Perrottet puts raising of Warragamba Dam wall on floods agenda

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing the Albanese government to commit to raising the Warragamba Dam wall in a 50-50 joint funding split, as community anger grows at inaction over Sydney’s disastrous floods.

Flooding in and around Singleton during a survey by helicopter by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience and Minister for Flood Recovery Steph Cooke. Picture: David Swift

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing the Albanese government to commit to raising the Warragamba Dam wall in a 50-50 joint funding split, as community anger grows at inaction over Sydney’s disastrous floods.

Demands to raise the dam wall to protect homes downstream have intensified this week as evacuated residents begin to ­return to homes flooded for the second time in four months.

Rain has eased across most of the state but at least 80 evacuations orders and warnings affecting more than 40,000 people remain in place. Another 75 communities – about 50,000 people – have been told they can “return with caution”.

Mr Perrottet toured the Hunter region on Friday, where floodwaters have cut off areas around major towns including Maitland and Singleton.

He said talks with the Morrison government about the Warragamba Dam project before the federal election had been “very positive” and that the proposal would meet the criteria for a 50-50 arrangement given its scale.

Those talks would continue with the Albanese government.

“Obviously the new government has just been sworn in, so they’ve got to get across the brief, but we’ll work through them ­because it’s an important project,” Mr Perrottet said.

“The Prime Minister has said he wants to engage with us in ­relation to this project and understand how we can work together on it. It’s a complicated project that has sat too long in the too hard basket.

“It’s obviously a very expensive project; it’s a complex project in relation to engineering and there are obviously environmental and planning issues that need to be dealt with at both a state and federal level but ultimately we’ve said we want this project to be completed and we’ve asked the federal government for a 50-50 funding arrangement.”

The cost of raising the wall 14m is believed to have doubled from earlier projections to $1.6bn. The proposal cannot go ahead without federal environmental planning approval.

Mr Albanese has made no commitment to the project and NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns has expressed great scepticism about its viability.

Mr Minns said on Friday that the cost of the project had blown out from $650m and the government had not set any money aside for it in this year’s budget.

“After 12 years in office, if this is an urgent need, I’d hate to see what something on the backburner looks like,” Mr Minns said.

Money was better spent on upgrading evacuation routes and limiting development on the floodplain, he said.

An aerial view of flooding in and around Maitland. Picture: David Swift

Independent NSW MP Justin Field, who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into the proposal, urged Mr Perrottet to take a ­closer look at alternatives to the dam wall raising.

He said the project could not stop inevitable major floods in the Hawkesbury-Nepean and would only contribute to a false sense of security for residents while destroying significant World Heritage areas in the Blue Mountains and irreplaceable Aboriginal cultural heritage.

Weather conditions will improve across NSW in coming days but the Bureau of Meteorology said a trough of low pressure would move up the NSW coast overnight on Saturday and on Sunday morning bringing fresh to strong south-easterly winds and driving very heavy surf from the southeast.

Rain and cold weather are likely to return to Sydney on Sunday, but are not likely to exacerbate flooding. Light snow falls are also expected across the Australian Alpine region this weekend.