A reconstruction authority will be established in New South Wales to replace part of Resilience NSW in an overhaul of the state’s emergency management after unprecedented flooding earlier this year.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, will announce the new body in Lismore on Wednesday, when he formally responds to the recommendations made by the NSW chief scientist, Mary O’Kane, and former police commissioner Mick Fuller after their probe into the February and March disasters.
The body – a key recommendation of the inquiry – will become the state’s lead agency responsible for disaster prevention and recovery will be similar to the one established in Queensland after the deadly 2010/11 floods across the northern state.
More than two dozen recommendations were handed to the government as part of the mammoth report just over a fortnight ago, and all have been supported in part or full.
SES management was criticised and changes will be made to the agency as a result, but Perrottet on Tuesday said that was not about the volunteers.
“It would be completely wrong to form a view that there’s fault on the SES in relation to this review,” he said.
“The recommendations that we will announce shortly and the changes that we will make enhance our frontline.”
The government is also expected to propose a land buy-back scheme for severely flood affected areas including low-lying parts of Lismore where hundreds of homes were inundated and people were rescued from off their roofs.
Residents in those areas said they felt like their lives had been on hold while the government considered if the most severely affected parts of the town should rebuilt or scrapped and buybacks offered for those who wanted to sell their devalued and gutted homes.
Future flood mitigation measures will also feature in the response, with Perrottet to make the case for raising the Warragamba Dam, which the report is said to find was the infrastructure option “predicted to have the single largest impact on flood mitigation”.
Many experts have previously expressed concerns about such a proposal.
A case study included in the report predicted by 2041, a 1-in-1000 year flood would see 46,000 in the area fail to evacuate and “could result in hundreds of fatalities” in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.
It found raising the dam wall could delay the flooding of key infrastructure including the Windsor Bridge by 11 hours.
A proposal to raise the dam wall is already under consideration by the state government.
The government’s and agency responses to the flood rescue and recovery across the state have been widely panned – with Resilience NSW found to be bureaucratic and ineffective.
Perrottet is also expected to announce the dismantling of the troubled disaster agency just two years after it was formed by former premier, Gladys Berejiklian, after the black summer bushfires.
The agency – headed by former Rural fire service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons – has been widely criticised and a seperate inquiry into the floods recommended it be abandoned.
In June, Fitzsimmons defended the agency’s work this year but said it was not a “24-hour organisation”.
Despite significant funding announcements for housing initiatives since March, Guardian Australia on Tuesday revealed almost six months on from the floods, fewer than 60 emergency housing pods are being occupied in northern NSW.
Perrottet intends to introduce legislation to establish the new emergency body and to have it up and running before the end of the year.
The reconstruction authority will take responsibility for managing and coordinating the government’s housing and infrastructure recovery in disaster‐affected communities.
It will be charged with working with at-risk communities, councils and the private sector to improve disaster adaptation.
The body will have to find funds from state, federal and philanthropic sources, as well as ensure the money is spent efficiently, effectively, and equitably.
