Shane Fitzsimmons defends Resilience NSW’s billion dollar budget
The $1.4 billion budget for state agency Resilience NSW is more than that of the Rural Fire Service and the State Emergency Service combined.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Embattled Resilience NSW commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons has defended his agency’s massive $1.4 billion budget as devastated flood-hit residents across the state slam the government‘s slow response to the catastrophe.
Resilience NSW had not even updated its social media feed on its website, supposed to be carrying crucial up-to-date information, since October last year until alerted on Monday by The Daily Telegraph.
The budget for Resilience NSW for 2000 to 2021 is more than that of the Rural Fire Service - $650,053,000 - and the State Emergency Service - $165,365,000 - combined.
Resilience NSW has been criticised at the height of the disastrous flooding by MPs who say they have no idea what the agency actually does but the former RFS chief Mr Fitzsimmons yesterday said most of his budget went on disaster response grants and other grants.
“The criticism that is going on around my budget, 90 per cent of that money goes on grants that are allocated through agencies,” he said on Tuesday.
“The disaster component of our budget goes up and down with events. If we have a quiet year, our budget will be a lot lower.”
The agency was created by former premier Gladys Berejiklian to replace the Office of Emergency Management. Mr Fitzsimmons said his role was State Emergency Recovery Controller and chair of the State Emergency Management Committee.
.
He said he was not in charge of the response phase of major disaster operations.
That job at the moment was done by SES Commissioner Carlene York, he said.
Unlike the RFS with 70,000 volunteers and the SES with 10,000 volunteers, Mr Fitzsimmons said: “I am small co-ordination agency with about 230 co-ordinators.”
He said he planed to have the “first iteration” of a state resilience strategy before the government by the middle of the year.
“The past 18 months, our primary focus has been in continuing and leading the bushfire recovery,” Mr Fitzsimmons, who was appointed to head the new agency in May 2020, said.
He said he advised on declaring natural disaster areas which had included 45 local government areas since February 22 but the agency’s main role was to co-ordinate and lead a whole of government approach to disaster recovery and resilience.
“What can we start doing now to plan better resilience,” he said.
Mr Fitzsimmons said the stark reality may be that building more levees or raising the heights of existing levees may not be the “magic bullet” and the disaster recovery would include considering if people should be allowed to build in low-lying areas.
The Daily Telegraph posed a series of questions to Resilience NSW on Monday. It replied more than 36 hours later.
It denied its website had not been updated until this week. It said that in the previous financial year, $637 million, or 88.3 per cent of its budget “relates to the Disaster Relief Account for Disaster Response grants.
“These grants are paid to NSW Government agencies (RAA/EPA/RNSW) and local councils,” it said.
More Coverage
Drivers win as Minns bans ticketless parking fines
Councils will be forced to go back to leaving a note - or a sticker - when stinging motorists for illegal parking.
‘Megaphone of the left’: Backlash against ABC fake news
The ABC is under fire over ‘fake’ gunshots added to a story about serious war crime allegations by Australian soldiers, as a former chairman of the national broadcaster accuses it of being a ‘self-serving collective’.