things to manage this time that were differently. Maybe it's not a question for you, maybe it's a question for Will, but is that being factored into the future planning, the different type of flood behaviour that that was? Well, there was a lot of localised flooding.

And I think this is indicated too in the vice products from the SES. There's warnings of flash flooding through heavy rainfall in certain areas, and there's also advice in relation to riverine flooding. So all those are combined elements are factored into the modelling conducted by the Bureau and the SES advice products, and that's managed throughout by the LEMC. So in terms of the management, there was no change in this incident in relation to previous ones, and the same modelling occurs, the same advice comes out, taking that into account, and the LEMC manages that accordingly. Okay , thank you

Any further questions? No, thank you very much, Superintendent. Thank you. Appreciate your feedback. I would like to welcome Mr Ian Stubbs from New South Wales Fire and Rescue to the room. Thank you very much, and I'm aware you're not addressing us today. So I'll call on Mr Ethan Parker from the New South Wales RFS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, and good afternoon, councillors. I'm Ethan Parker, the 2IC Hawksbury District at the moment for the Rural Fire Service, and I'll just give an update to the last 12 months for the RFS. Operationally, since the 1st of July 2023, brigades from the Hawkesbury District have attended to approximately 1,400 incidents. So this comprised mostly of bush and grassfires, motor vehicle accidents, motor vehicle fires, illegal fires. Amongst this, crews also attended to numerous structural incidents throughout the district. An incident of significant note, which I'm sure some of you will remember, the Cumberland Reach bushfire. That took a difficult run on its first day, but thankfully no residential structures were impacted.

There were several outbuildings destroyed, which were picked up in our building impact analysis. The fire was contained not long after through use of strike teams and ground crews and supporting aircraft. Additionally, we did see flooding occur again in April. Thankfully, there was minimal work relating to inundations for the RFS, and mostly our responses occurred during flash flooding and to support the SES with more weather-related events. The Fire Control Centre during this time as well was activated as the alternate police station for the Hawkesbury, which we're happy to do to serve that purpose. In terms of capability, the RFS continues to work hard increasing our capability of brigades across the district.

One of our brigades at Freemans Reach was recently trained and equipped for structural firefighting and breathing apparatus, and we're continuing to roll that out amongst the district to all our other brigades. The Hawkesbury district will be allocated, as I'm sure you heard in the last meeting, the floodwater capable fireboat. Firefighters from the district have undertaken some training in this space, and we're continuing to do that. We haven't yet received the boat, but that is currently in the works at this time. The intent of that is mostly just to support SES in severe weather events and whatnot where they do need assistance as the combat agency. Our capability continues to be improved through our training plan being implemented, so lots of training is being offered to brigades and we're upskilling our members from there.

In terms of our planning and preparedness, so recently the RFS has been facilitating a number of risk management workshops as part of the Hawkesbury Bush Fire Management Committee, and this is consulting with all our stakeholders to develop the Hawkesbury Bush Fire Management Committee five-year risk management plan. This is well underway and is getting closer to public exhibition. The five-year risk plan will outline the areas of risk throughout the Hawkesbury district and any focus areas that require the most attention and what treatments are in place to reduce risks in those areas. Whether it be through hazard reduction burns or mechanical, those focus areas will be treated accordingly. Throughout the last 12 months, we've achieved the following hazard reduction burns out at Greenhood Orchard, Training Farm HR, the Marns HR, which is most recently at Yaramundi, providing about 600 hectares of protection to the west of the town there, and the daily HR, Creek Flat HR, Yaramundi hotspots cultural burn as well.

And we've tried to implement the Roberts Creek hazard reduction at Blackson's Ridge, but that had to be cancelled due to a number of weather condition constraints there. We do have a number of hazard reduction burns that's just shovel ready and ready to implement once we have the window of opportunity to do those. Additionally, the Hawkesbury Bushfire Management Committee, Section 52 Plan of Operations and the District Ignition Prevention Plans have been finalised. So these documents outline coordinated firefighting arrangements, prevention and preparedness actions for all agencies. Toward the end of last year, the RFS facilitated with New South Wales Police a bushfire exercise at the Windsor Police Station EOC to provide the New South Wales Police and Hills and Hawkesbury Police an understanding of the New South Wales RFS arrangements that controlling combat, controlling bushfires and how the EOC can provide support to that.

Additionally, New South Wales Police were able to test their internal processes and arrangements, for instance that crossover into neighbouring police area commands. Additionally, in September and October, crews from the RFS joined Fire and Rescue down at the Fire and Rescue Emergency Services Academy to undertake some multi-agency exercises, which we thank Ian Stubbs for assisting with organising that. Predominantly that focuses on structural firefighting and ways that we can work together as agencies, and we're hoping to continue that this year. This concludes the update for the RFS for the Hawkesbury, and we thank the Council for their support. Any questions?

Thank you very much. Any questions, Councillors? Councillor Wheeler has her hand up online.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I attempted to make a declaration earlier, but the sound wasn't working from this end that the committee officers have fixed that. So I just need to make a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. My son and I are both members of the RFS, and we're both active volunteers in the last flood in April. I did have a question for Mr Parker about HR, but he's already answered it, so thanks.

Thank you very much, Mr Parker. I appreciate it. Thank you. We do have our other guests in the room, but you are here to address specific items that will come up later in the business paper, so I will call on you as we come to those items. So thank you. We now move on to item 4.1.1.

April 2024 flood event. Do I have someone move that way please? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Reardon. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it's well set out. I think that was good to hear various , the update from the police around the flood event. This is a good way to receive the information. I think that obviously, having had the unfortunate benefit, I guess it is, of having multiple floods, the knowledge is gathering. And I did just have a question, though, around the new national warning system. I'm just wondering, was there feedback on that? Because I just noticed some people thought that was maybe a little bit too early for some people, and that's obviously just opinion I saw. But how would they evaluate something like that, and was there anything specific to us with regard to the implementation of that system?

Thank you, Councillor. Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor. I'm not aware of any feedback that SES have sought on how the products, the new products, were received, or whether there's any plans to do so for any future events either. But we can certainly take that on board and have a chat with SES.

It was more a question of interest. I don't think there was a problem. I think it was, when something's new, I suppose, I guess you want to monitor it to see how it's going. But thank you for all that information, and that's it.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Sorry. Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a question to begin with. The Debri Island that we have all watched, or the beaver dam, as it's referred to in the community, that's formed off Richmond Bridge. My understanding is that that's an RMS maritime responsibility. Do we have any feedback on that at all?

