Federal and State Disaster Response.

[nomadpete]

This whole issue is not unique to Disaster Management.

 

It has long beed a stumbling block to all organisations.

 

There is a massive lucrative industry supplying management training that if actually applied, overcomes many of the pitfalls noted in this thread.

 

Before attending many training love-ins, I had a admin assistant mentor who was ex military, and a great asset. He taught me much about getting results.

 

Favorite sayings;-

 

"It's more important to know how to work the system, than to simply work within the system"

 

"At the end of the day, It's only a stroke of the pen away"

 

"When stock runs low, order N+1"

 

"When you know something must be done, better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. If done right, be happy when your boss takes the credit for your success."

 

"Your manager's real job is to help you to make him look good"

 

Managers at all levels frequently fear being seen to allow initiative as they view it as think it is a sign of weakness.

[Old Koreelah]

Today is Siblings Day, so I phoned a sister who nurses in Lismore.

Her hospital has 66 staff whose homes have been inundated- twice. They still turn up to do their vital work, which speaks volumes about their dedication.

Some have ripped out internal walls and live in a tent erected in their ruined homes.

 

Many worked their heart out cleaning up after the first flood and spent up large on gyprock, etc for repairs, only to see it all washed away in the second flood. That broke a few. There is a crying need for some government leadership (like Whitlam instigated after Darwin’s Cyclone Tracy). We need a high-profile project to prevent this mess happening again.
We need to relocate the most flood-prone parts of towns like Lismore and stop councils and government from allowing urban development in known flood areas.

 

[old man emu]

Undeveloped flood-prone land is cheap to buy. That's why developers buy it, then coerce Councils to change the zoning. It's a simple application of "buy low; sell high"

[nomadpete]

54 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

We need to relocate the most flood-prone parts of towns like Lismore and stop councils and government from allowing urban development in known flood areas.

Therin lies the problem.

The councils are the bodies who carry the responsibility to approve the development approvals (DA) to build. Anywhere.

 

I fully lay the blame for these flood disasters upon the local councils.

 

They all have flood maps.

 

Yet they still allow development (housing) in known high risk locations.

 

It actually is not fair to expect State or Federal governments to pay out restitution to flood affected victims. Considering it was the local councils that approved these homes to be constructed in known high risk flood areas.

 

These councils caused the pproblem. So they should be responsible for the expenses incurred to fix it. If that means a buyback and relocation of affected homes that they approved, so be it.

Edited April 14, 2022 by nomadpete
spellmess

[Marty_d]

While I agree with you 100% OK, it's unlikely to happen while developers funnel money to governments.  Any piece of real estate, whether it's at risk of going underwater or not, is fair game.

Add in the already unaffordable cost of housing and desperate punters will still pay over the odds even if they knew it was on a flood plain.

[spacesailor]

Not only letting developers run amok, 

BUT

They have the audacity to make council , Change the zoning, to a dencity (  low residential ), for flats to be built with ON STREET parking. 

( Medium & mixed  ).

Imagine 80 flats two cars per unit,  thats 150 cars cramed into a road were half that number will be blocking driveway,s of every one else.

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

Therin lies the problem.

The councils are the bodies who carry the responsibility to approve the development approvals (DA) to build. Anywhere.

 

I fully lay the blame for these flood disasters upon the local councils…

I fully agree, but most local governments are already short of a quid, given state governments’ cost-shifting and rate-pegging. Thus, local councils will never have the resources (or the will) to fix this recurring problem.

 

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

…Add in the already unaffordable cost of housing and desperate punters will still pay over the odds even if they knew it was on a flood plain.

In my SES days we door-knocked in low-lying areas when a flood was imminent. Residents tended to be shocked and unprepared; they hadn’t experienced a flood. Afterwards, they upped stakes, leaving a vacancy for the next unsuspecting renter.
We don’t leave fire safety to market forces, so why floods?

 

Leadership and resources needed at a national level.

[Jerry_Atrick]

The other thing about building in flood prone areas is that the natural soils and surfaces, and drainage are interfered with, with often non-porous materials that further exacerbate the floods.

