NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says it is "not good enough" that nearly nine out of 10 applications for recovery assistance have yet to be paid out almost two months on from the state's devastating floods.
Mr Perrottet blamed the federal government for the backlog of applications, with thousands of residents and businesses still waiting to receive grant money.
A budget estimates hearing at state parliament today heard that, according to the latest data, just over 13,000 applications had been submitted by small businesses in flood-affected areas for grants of up to $50,000.
Of those, 1,279 have been paid out and 8,180 remain under assessment.
Flood-ravaged communities waiting on rental support payments are facing similar delays.
Residents of "highly-impacted suburbs" can apply for a one-off payment to help with short-term accommodation bookings.
The government has approved 1,107 applications out of 7,311, while 4,460 have been deemed ineligible.
The rest are still to be processed.
The total value of the submitted applications for rental support payments is about $70 million.
Labor MLC Penny Sharpe said the government was repeating the mistakes made following the Black Summer bushfires on the South Coast, where the recovery had been hampered by bureaucratic red tape.
"Are we learning nothing throughout this?", she queried.
Mr Perrottet conceded processing times were not "good enough", and blamed the federal government for a lack of "flexibility".
"These programs have been jointly funded between the state and Commonwealth, and the guidelines that are in place, I believe, lack flexibility at a Commonwealth government level, and I've raised that with the Prime Minister," he said.
A spokesperson from the office of the Federal Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience, Bridget McKenzie, said the federal government had addressed Mr Perrottet's concerns in the case of small business grants.
"On 4 April, the Prime Minister agreed to a request from the NSW Premier for greater flexibility in the application process for $50,000 recovery grants to make it easier for business owners to access funding," the spokesperson said.
Ms McKenzie's office said the Commonwealth had agreed to co-fund well over $2 billion in assistance following the NSW floods.
"The NSW government is solely responsible for administering the grants funded under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements and for reporting on the uptake of grants, as well as putting in place appropriate measures to address non-compliance and fraud," the spokesperson said.
Mr Perrottet was pressed on why residents in Blacktown and Penrith had been excluded from a scheme offering one-off payments of $20,000 to restore flood-damaged homes to a habitable condition.
Both suburbs have been listed as being 'highly impacted' by the floods.
The Premier said he was "very happy to look at" why the suburbs were not included.
The Hawkesbury, in addition to seven local government areas in the Northern Rivers, are covered in the scheme.