Thank you, Director of Infrastructure.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. I have to admit it's been a couple of weeks since I've turned my mind to the Debri Island. My last recollection was that there were plans afoot by Transport for New South Wales to clear that. That was, however, before the recent rise in the river back in earlier this month, I think it was, and I note that the river is still high as I think Warragamba continues to discharge. So I don't have any update from Transport for New South Wales, but we can certainly make representations and get that for you.

Thanks, and I guess the next question then, and there's certainly been plenty of talk in the community, is around the prevention of that happening in the future. And I guess that's something that we should probably flag for further discussion. There's a balance to be had, I think, between, you know, the river, the natural behaviour of the river and the surrounding areas when there's been flooding, and the impacts that it has on bits of infrastructure like Richmond Bridge. A couple of other points that I think we should note for next time, because there will be a next time. Road access, where we were able to maintain road access via Hibbert's Lane, I think we need to be really careful that that's That that becomes emergency access only.

There were plenty of reports and talk on social media about people coming into Windsor , largely for social events and for, you know, going for coffee or going for lunch and that sort of thing. And while that's really appealing during a flood, it makes it really difficult, and it has a really big impact on those roads that do stay open. It also means that should we need to get emergency vehicles through, they're heavily clogged, and we saw quite a traffic bottleneck by Sunday afternoon. I think we probably need a bit of an education campaign around that. You know, we eventually had some traffic management on that road, but by that stage, we had, you know, we was taking people an hour and a half to get between Windsor and Freeman's Reach.

So I think we have to watch that for next time. Some feedback that came through from representations from people in the community: the large animal evacuation centre opened too late. If people are evacuating large animals, particularly large numbers of large animals like horses from the lowlands, they need access to those facilities 24 hours before the event. You know, opening it on the Saturday morning after the roads were almost closed is getting far too late. And the other issue is with the continuing use of gaming and liquor venues for evacuation centres. While I certainly appreciate those businesses opening their doors and taking a financial hit to do so, and I certainly agree that it's motivated by generosity and a will to do good for the community, there are sectors of the community where those venues are simply not appropriate places to seek safety.

And I think we really need to provide places for people to go to where They aren't concerned that people will put their money through the poker machines or drink to excess, particularly in times of stress. They're great as a one-off stand-up, but we have been using these businesses over and over for the last three years with no provision to provide some other more safe place for the community, and that needs to change. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, on the issue that Councillor Wheeler brought up, I'd declare an interest in that matter, being the director of the RSL at Windsor.

Thank you, Councillor. Just one moment. The Windsor RSL wasn't the evacuation centre.

The comment was made in relation to the venues that were being used. That's

Right. It was Richmond Club and the North Richmond Panthers, so it wasn't Windsor RSL. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Were you wanting to speak?

Yes, please. The Hebers Lane and Premiers Reach Road was a bit of a mess in the early stages. It certainly worked well when things were instigated, but perhaps, as Councillor Wheeler indicated, warning devices indicating emergency vehicles or essential vehicles only, because there was too many people that were just sightseeing, and it wasn't only that. There was issues there. There were semitrailers going through there with food and the like to North Richmond and places like that, and I'm not suggesting that don't go through, but— We need to be, and I'm sure that everybody is aware of it now, but the amount of traffic that was going through there I don't think was essential. The other thing, that Freeman's Reach Road was closed for quite some time after the water had gone down. Was there other issues on Freeman's Reach Road that kept the road closed for that extra couple of days?

Director of Infrastructure.

Freeman's Reach Road never closed. So Freeman's Reach Road remained open between the roundabout and Hibberts Lane. I think that's correct? Yes

Yes. It's a comment. You might like to take it on board that, yeah. Anyway, I'll talk to you later about it. But, yeah, what I was getting at is that as soon as the roads are open in that regard, the traffic coming through Wilberforce, when Freeman's Reach Road's closed, is really, you know, you're getting line-ups back to the Butterfly Farm right to Windsor and vice versa. So there's a lot of people that travel when Richmond Bridge is closed as well, and they come around that way. The comments that I had in relation to the overall works that were being done in all the areas were pretty good. The ferries were, like always, a bit of a problem. And, you know, I hope down the track that the issue of addressing the ferries in floods greater than what we've had recently needs to be addressed, otherwise we're going to have five of them down at Spencer.

So, but generally, the comments I heard from the community were really good. The only warning that Councillor Lyons Barker spoke about, people spoke to me about that, while it give the farmers and a lot of people a good opportunity to get out, that was a little bit off the mark. I'm sure that they're well aware of that, though, and those sort of things will be addressed in the future. But it is better to be prepared than not be prepared. So it's just, there's another saying, though, about the boy who cried wolf, and that's the concern that I would have. But all in all, I think the community was pretty satisfied with the outcome of that issue.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? I might just say a few words very, very quickly, just to reiterate my thanks as the mayor to all of our agencies here who are represented as well today, to my fellow councillors. I know that we all get phone calls from very distressed residents at all hours of the days and the night, so thank you for being available to the community. I'd like to thank the staff here at Council, particularly Liz and Will Barton, who answer my call at all hours of the days and nights when I know I've got an interview coming up where I need a very quick answer as to the status of the situation. So thank you very much for being available. And I do want to thank the community as well, because after seven floods, we have learned significant lessons about preparation and about what to do, and I think that worked well this time.

The one failing, of course, which we identified at a previous Council meeting was the rails on Richmond Bridge, which they learned their lesson after we wrote to them and took them down just a couple of weeks ago, unnecessarily. But at least they listened and they learnt from that. And I think our community were very grateful that that took place. So we can only learn as we go along, and that's what we're doing. And I think Council really deserves a pat on the back for this one as well with the emergency dashboard. Superintendent Garner mentioned that, and thank you. I tried to mention that as much as I could in every single media interview that I was doing, and the ABC Radio actually went on and on and on about it after I raised it with them and said how fantastic it was.

So it is a credit to our staff, so thank you very much for what you do to ensure that the back of house of that is kept up to date with that information to the community who rely on that to make decisions about going to work, getting the kids to school, whether they can cross the river to do certain things in their lives. So thank you very much for doing that. I did just want to thank, of course, our two centres who did open their doors for any potential evacuees that may have needed to evacuate. I'm glad that it did not eventuate as to what it could have been in previous floods, but it would be amiss of me not to have this opportunity to highlight the need we still have for a solution from the state government for flood mitigation.