 

Making the councils pay for it is, in some respects, robbing Peter to pay Paul.. it will eventually come out of taxpayers' pockets regardless of who does it.

What is needed is an overhaul of the planning system to disallow this further development in flood plains, catchments, etc. In fact, ultimately, if an insurer won't insure for flooding, then it shouldn't allowed to be developed.

 

Councils in both Aus and UK are some of the most corrupt institutions I have seen (maybe Turboplanner from rec flying has a different view - but, again, look at Casey, some of the Western Sydney councils, Brisbane coastal councils, etc.. and even the council that oversees where my mother lives is known to be frugal with law enforcement when it affects only certain businesses in the area).. So, since they can literally determine if a parcel of land has its natural value or its value artificially inflated because it suddenly has permission to develop on, that if councillors or council management are derelict in their duty, they can be both criminally and civilly liable - and by civilly, I mean their assets can be seized to help pay for restitution or in the case of allowing development in flood plains, etc, relocation (if they are the decision makers and made/voted for the decision). And, yes, it won't pay for the lot, but you would suddenly see not so many be on the take.

 

(p.s. and they could pursue assets gifted away, or would ordinarily be in their posession - e.g. 1/2 the family home if it is in the wife's name, unless it was in the wife#s name before they were, say married, or had met, or where it could be properly asserted she purchased and paid for it herself).

[old man emu]

11 hours ago, nomadpete said:

The councils are the bodies who carry the responsibility to approve the development approvals (DA) to build.

And following the floods, the building standards will be changed, making it impossible for those whose properties have been damaged to repair or rebuild them. Their land will only be useful for recreation or grazing.

 

Could cities like Lismore be relocated? Well, going by the channel of the Wilsons River, it appears that Lismore is built on the valley floor, and higher ground is some distance away. That higher ground is already owned, so just to obtain the land for development would cost billions. Then there are the trillions involved in infrastructure  and construction. Maybe some millions could be spent digging a flood mitigation channel to direct the river around Lismore so that the amount of water going along the natural channel through the town would be reduced. That's an idea that could be investigated to see if it was viable.

[nomadpete]

I think that the root cause is corrupt association between developers and councils.

For instance, years back I lived in a seaside location that had a building covenant restricting the height of buildings. This was in an effort to basically prevent ending up like the Gold Coast where afternoon sun doesn'reach the beach due to the 'fence' of high rise seaside apartments.

Allegedly, the council attracted new aldermen who had more liberal views about development. It was said that council was 'stacked' long enough to pass changes to the town planning. After which these aldermen promptly left the council.

Developers promptly got approval for high rise buildings.

 

Accountability would help improve council integrity. There is currently no way to hold suspicious dealers to account.

 

Transparency would improve accountability.

 

An independant anticorruption watchdog would help provide true transparency.

 

[nomadpete]

Two separate things are being discussed here

 

1:  How to fix the flood risk properties, and how to pay for that.

 

2:  How to prevent further building on flood prone land.

 

 

[old man emu]

2 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Two separate things are being discussed here

 

1:  How to fix the flood risk properties, and how to pay for that.

 

2:  How to prevent further building on flood prone land.

 

 

Are these concurrent topics, or sequential? And if sequential, what is the order of completion?

[Marty_d]

1 minute ago, nomadpete said:

Two separate things are being discussed here

 

1:  How to fix the flood risk properties, and how to pay for that.

 

2:  How to prevent further building on flood prone land.

 

 

1. Live without a submarine fleet, buy out properties on the flood plains.

2. Commonwealth acquires the land because they've just bought it all.  Turn it into national parks, solar/wind farms (on raised supports), or give it back to indigenous Australians.    

[nomadpete]

It's only money.

It only takes a stroke if a pen.

Just look how easily our government can commit $420 million to the barrier reef, or all the pork barrels.

 

Oh, wait..... Are these floods in a marginal seat?

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by nomadpete

[onetrack]

I don't really understand how all this floodplain development and consequent flooding in the Eastern States, came about. It really warrants a Royal Commission.

