Emergency Management Minister Bridget McKenzie has defended the government's chief disaster recovery bureaucrat, after he suggested inundated homes in flood-prone areas should not be rebuilt.
The opposition has responded that Shane Stone, the coordinator-general of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, should be sacked for "victim blaming" before flood waters have even receded.
Mr Stone told Nine Newspapers some flooded homes should not be rebuilt, and residents of flood-prone areas needed to "face realities".
He also suggested local governments stop making "poor planning decisions" around where homes were built.
Questioned on the comments this morning, Senator McKenzie said such a discussion was needed once the immediate disaster abated.
"These are sensible conversations to have following a natural disaster because we do have to make sure that we're making sensible data-based decisions that also build in future predictions around climatic conditions so that we can keep people safe," Senator McKenzie said.
Mr Stone is a former chief minister of the Northern Territory and federal president of the Liberal Party. He also headed the National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency.
Senator McKenzie said he took a direct approach to these kinds of issues.
"Mr. Stone is a straight shooter," she said.
"These will obviously be conversations that we'll be having as they are after each and every natural disaster."
Appearing on Sky News this morning, Mr Stone was asked whether some of his comments — particularly about people wanting to "live among gum trees" — were flippant.
Mr Stone was unapologetic.
"Nothing flippant about it at all," he told Sky News.
"We've got people in the bushfire zone wanting to go back and build exactly where they were before.
"I mean, seriously."
Labor says disaster chief must go
Some federal Labor politicians say Mr Stone has made his position untenable.
Labor senator Murray Watt suggested his comments were insensitive to those who had lost properties and livelihoods.
"Shane Stone should be sacked today," he said.
"Scott Morrison's mate and hand-picked disaster tsar blames flood victims for their hardship, saying they 'want to live among the gum trees'.
"They need our support right now.
"They don't deserve to be kicked by the man who is supposed to be helping them."
Senator Watt said the government instead should have used the multi-billion-dollar disaster fund it had been "sitting on".