And I will use every opportunity that I have to continue to say that this state government needs to step up, and they need to give the community of the Hawkesbury and every other council who is on our floodplain some sort of an answer as to what they're going to do to mitigate floods. I really want to have that conversation. If they are listening, due next year for the disaster adaptation plan is not soon enough. We need an answer now as to how we're going to be protected, because as we saw with the last significant rain event, it just takes one day of rain, one day of rain on a Friday, and the dam hadn't even begun spilling yet, and Richmond Bridge was under. So we need the government to step up and take our community seriously.

But to end on a positive note, I do want to thank everyone for their contribution. It's looking like we're learning those lessons and knowing exactly what all of us need to do with the responsibilities that we have. So thank you, everybody. Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Vaigle, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramachi, and Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 4.1.2, Endeavour Energy, electrical infrastructure resilience in the Hawkesbury, and I'd like to invite Mr Tony Bearwinkle to please address the committee. Thank you.

That would have been exceptionally embarrassing if the electrical engineer didn't know how to turn that thing on. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councillors, for the opportunity to brief the committee. My intent here this afternoon is just to give you a bit of an insight into, I suppose, the challenges and the work that we have underway and, I suppose, the effort that goes into managing electricity network across the Hawkesbury, particularly in flood-type events. So I sort of hope I meet the brief and answer any queries that you have at the moment. In terms of the context, so my role within Endeavour Energy, I'm the lead network resilience engineer. Relatively new role, been in this position for coming up to two years now, so just started in the middle of the last of the major floods in '22.

And so my focus is really to coordinate the effort across Endeavour Energy, looking at the resilience of our network for all natural hazards, bushfire, flood, storms, coastal inundation, heat wave, all the exciting stuff. We have put a fair bit of effort into resilience in our business, and recently we've just been through a process of, we have a five-yearly sort of regulatory reassessment and submission of our proposed program of works, and that's approved by the Australian Energy Regulator. After a couple of years of effort to get that together, that was approved just very recently, and network resilience was a key aspect of that, and certainly a key aspect of the feedback that we had from our communities, something that they wanted us to focus on as an organisation.

For those who don't appreciate the scale of Endeavour Energy as well, we cover 25,000 square kilometres from basically near enough to Batemans Bay, right through the Shoalhaven, Illawarra, up through the Southern Highlands, Western Sydney, up to you folks, up through the mountains, up into the Midwest, almost as far as Mudgee. So we've sort of got a very diverse and very large area that we cover while we're sort of looking after everybody else as well as the needs of this particular community. In terms of resilience, just to be sort of set the stage, I suppose, there's sort of four different aspects that we focus on. And I don't need to make this a lecture, but just to give me some focus and keep me on track, we've historically done a lot of work anticipating the impacts of natural hazards on our networks.

So we have a bunch of plans that we activate triggered by various flood levels along the Hawkesbury. We will design our network to withstand events as much as we possibly can, but of course we can't, you know, stay standing all the time. So part of that then is the recovery aspect and really throwing the resources and effort into recovering and improving our recovery over time. Unfortunately, like everyone else in this room, we're getting very, very good at responding to floods on the Hawkesbury, I think. We've learned a lot over the last few years. And finally, the important part, of course, then is feeding that back through and learning the lessons that we've had from previous events, seeing how we can do things better, whether it's in my space and actually looking at the network hardware and the arrangement of the network, or just some of the softer factors around how we respond to emergencies and manage those sorts of events.

So really the context for us from the sort of events back in the major flooding events in 2021 and 2022. Be well aware we've had sort of in the order of 900 buildings sort of destroyed or damaged across our franchise area, and the bulk of that was up here. We had some pretty major customer disruptions. We did have a peak where we lost sort of 20-odd thousand customers because of water impact or imminent water impact on some of our key transmission lines feeding the area. And we had in the order of sort of 600 customers off for multiple days. It sort of took for the water to come down and for us to be able to restore network supply in particular areas. We sort of mustered a team of over 70 staff to feed and work through this area, and it took us sort of five days to actually work through and get that main sort of network restoration complete to the point where it was just sort of individual properties and things that we needed to get back connected again.

And for Endeavour Energy, just to give you some context for us, it was a cost in the order of a million dollars for each of these sort of major flood events in terms of the network damage, our personnel costs and equipment costs to actually respond to these events. So not an insignificant effort for our folks. When it comes to restoration, I suppose, yeah, the restoration of customers, Endeavour Energy, our remit , if you like, is really very strictly the network. Basically, the first point of connection into a property, it becomes officially under New South Wales law, it becomes the consumer's electrical installation, and there's a demarcation there between what we're allowed to do as a network provider and then what becomes the domain of basically, effectively the homeowner or the premises owner as the owner of their own...

Property , including the electrical installation, and they need licensed electricians to conduct inspections and do work on any repairs that are required for that. So that's why you'll see when we go through a response to a flood event, our primary goal is restoring the backbone of the network. Part of that will be to disconnect all the properties that we know or suspect may have been inundated during the course of the event, because we certainly don't want to cause any safety issues for residents in houses that may be unsafe, may have electrical faults internally that haven't been identified or made safe yet. And so for the safety of the community, we'll just basically restore to the street out the front of the property until we get the all clear that a property is safe to re-energise.

So that's sort of the approach that we take, sort of house to house. In terms of the arrangement of the network in this neck of the woods, I know that's a very busy picture and probably doesn't make a lot of sense. You won't be questioned on this later. But fundamentally, the challenge for us is where the Hawkesbury sits, all of the key supplies through the Hawkesbury come essentially from the south. So we're on the fringe of our network area here and in a little pocket. We talk about transmission and distribution in our network. So the transmission is like the backbone of our network, and that's the colours on the map that you see on the screen at the moment. So we have a number of transmission feeders that supply large substations, and then the distribution network then takes that electricity out to individual street houses, premises throughout the area.

So as I say, the challenge for us is all of that transmission supply into the area actually comes from the south. Anything that goes to the west of the river has basically, because of the geography of the area, must either get across floodplain or make multiple river crossings to actually get to where people live and reside on the other side of the river. So there's some physical challenges in actually getting our network into those places. There's some physical constraints on actually how high we can make things. Obviously, there's an obvious thing, make poles higher and that sort of thing to try and get the wires out of the water. But then we end up in a situation where we physically can't reach them to repair them and do the things that we need to do.

