The Sauce: Talkfest over action: NSW Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin’s top aide takes flight during flood crisis

In the week flood victims were abandoned by red tape, NSW Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin’s top staffer jetted to Melbourne for an “Emergency Management and Public Affairs” talkfest.

Floodwaters on the Mid-North Coast of NSW isolated the community of Smithtown, near Kempsey.

The first rule of crisis communication is to be at the coalface during an emergency – not so, it seems, for NSW Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin’s chief of staff.

In the week that flood victims were abandoned by bureaucratic red tape, Saffin’s top staffer Jeremy Hillman jetted down to Melbourne for an “Emergency Management and Public Affairs” talkfest.

Jeremy Hillman. Picture: NewsWire/Steve Gosch

The two-day EMPA conference was billed as featuring the who’s who in the disaster response comms world. Hillman opened the conference in his capacity as EMPA chair – something he declared to Saffin’s office when he started.

We’re told Hillman paid his own way, was there for a day, and the office was “very happy” the boss was able to attend the conference.

We understand Hillman spent five days the week prior in flood ravaged Mid-North Coast, and visited the Hunter on Monday. Discussions on the day Hillman attended included “Social Media, Strategy and Saving the Day”.

Bad C-Hair Day

While union and business leaders were frantically lobbying MPs ahead of a vote on whether to tighten workers compensation rules, members of parliament’s Upper House were preoccupied with a poll of a different kind.

A flurry of emails on Wednesday night, leaked to The Sauce, has revealed members are deeply divided on the weighty issue of selecting new office chairs – and how it could impact pollies’ hairdos.

Members had been asked for their thoughts on five seating options to replace old chairs in committee rooms.

MPs were given five options for new chairs in NSW Parliament. Picture: Supplied

There were a number of votes for a high-backed number, including from Labor’s Stephen Lawrence, who told colleagues he enjoys “leaning back in a contemplative fashion while engaged in committee work”.

But in a considered contribution, cross bencher Taylor Martin noted concerns that the chair might mess up MP’s hair styles.

“The long utilised chairs have always been quite the issue in our hearings,” he wrote. His favoured option was chair number two, which he said “comes in the nice ‘Eames’ style, in keeping with the style of the period in which this heritage listed building beholds”.

Not everyone appeared to be taking the matter as seriously. Labor’s Mark Buttigieg suggested parliament hold an official inquiry: “The only question is who will be the chair?”

Home truths

Former ministers who had their private addresses leaked in a catastrophic privacy breach by government bureaucrats have been told “human error” was to blame.

The Premier’s Department accidentally released home addresses of former ministers during the fallout of the ministerial drivers scandal that scalped Jo Haylen as Transport Minister.

In a milquetoast update last week, The Cabinet Office told those impacted that they published the wrong files online, after creating two separate files – one containing the addresses, and one with that information redacted.

Linda Silmalis is on leave

Originally published as The Sauce: Talkfest over action: NSW Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin’s top aide takes flight during flood crisis