 

Here in the "backward" West, the main river that flows through Perth and Fremantle is the Swan River. But - we have had a Swan River Conservation Board, which became the Swan River Management Authority, then the Swan River Trust - and now the Trust has been absorbed into the Dept of Parks and Wildlife. The Trust is a statutory body that advises the Govt and local authorities on development affecting the Swan River.

 

Most importantly, we have Acts that control development around our major and minor rivers. We have a Development Control Area outlined along the Swan River, and any development affecting the Swan River has to undergo rigorous examination to see if it alters River flows or Flood Levels. We have a "100 year flood" floodplain level that used to be a concrete limit as to where you could build. You could not build on the floodplain, below the 100 yr flood level, under any circumstances.

 

But then, people in the upper reaches of the Swan River wanted to build on the floodplain, right on the rivers edge - so they produced these development proposals to build their houses on elevated platforms above the 100 yr flood level.

They got away with this - fair enough. The houses are very unlikely to go under, and if these house owners want to take the risk of their house being isolated during a flood, well, that's the calculated risk they take. They could always boat in and out of the house during a flood, I guess.

 

But - then came another twist. Some of these people owning floodplain land adjoining the River, wanted to build houses on sand pads, that elevated their houses above the 100 yr flood level. That was a much cheaper option to building a house on concrete or metal stilts. So a few of these people got approval to build with this technique.

 

Suddenly, someone with a bit of nous on the Swan River Trust woke up - a row of houses built on joined sand pads along the river front floodplain, meant that a defacto LEVEE BANK was being built along the river - thus leading to flood flow restrictions and increased height of flood levels upstream. So the SRT put an end to that building technique along the River front.

 

The SRT is not the best system one can devise - it's only an advisory body, and time after time, development proposals that were knocked back by councils, then knocked back by the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority, were going to the final step, and appealing to the Minister, to allow their single development approval to proceed. Time after time, the Minister over-rode all the previous knockbacks, and allowed the development to proceed - much to the anger of councils and other Authorities that had all refused the development.

 

And this is where every system falls down - when the final approval of development can be allowed or disallowed, by just a single person, or a very small number of people, in positions of control or power. The only system that works is when a sizeable independent panel is authorised to approve or disapprove development, and their decision is binding, with no appeal.

The greatest single problem centred around floodplain development is the attractiveness to local councils and Govt authorities, of increased population densities, that brings in more money for all, and which makes infrastructure costs easier for them to bear.

 

https://www.swan.wa.gov.au/Services-support/Property-land/Maps-zoning-subdivision-structure-and-local-development-plans/Aerial-and-zoning-maps/Swan-River-Trust-Development-Control-Area

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by onetrack

[old man emu]

59 minutes ago, onetrack said:

I don't really understand how all this floodplain development and consequent flooding in the Eastern States, came about.

It's called 'HISTORY", when things were just done, without the guiding hand of real estate developers.

 

The British history of the city begins in c. 1843: a pastoral run covering an area of 93 square kilometres (36 sq mi) was taken up by Captain Dumaresq at this time covering the Lismore area. In January 1845, William and Jane Wilson took it over. The Wilsons were Scottish immigrants, who arrived in New South Wales in May 1833. Mrs. Wilson named the property after the small island of Lismore, one of the Inner Hebrides in Loch Linnhe, Argyllshire.

 

In 1855, the surveyor Frederick Peppercorne was instructed by Sir Thomas Mitchell to determine a site for a township in the area. Peppercorne submitted his map of the proposed village reserve on 16 February 1856.The chosen site was William Wilson's homestead paddock and the area was proclaimed the "Town of Lismore" in the NSW Government Gazette on 1 May 1856. The township was soon settled and its post office was opened on 1 October 1859.  Despite its low-lying position and propensity for flooding (which was to cause problems in subsequent times), Lismore developed as an inland port owing to its location at the highest navigable point for large cargo-carrying vessels on the north arm of the Richmond, later renamed the Wilsons, River.