So there's a balancing act there to make an efficient, effective network that works 99.9% of the time and trying to find those little sweet spots and little things that we can do to improve those under those flood sort of events. So I hope that makes sense in terms of the arrangements for us. Really, the key challenge for us is with Blue Mountains National Park, Wollemi National Park, all around us, there's no easy way and there's no sort of population centres on the other side of the river that we can easily bring other supply into the area from. We're pretty well constrained with that feed-in from the south with the way our network and other networks around us are built. I suppose in that, for a bit of context for the committee, our modelling indicates that basically up to a 1 in 100 flood level, we should be able to maintain supply into the district.

But if we exceed that 1 in 100 flood level, so normally 17.3, 17.5 metres, then the entire electricity supply into the Hawkesbury is at risk because of... The water levels in relation to incoming transmission lines and other transmission assets. I'd imagine that's pretty well the point where UFACs are trying to pretty well evacuate most of the area, so I'm not sure anyone's going to be here to be too concerned if there's power or not. And I'm sorry, I don't mean that facetiously, but that's part of the challenge for us in sort of weighing up further investment, you know, whether there's value in actually trying to harden the network past that point for a one-in-a-hundred event that we haven't seen since 1867.

So that's part of that sort of decision-making for us. Because everything that we do, everything we invest in in the network, ultimately our customers need to pay for, and so it's trying to find that balancing act of having an efficient, cost-effective network that does the job for most people most of the time. So off the back of the last few floods, we've spent quite a bit of time sort of analysing the impacts on our network and trying to get our heads around the sort of the topography and where our weak points are. So we've looked at a number of specific sort of situations around replacement of individual poles where we might be able to sneak a taller pole in to clear a particular low point, replacement of entire sections if it's warranted to sort of get higher above the floodplain where we know we continually get hit and it sort of makes some sense for us to try and get a bit higher.

Even little things we've found, like just some basic engineering things around just sort of tightening things up and a few little quirks we can potentially get some benefit from. But also one of our challenges in a flood response is the switching of the network to make safe as an event progresses. So we've got pre-prepared plans , switching plans, where we'll operate. I will start to isolate sections of the network depending on water levels, so three to four metres, four to six metres, six to eight. There's key triggers as we all watch the gauge at Windsor Bridge. And so as the event progresses, we're trying to get in and isolate the network before it becomes damaged from water or poses a risk to the public because of access issues and that sort of thing.

One other key challenge for us in that switching plan is we will, sometimes we will need to switch off sections of the network simply because we know it's about to become inaccessible . So while people may still be high and dry and may still think that everything's okay and they don't understand why they have no power, it's because sort of the next step is a critical road being cut off, a line potentially going underwater and us not being able to get there to make things safe and respond to that. So that's all part of that balancing act as well. So that's the sort of work that we've been doing at a quite a detail level. Like I say, we have been through this recent regulatory approval. We did put forward, I suppose, a fairly modest investment package focused around flood resilience in the Hawkesbury.

And it's really the first time that the Australian Energy Regulator has considered resilience-type investment, proactive investment for electricity networks. There's sort of a history where the , I suppose, the conventional wisdom is some people think it's cheaper just to let everything wash away and then rebuild it as quick as you can, and that sort of seemed to be the most economic solution to the problem. But we were able to convince the AER that we've actually got some methodology here that makes some sense. We've got now some detailed design and assessment work underway for a whole bunch of projects in this area. Up on the screen there, some work that we had already completed after the 2020 flood—sorry, 2022 flood.

So we reconfigured the transmission crossing at Windsor Bridge, I think in about September '22, and so that's given us an extra two to three metres of clearance over the river there. That crossing in particular, we had to switch off for the safety of the public and SES boats and people moving through the area in the events in '21, '22. So that was one that we sort of knew was a weak point for us, and we wanted to try and get some extra clearance there. So we were able to do that pretty quickly at the time. So just that one link probably caused the proactive isolation and blacking out, if you like, in the order of sort of 4,000 customers up to Cattai and Wisemans. So people that are well and truly high and dry but weren't able to get the transmission supply to them because of this particular area.

So we'll do a better job of keeping those customers on next time, when there is a next time. Also, down the bottom left of the screen, pretty Teco-looking drawings, if you're into that sort of thing, but that's some design work we did on a particular weak point again, a single sort of span that we knew was a problem that actually interrupted feed into Pitt Town. And so we actually rebuilt that line. Again, not too far after September '22, actually. So a couple of key points, and again, that blacked out in the order of 1,000 people just because of that one crossing. So we've made those adjustments, so we're better prepared, better able to deal with future major flood events. And just, I suppose, to close out the last sort of before and after photos I've taken of the rebuild of that transmission feeder at the bridge.

Everyone will probably recognise the bridge pretty well there. The photos don't really do it justice, but as I said, we're just a really simple sort of reconfiguration of the way we've constructed those lines meant we could actually get an extra two to three metres of clearance and hopefully , yeah, keep us out of the water right through to a major event or past a major event next time it comes up. Apart from this sort of work and the other work that we're doing, worth noting too that we have had some feedback through inquiries and certainly feedback from the communities around the importance of communications across the area. And we need it as much as anyone because we need to talk to our people to tell them where to go to fix things.

And so we are working pretty closely with all the telco providers at the moment to better understand where their assets are, where they sit on our network, where we can do some things to work with them, give them a better sense of how quickly we can respond to things and see if we can find some ways to help them stay up in future. So there's a bit of work sort of happening in the background with that as well that's worth the committee noting. I'll stop talking there because I've probably gone for way too long.

Thank you very much. That was very detailed and thorough. We appreciate that greatly. I'll just see if any councillors have questions. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Tony. That was pretty good. Two questions. One, the substations at South Windsor and Cattai only just have 15 metres. Have you got any plans to look at that? And the other is, is it feasible at all to bring power from Lithgow west , from the west?

On the first question, I don't have a firm plan on doing anything in particular with those two substations. My gut feel is we can work around them in particular if we need to, to be honest, with the configuration of the network. In terms of supply from the west, there was historically, I think, a line that came down from Lithgow, but that traverses some pretty gnarly country and, without getting super technical, to have the capacity in that line to resupply this entire area and make up for multiple transmission feeds is not technically feasible.

Sorry. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. Thank you for this presentation. It's what we've needed to hear, I think, for quite some time. So it's really good to be having this discussion, and particularly having it in a format where members of the public can access it if they'd like to. So thank you for the detail that you've presented us with. A couple of points on the matters that you've raised. For areas west of the river, one of the things that happened in the floods that we've had recently, I live west of the river, the fact that you are able to maintain power to areas west of the river, towns like Wilberforce, Freeman's Reach, Glossodia, throughout that flood. I'm not sure if you understand how much easier that made life for us.

