Flood Recovery – Working Together

17 March 2022

With the Hawkesbury community having been hit once again by flood, this time far worse than March 2021, the Mayor of Hawkesbury, Councillor Patrick Conolly has called for unity and real leadership in flood recovery, saying “we need help from our Federal and NSW governments, not a pile on”.

The comments were made in response to criticism from Federal Member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, that Council staff didn’t complete the recovery fast enough following last year’s flood.

“Council was left to deal with an extremely complicated and extensive recovery following the March 2021 flood, which involved local roads, bridges, parks, flood mitigation infrastructure and community buildings. Our staff have been working so hard over the past 12 months, it is greatly disappointing to see the blame game started by Susan,“ Mayor Conolly said.

“I explained to Susan in April 2021 that we needed more support with project management, given the scale of the disaster we had been left to manage.

“Since then I haven’t had an email, a phone call, a letter or any other contact from Susan about the drainage issue at Cornwallis, or heard any advocacy from Susan for Council to be helped with the recovery.

“So to hear now that this will become a political point-scoring exercise is very disappointing. Our community deserves better. Most of our staff live here in the Hawkesbury and they come to work wanting to help every day.  It is obvious to me that they care deeply about our community which is their community – they don’t want to be attacked by their local MP just because there is a federal election coming up,” Mayor Conolly said.

“Some of the most challenging infrastructure to rebuild has been the Upper Colo Bridge, Greens Road and the Cornwallis drainage assets. Following the flood, Council completed damage assessments and a scope and timeline for the work, which was communicated to the community.

“We have held a number of community meetings with each of the effected areas, and provided weekly email updates to keep the community informed of our progress,” he said.

“I want to work together with all levels of government on the recovery. I reached out to Susan Templeman and our NSW State Member for Hawkesbury, Robyn Preston earlier this week to organise a recurring regular forum for the three of us to work through the challenges of the flood recovery,” the Mayor said.

“Now is not the time to fracture and fall back into old political divides – the community expects true leadership from its elected officials, and that means working together, so I hope this can be our way forward.”