New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has vowed to be there “every step of the way” for flood-impacted communities like Moama.
Mr Perrottet, Deputy Premier Paul Toole and Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience and Minister for Flood Recovery Steph Cooke visited Moama on Wednesday to inspect challenges faced by the floods.
The premier was heartened by the response of the community to protect Blair St and Murray River Holiday Park.
“There’s about 200,000 sandbags that have been put together here,” he said.
“The 200,000 sandbags didn’t just happen themselves, they happened because the community came together to look after each other and that makes me proud to be Australian.”
Mr Toole echoed the premier’s sentiments, saying the story of community members protecting Moama was a story of resilience.
“To have more than 250 volunteers down here on site putting sandbags together to ensure we protect property was an outstanding effort,” he said.
“We know we are not out of the woods yet, we know that there is rainfall predicted but we also know that communities are doing everything they can possibly do to ensure we stop those floodwaters from impacting on homes, on businesses and on property.”
Currently there are funding allowances in place to support lost income, relief payments for property damage and concessional loans available for agricultural producers and non-government organisations.
While extra funding has not yet been announced, the premier said discussions with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had already taken place and his government had already applied for 'Category C' clean-up and recovery grants.
“I’m continuing to work closely with the Prime Minister for further state and federal funding that I expect to say more about shortly,” he said.
The premier said he would be speaking to Mr Albanese later today to ask for 'Category D' assistance, which is for exceptional circumstances when assessing damage.
Mr Perrottet said some of the challenges and financial issues that businesses and families would have to face would not be apparent until those assessments were completed.
“We are focused right now on the immediate response. We still have rising rivers here and we also expect a very challenging summer,” he said.
“But we will be here for the long haul – through the short, medium and long term.”
In addition to providing financial support, Mr Perrottet said the Department of Education would be giving special consideration to any student from a flood-impacted community undertaking HSC exams.
There are currently more than 700 activated SES personnel across the state of the NSW.
Of those, 150 are currently being housed at the Deniliquin base camp.
Ms Cooke said as soon as floodwaters receded emergency service personnel would be able to conduct the rapid damage assessments and get communities back on their feet as quickly as possible.
“We will not abandon the people of Moama,” she said.
“We will make sure that houses are washed down, cleaned out, that homes are assessed and that they’re safe to return to – and if they are not safe to return to, we will support people with accommodation.
“We will continue to be with people well into the future. We are still active and on the ground in the Northern Rivers region in places like Lismore every single day because we know how important it is to look after people in these times.”
Mr Perrottet thanked the uniformed emergency volunteers and non-uniformed volunteers for being “true heroes”.
“If the spirit here is anything to go by, we’re going to get through this as we always have and we’ll come out stronger the other side,” he said.
Once floodwaters recede, the premier said his government would be investigating how to make Moama more resilient to floods.
He mentioned there would be a significant operation required to repair road and transport infrastructure.