I mean, it's fair to say that you can, it's much nicer to be able to heat the house or turn on the power or cook your dinner. But we've got this fundamental piece of infrastructure that's dependent on electricity, and that's our sewer. And so when the power goes out, staying home becomes really hard because you can't even flush the toilet, let alone have a shower and expect the water to drain away. So your capacity to keep the power on for us was really a game changer. So thank you for doing that. But I want to make sure that it's really clear that our capacity to shelter in place in disasters is really dependent on whether the power is on. And that affects the sewer. It also affects our food supplies.

We had a bit of a wobbly moment in Wilberforce where the power was cut off to the shopping centre because it looked like the water was rising. The power connection is fairly low on a pole down there, and it would be really helpful, I think, if that was one of the areas that was earmarked for raising because it was turned off quite early, and it meant that a week's worth of food supply that the community had anticipated accessing was under threat. You know, we had the butcher in tears because it just stocked up and, you know, things were looking a bit grim. The other butcher had been flooded out and had sold everything off by the side of the road a little bit further up the street where it was dry.

And this is the reality, I think, of our communities that sometimes is difficult to appreciate if you're not on the ground. So , and that goes to something that you said about.. . That's probably looking to evacuate if a flood got above the one in 100, and I don't think that that's on anybody's radar. You know, I think that particularly west of the river, the idea is that largely , you know, in a one in 100 flood, anybody above that line will, or marginally above that line, will look at sheltering in place. And I think we have to get this message out that people need to be preparing not just for being cut off for a week, but for being cut off for a week without power and what that means to essential services.

I think we need, we probably need a bit more information about what the cut-off levels are for the various substations, the capacity to go around those, as you've just mentioned at Cattai, for example, and what that means for us in terms of evacuation, but in terms of also any future development that is likely to be cut off and the evacuation requirements for those. Because if the plan is that all of the west of the river past a one in 100 will be cut off, we're not all going to find shelter further up into the mountains. We have to look at, I think we have to be really open about what we're likely looking at in a bigger flood, because we all know that it will come. Thanks.

Did you have a specific question then, Councillor?

No, I think it's just really important that Endeavour Energy understands what the mindset of the community is and how then the provision of that service affects us. And I think we probably need more information to come. If I do have a question, it would be that we got some information about the cut-off levels for substations and the, or for... I guess for the important areas of the community, you know, at what level do we expect the sewer to go down, the three-town sewage system to go down? At what level do we expect shopping centres and those areas that are used as effectively community stores of food and things? And also, I guess if we're looking at where we evacuate to in times of disaster, will they have power? And what systems are we putting in place to work around that if the power's cut out? The best time for us to prepare for this is when we don't need it. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Did you wish to answer any of that, or we're just happy to take it as noted? Well

I've been taking notes, Councillor Wheeler. Thank you. Yeah, we certainly, Endeavour Energy certainly appreciates the importance that we have in the community's eyes, so—and that's why I'm here tonight, and that's why we're doing the work that we're doing. So we do the best we can with the resources that we've got.

Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Tony. That was really interesting. I'm also someone who has long wanted to hear that in that format. I'm really pleased to hear about the resilience improvements. I mean, getting two to three metres higher over a bridge is amazing. I just had a question around—first of all, I was going to ask what Councillor Sheather asked about, was it a myth that there is a line from Wallerawang down to Currarong that still exists? Obviously, even if it does, there's not the capacity there, so you've answered that. The other thing was around education and getting—so we've heard this tonight, and it's now accessible for people to understand. But the one thing I found when there was power loss during flood and fire was the number of people who were impacted but who were not directly impacted by those things.

So they may have lived a long way back from the river or a long way away from the fire, but they didn't understand the switching off sections. So is Endeavour embarking on an education campaign around that? Maybe you already do.

My understanding is during the events, we will try and put information out there about probably more focused on the restoration because things get pretty chaotic in the buildup as things transpire. But we do try to get messaging out there to give people fair warning of what's to come. If we've got feedback that we can do that better, I'm happy to take that on board and take that back. But it's, yeah, the reality is because of the way the network is constructed in the area, there's just those physical challenges where unfortunately people will be in a situation where they will be high and dry, will be quite happy where they are for several days, but unfortunately because of the path that power line takes, we can't maintain supply safely to those areas.

It may be something we could assist with, with getting that information to people. Just the other question was, do you have any sort of like mobile power units or anything around that sort of thing that you put into communities during these events?

We do. We do have some small mobile units. We'll use probably focused more on customers requiring medical equipment and that sort of thing as a first port of call. And we will call on contracts that we have with generator suppliers and that sort of thing to try and get different facilities up and running as quickly as we can. So, you know, the Wilberforce shops is a classic where I think we did have done that in the past, where we sort of set the generator up there to try and keep that going because we were well aware that that was a really significant community hub between the fuel and the food there. So we will deploy those sorts of resources where we can.

Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Anyone wishing to move the recommendation? Councillor Sheather, seconded by Councillor Reardon. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I'd just like to pass on to Tony some comments that come from the community over the last couple of floods. One is the, now that we've got people and vehicles on the western side of the river, where, excuse me, in the past that they had to go around or fall short, that the comments have been made. They've worked extremely well with the community to discuss layouts and access to properties, and not in our city, but Lyle Portland along River Road, which has become really inaccessible in flood time, that the service vehicles that went down there couldn't get to the area where they need to go. And through involvement with property owners and that, they accessed around the back of the floodwaters over private properties, and they wish to pass their thanks on to those people to work with them in that regard. So apart from that, everything's pretty good.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Looks like you won't need a right of reply then, Councillor. No, thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Bucket, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler, absent from the room, Councillor Vaigor, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Cottlash, Councillor Dogramachi. I declare the item carried. The next item on the agenda is item 4.1.3.

Ambulance New South Wales servicing the Hawkesbury, and I would like to call on Mr. Ross Chivers and Ms. Rebecca Tolk from New South Wales Ambulance. Just Rebecca. There we go. Very good. Thanks, Bec.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and committee members. I am the inspector at Richmond Ambulance Station, and here with me today is Superintendent Ross Chivers, who's the zone manager of Nepean Blue Mountain. Thank you for inviting us along today. I think there may be not a good understanding of how we operate, so hopefully we can give you an overview of some of the things that happen with New South Wales Ambulance in the Hawkesbury. Hopefully I can answer your questions. So New South Wales Ambulance is an integral part of New South Wales Health. We deliver mobile health services and provide high-quality clinical pre-hospital care. We operate differently to emergency services such as police and fire and rescue, who will typically respond and manage incidents in their own area.

