‘Fatal flaw’: Waleed slams PM’s flood reaction

Waleed Aly has slammed Scott Morrison’s slow response to the devastating floods – saying it highlights the PM’s “fatal flaw”.

Waleed Aly has slammed Scott Morrison’s slow response to the devastating floods – saying it highlights the PM’s “fatal flaw”.

Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, The Project host said Mr Morrison’s comment while touring flood-ravaged Lismore that it was “just an obvious fact that Australia is getting hard to live in because of these disasters” was an “astonishing admission”.

“It glosses over the decades we’ve wasted in this country disputing the reality of climate change,” Aly wrote.

“Here, Morrison is speaking an important truth. It’s just that it has come a decade late, and only once political realities had nudged the Coalition sufficiently that it felt compelled to adopt a net zero target.”

Aly argued that the comment captures the “most confounding quirk” of this government, which is not that “it is almost always wrong”.

“It’s that it is often right, but only after refusing to be for so long, and for no apparent reason,” he wrote.

Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg, National Recovery and Resilience Minister Bridget Mckenzie and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Lismore City Council Chambers on Wednesday. Picture: Nicholas Rupolo

He said the past two years of rolling disasters had exposed that trait – citing the slowness to build dedicated Covid-19 quarantine facilities and the vaccine rollout delays.

“Now, Morrison’s big announcement is to declare the current floods in NSW and Queensland a national emergency, but to do it some nine days into the catastrophe,” he said.

“The Australian assumption is that when something’s important, government will be there to do what’s necessary. And what could be more important than a natural disaster? In a country like that, and in a moment like this, the things a government cannot be is sluggish or absent.”

Mr Morrison was forced to defend the federal government’s flood response this week at a stinging press conference in Lismore, where flood waters rose to 14.4m.

“No one expected to get to those levels,” he said.

“What we’re dealing with here is an extraordinary event. Australia’s becoming a harder country to live in because of these natural disasters. It’s just an obvious fact.”

He added the government does recognise the impact of climate change and pointed to the actions taken to address it.

Scott Morrison inspects flood damage at the Norco Ice Cream Factory in Lismore, NSW, on a visit to flood devastated regions in northern NSW where he declared a national emergency. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

But he acknowledged flood mitigation works that would “save people” in flood events “hadn’t been done”.

Meanwhile, outside the press conference venue, protesters lined the street with placards calling for further climate action.

In his first public event since being cleared of Covid-19, the Prime Minister outlined an additional tranche of support, including $25m for emergency relief and $31 million for long term mental health support.

Residents of three councils classed as “catastrophe zones” will be granted two additional weeks of disaster payments, worth $1000 per adult and $400 per child.

Mr Morrison faced backlash after it was revealed visits with locals who had been impacted by the floods were off limits to the media.

The Prime Minister was quick to downplay suggestions it was done to avoid a repeat of the brutal reception he received during the Black Summer bushfires.

Instead, Mr Morrison said he wanted to pay his respects privately.

— with NCA NewsWire

Originally published as ‘Fatal flaw’: Waleed slams PM’s flood reaction