We work a little bit differently than that. So, for example, a Richmond crew may attend to a motor vehicle collision, which requires transport to a major trauma centre. That is not Nepean. Under the Ministry of Health matrix, Nepean is a regional trauma centre, so that may mean that that Richmond crew will transport to Westmead Hospital. When they clear the hospital, they may be the closest and most appropriate resource to a triple zero call in Dundas, which may result in them then transporting to Ryde Hospital. So whilst this is happening, the Sydney Control Centre are having a look at all of the triple zero calls and the acuity of those incidents. They will put crews onto triple zero incidents, and they will attempt to cover geographical areas with other ambulances.

So this could mean crews are being sent back to their home station or to another station for area cover. New South Wales Ambulance is an evolving organisation, and it's no longer you call, we haul, which was the old way of doing things. Triple zero calls are triaged and may be referred to an alternate pathway, such as the New South Wales Ambulance Virtual Clinical Care Centre, to determine if an ambulance response is actually required or people simply just need some health advice. For on-road paramedics, they also have referral pathways where transport to hospital may not be required. So the objective behind this is to get the best patient care, but also to assist with delays in our emergency departments.

Now, obviously, there's going to be complicating factors such as access to own private transport, the availability of alternate resources such as GPs and medical centres, and own willingness. So there's still a misconception out there that if you attend the ED in the back of an ambulance, you are going to get seen sooner. That is definitely not the case. Paramedics work tirelessly across the state during the pandemic, and that's how a lot of these changes actually came around. So obviously, in the Hawkesbury, we've had a fair share of our natural disasters over the past few years. During the Gospers Mountain bushfire, New South Wales Ambulance supported the Rural Fire Service with liaison officers at the fire control centre, Special Operations paramedics on the fireground to provide immediate medical support, plus ambulances on standby at various RFS stations to support firefighting activities around the clock in those high-risk areas.

During flooding of the Hawkesbury River, which we've seen a lot of, New South Wales Ambulance activates the Richmond Station BCP and sets up a temporary paramedic response point, or PRP, on the western side of the river. We move a pre-prepared medical cache, equipment, medication, vehicles and personnel to the PRP so that we can maintain service delivery. Previously, we had an agreement with St John of God Richmond, but due to their major renovations, we needed to find an alternate site that was appropriate. We're extremely grateful to Currajong Baptist Church, who we now have an agreement with, and we activated that in the last flood and it was extremely successful. The activation of this temporary PRP by New South Wales Ambulance is the same as when Fire and Rescue New South Wales or New South Wales Police Hawkesbury Station move their personnel and activate their equivalent BCPs and move to the other side of the river.

The New South Wales Ambulance Strategic Workforce and Infrastructure Team, or SWIFT, was established to oversee the implementation of the $1.76 billion investment from the New South Wales Government's 2022-23 budget to boost and transform frontline services with extra paramedics, new stations and hundreds of ambulances on the road. When this committee first invited us to speak, and it was quite a while ago, our roster at Richmond Station was two-day shift, one afternoon shift, one night shift and a volunteer on-call option. The station was a skills mix, which essentially meant that intensive care paramedics would not be reserved for high acuity incidents and the crews would respond to jobs on a job about rotation.

From the 4th of May 2024, Richmond Station received a SWIFT enhancement. So we onboarded a 12 extra paramedic permanent staff. We received two brand new vehicles and we have ongoing upgrades at Richmond Station. Our SWIFT enhancement roster is now two general duty crews on day shift, one on afternoon shift, one on night shift, and then we have a maintained intensive care paramedic crew on day shift and night shift. And we will see that the intensive care crew will normally be kept for that higher acuity work rather than a job about rotation. The voluntary on-call has now been removed from Richmond Station. The SWIFT team advised that modelling was undertaken by operational research in health for staffing and infrastructure requirements.

These were modelled based on current and future demand projections and identified where additional stations would provide the greatest improvement in response performance. The purchase of land in South Windsor means that we are one step closer to getting a second ambulance station in the Hawkesbury. The first I heard about the new station was when I read the article in the Hawkesbury Post. Our sector management, including Superintendent Shivers, were also not aware until this article was published. So, like many of you, I was surprised by the announcement and the location of the site. But this was made by a decision made by people with much more delegation than what I have. And as a member of the Hawkesbury community, as an inspector, I have expressed some concerns about the chosen site and the lack of consultation.

I even raised it again this morning and as yet, I am still here to get any feedback. In preparation for speaking with you today, I was provided with some data, which can be freely found on the Bureau of Health Information website, and I investigated the data further. The data is indicative of the differences in the number of incidents in the two statistical areas of the Hawkesbury suburbs. So, on the BHI, the Richmond Windsor SA incorporates the suburbs of Yarramundi, North Richmond, Richmond, Londonderry, South Windsor, Bligh Park, Berkshire Park and Windsor. From January 2022 until the most recent data collection of December 23, the Richmond Windsor SA had an average of 504 incidents per month, with roughly 39 incidents per 1,000 people.

The Hawkesbury Statistical Area covers a large geographical area. So from Kurrajong right up to Mount Wilson, Freemans Reach right through to Colo Heights, almost up to Putty, Ebenezer through to Higher Macdonald and up to Bucketty. The Hawkesbury SA had an average of 139 incidents per month and roughly five incidents per 1,000 people. I've recently been made aware that the Honourable Ryan Park, Health Minister, has communicated that New South Wales Ambulance Service planning has identified Bilpin as a location appropriate for an ambulance community emergency response team, or CERT. This requires extensive consultation and will be considered in future planning for volunteer services. Under a CERT model, members of communities can apply to be a New South Wales Ambulance clinical volunteer.

New South Wales Ambulance provides volunteers with a non-transport capable response vehicle and clinical equipment. Members are required to attend monthly training and will be responded to an incident to initiate clinical care until paramedics arrived. The CERT units are only established in locations New South Wales Ambulance has identified a need for a response capability. The paramedics of Richmond Station will continue to serve the Hawkesbury community despite the lingering fears from the pandemic, the stress of natural disasters, and the organisational and political decisions which impact in the way in which they work every day. We will continue to be involved in community events and share our experience and knowledge with others.

Us being involved in community events encourages the undertaking of the public to undertake first aid courses, learn CPR and download the GoodSAM app to assist with better outcomes in our community. I hope that I have addressed some of your concerns, and I'm definitely open to some questions. However, some of them I may not be able to answer because I simply do not have that information. But thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much, Ms. Tok, and you said your rank was Inspector? Inspector, yes, that's correct. I'd like to refer to you as Inspector. Thank you very much. Any questions, councillors? Councillors, Progno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ms. Tok? Yes. Inspector Tok. Yes. Thank you so much for coming. We share your concern about the announcement surrounding the location of South Windsor. It caught us all off guard, and I think it was very courageous for you to repeat that concern and to tell your own story here in a public forum. At previous briefings of this kind, we were promised in this chamber by your peers or predecessors the modelling that you've now cited, because we hear anecdotally about the response times for ambulance services on the other side of the river because of both distance and times of high congestion. And we were told that modelling is being done and that modelling could be provided.

Are you suggesting that that modelling is something that you have access to, or which is public data? Because we were never presented with the modelling, which means that our confidence in answering questions to the public to justify or question the location of South Windsor is opaque to us.

I'm not sure who you're referring to that has provided you with previous information saying that they could—

We were provided with promises, but not the data.

And sorry, do you recall who that may have been from? Was that from a representative that came and spoke at the meeting, or—

I believe so, but I would have to defer to staff and their collective memory to know who that might have been. But it was a while ago, and this was when the location of an extra ambulance station was a live question. And now that this South— I mean, it's not as though we don't welcome the investment. We're just questioning the rationale for the location. So your remarks were very interesting. Yeah

So I'm not sure who or what would have been said previously. The first I heard about this meeting, it was when I was invited several years ago, and due to unforeseen circumstances, that never occurred. I don't know of anyone who would have promised any data in modelling, because that's just not something that myself as an inspector or even Mr. Shivers as a superintendent actually get access to. The only data that I can have is some of our response times, but all of those are made for public knowledge, and that's, you know, in relation to response times as well as incidents in the local area. But I'm not sure who would have suggested that they could provide you with anything other than what I've provided you with today.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Any other questions? Councillor [unclear].

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for that inspector talk. My question was, with the model that you explained and the upgraded services, which I'm pleased to hear that you have, if the specialist paramedic crew, they're most likely to have to go out of area, aren't they? They're more likely to have to go to a trauma hospital. Are they replaced with another crew of equivalent experience?

Yes and no. So obviously they may be more likely to head down to Westmead as a major trauma centre. However, we obviously use helicopters a lot out here because of our location, and so that may be that, you know, if someone is that critically unwell that they may not need the intensive care paramedics; it may be more a helicopter. As far as the area coverage, it probably won't be the equivalent, but they are very aware of the geographical area that we cover and what we actually need to get intensive care paramedics to those outlying areas.

Thank you. The other question was just around this, the community setup you spoke about, about possibly at Bilpin. I gather that's a fair way off still, because that would involve training and decisions. But do you have any sort of timeframe idea on that?

Unfortunately, no. So I only was made aware of it recently, and it does take a lot. I know after the March 2021 floods, we actually provided some data in the hopes of maybe getting a similar model out at St Albans, because obviously they get cut off out there. At the time, the modelling didn't suggest that it was a viable option, but I do believe that things like this will take quite a while, and then obviously it's up to having enough community members to actually be involved and maintain it as well. But fingers crossed it does happen, because I think it would be great.

Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions?

Madam Mayor, on your indulgence, just a follow-up question. Ms. Tolk, Inspector Tolk, given your earlier remark, could I press you? Do you believe that the location selected at South Windsor is a mistake?

You don't have to answer that.

No, no, you don't have

To, but— I'm happy to

Answer it. There's obviously two situations here. As a member of the Hawkesbury community, I have an opinion. Whilst wearing my uniform, I have an opinion. And that's probably as much as what I can say.

Please, yeah, thank you. That's quite fine. Thank you, Inspector. Any further questions? No, thank you very much for your contribution. Appreciate that. Madam Mayor,

I've got a question.

Oh, sorry, I forget to look at the screen, Councillor. Sorry, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. It is really difficult juggling when someone's zoomed in. Thank you, Inspector. That's been really useful. I think an additional piece of data that we were after, and it was probably the previous term of Council where we first started asking for some of this data. I remember a notice of motion that came to us some time back, which was around time of access to care, which is a sticking point for that Hawkesbury sector of your operations where— and I think it followed an incident at Kurrajong where it took quite some time to get an ambulance on the ground. And I think, you know, one of the issues, and you mentioned it when you were speaking, is about getting people trained up so that they're capable of providing adequate first aid, particularly CPR in those instances.

And I think if we had some additional information about how long you're likely to wait for an ambulance, it's a bit of a sobering reality that makes people, I think, more conscious of needing to be more— needing to be better able to provide some care. You know, some care is always better than no care in a first aid situation, I think, but that time that— Time to care, I think, would be really helpful if that's at all possible. Thanks, I'll just stop there.

Thank you, Councillor, and thank you very much, Inspector. Appreciate it. Can I please have someone move the recommendation? Councillor Imprognosee and Councillor Reardon. Councillor Imprognosee.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I intend to move point 1 of the recommendation to receive the presentation and transform point 2, which was saying identify any matters for further action or resolution, to the following: that the response time data that was alluded to, and it was suggested that this is public data, be collated and presented to councillors. And point B of that is that we write to the relevant minister to ask for further information justifying the selection of the location at South Windsor.

Councillor Reardon, would you be happy to second that? Yes. Thank you. I'll just wait for the staff to get that up on the board, but I think we got the main feel of that, Councillor.

Yeah, so I'll just speak to it very briefly. I do have a recollection, I hope it's shared by my peers in the room here, that at some point we were promised that modelling data, and I don't think I'd have mentioned it unless I had that recollection. And when a decision like this is made, we're always caught. We welcome very warmly this substantial capital investment in a new facility, without a question. But then when there are understandable questions in the community and in the press about the selection of the location, we're caught short. Because we have a role to play to advocate for the community. And when we hear anecdotally about delays, sometimes extended delays in responding to calls for ambulance services up Bells Line of Road and in the hinterlands of our district, and then we hear about the selection of a site, I feel like we need to know more and to look at the data ourselves and to ask those decision makers, whoever the relevant minister or department is, to provide more information about what drove their selection of that site and whether a better decision could have been made.

Because we only make decisions of this type once a generation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. We support the fire brigade SCS, and the ambulances were taken pretty well for granted. It would seem that there’s going to be community support to further support the ambulance services that we have. And it might be appropriate for you to have discussions in that regard to be proactive rather than reactive down the track. Everything takes time, but I think that if there’s an opportunity to better our services with any direction or support that we might be able to give, I think it’s a great advantage to our community, especially in times of flood and on the other side of the river, and locations like we’ve spoken about at Bilpin and St Albans, they’re way out-of-the-way places.

I can’t see government spending great deals of money in those areas, but— There are areas where, in lots of times, that accidents and disasters happen a long way from home. And so maybe some discussion with you and the appropriate people may be prudent to look at some direction into the future that we might be able to assist.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I support the motion, and I thank Inspector Tolk for that really comprehensive update. I think that in this Council, we've had a series of resolutions over the years around ambulance provision. I think the Deputy Mayor some years ago had one about having an ambulance station west of the river, and I believe the response back then was that due to the type of operational model, which Inspector Tolk actually explained, that it wasn't a feasible option. However, the community and volunteer initiative may go some way in helping, and obviously the use of helicopters , which we often see having to go to accidents up in our outer regions. I think that I'm really pleased to see that we're getting this sort of information.

This is really what a disaster and emergency committee is good for, collating and giving us this information that we can then inform the public if they ask us, even though it's not our jurisdiction to be telling them anything about it. But we certainly should be following up on decisions that are made within our area that sound as if perhaps there hasn't been a high level of consultation around the specific location for that and whether that is the best place for an ambulance station, I don't know. With regard to what Councillor Zambrano said about the information, I know that some time ago I had a notice of motion requesting the response time data to be collected. I don't know that it was promised that we would get modelling.

I'm not sure, maybe it was, but I think at that time was when we were requesting to hear from ambulance personnel around this information. So I'm really pleased that we have heard that information. I'm pleased that— that they've had some positive upgrades to give them more staff and more vehicles. We all value the work they do, and I'm looking forward to getting some clarity around why we would be getting an ambulance station reasonably close to our existing one, and also if we can get that response time data, that would be really good.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. I've actually found, because I've got the benefit of sitting at home in front of my computer, I've found a Gazette article from 2014—sorry, yeah, from 2014—with a photo of a much younger Councillors Calvert and Lyons-Buckett calling for an ambulance station west of the river and for response time data, and it was following the incident with former Councillor Finch and how long it took the ambulance to get there. So this isn't a new issue for us in the Hawkesbury, and I think what's changed in those 10 years is the number of people who've moved not just to the Hawkesbury but to the areas surrounding the Hawkesbury, increasing pressure on services, but also increasing traffic pressure, which of course makes it much harder for an ambulance to get through.

I'm glad that concerns have been raised about the new station, particularly around the lack of consultation. It's concerning to hear the ambulance service say that they don't feel that they've been properly consulted, and I'm sorry if I'm verbaling the inspector there, but that appears to be what—that's what I feel like I've heard. I've got concerns about not just the placement of it so close to the existing station, but also the flood resilience and the road access for that station as well. We know that Macquarie Street goes under fairly quickly, and that there is problems moving around that area. In times of flooding, I think this, the CERT setup, it's almost like the ambulance equivalent of the RFS or the SES to a degree.

And I guess, you know, that sort of community empowerment, I think, is a good thing. I think we do need to be really careful, though, that we rely—we do rely heavily on volunteers in the Hawkesbury and stretching our population even thinner to provide what most people consider to be an essential service, certainly what people from areas closer in than the Hawkesbury consider to be an essential and mandatory service that is provided through their taxes by the state government. You know, as Sydney sucks the Hawkesbury in, we are increasingly falling behind with some of these service provisions. And I think as public representatives, we need to stand up to the state government and say that this isn't acceptable.

That's where I think the response time data is quite important. People in the city, people in the suburbs expect to be able to access an ambulance when they're ill. It's not unreasonable for people in the Hawkesbury to expect to access an ambulance when they're ill as well. We can't be a metropolitan council on all the measures that empower development that take away our rights as council, council laws that increase the costs to our residents, and then not be a metropolitan council in areas of safety and in public service provision. I really want to thank Inspector Talk for her frankness. I think that's a discussion that we really need to have as an LGA so that people know what they can expect and can prepare accordingly.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also want to thank the inspector for her presentation. It was very comprehensive, and yes, we have been waiting for a couple of years for us to be able to get together and listen to what the ambulance position is, and I thank her for that. I support the motion, but I'm just concerned about the word justify in point three. That sort of indicates that we have some kind of control, or it's up to us where the station is, and it sounds a bit arrogant, and it could lead to more arguments than we require. I'm just wondering whether the mover would like to write something like, write to the relevant minister and ask them to explain the process by which ambulance station locations are selected and whether local government is usually included in this process.

I'd be happy to accept that change of wording.

Councillor Reardon? Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Anyone else wishing to speak? I'll just briefly add a very small comment at the end and thank the inspector for coming. You clearly researched your speech today and thank you for providing that data to us. Thank you also for being frank. That information you provided about the changes at Richmond Station was news to us as well, so thank you. It's good to see on one hand the state government is making that investment where needed, and of course they are making that investment when it comes to the new site at South Windsor. But there is no doubt that as a chamber, we have resolved and advocated personally many times for an ambulance service west of the river. I'm seeing it referred to more now as north of the river, so whichever side of the river opposite to this side you want to call it, we do need that.

And when you look at the population based on that side, and I live in North Richmond. There's more people living there than some country towns in outback New South Wales that have their own ambulance service. So we really should not be denied that, and I think that as a local council and an advocacy body that we should certainly be advocating for that, and therefore I'll be supporting the motion on the board. Right of reply, Councillor Zemprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and it's gratifying to know that everybody here seems to be so fulsome in their agreement. I have family on the other side of the river, and they're frail, and I worry about, you know, how quickly help could arrive. And I'm sure many people are in our situation, in our family, knowing as we do that the peak hour crush now runs for many hours in the morning and many hours in the afternoon and into the evening. And if a person's life depended on an ambulance arriving quickly, and they had to make their way along the road through that crush, certainly means that we're on the right track in asking these questions. Thank you.

All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Wheeler. Those against? No. Absent from the room, Councillor Vaigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried. Thank you, everybody.

That is the end of the items on the business paper for this evening. I would again like to thank the personnel from our relevant agencies for giving up your free time tonight to come to this meeting. As you can see, it's very important for the 12 elected councillors and our staff here to have these meetings and discuss these issues because we are certainly an emergency prone LGA. So thank you for your time. Thank you, councillors, and I will call the meeting to an end at 5.36 p.m. Thank you.