The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has welcomed the New South Wales government's decision to stop developing homes in flood-prone areas of Sydney's north west.
Minister for Western Sydney Pru Car and Minister for Planning Paul Scully said in The Sunday Telegraph that the NSW government made the decision to protect families and businesses from future devastating floods, making it the first tangible decision by a state government in response to the agreement by National Cabinet in 2022 that “the days of developing floodplains need to end.”
Backing the NSW government's decision to halt further development in floodplains, ICA CEO Andrew Hall said the move is a significant shift in making NSW safer and improving its risk profile.
“The Minns government should be commended for taking such a critical decision which will put the safety and wellbeing of future Western Sydney communities first above all other demands,” he said. “Insurers appreciate that Sydney is grappling with a housing crisis as the population surges, but repeating mistakes of the past through poor planning decisions would only condemn future generations to trauma and financial loss through devastating flood events while placing further pressure on all insurance premiums.”
Hall said that Western Sydney is widely known as one of Australia's most exposed and high-risk flood areas due to the topography of the Hawkesbury Nepean basin.
“To have allowed developments to proceed in these areas in full knowledge of the flood risk would have been unforgivable,” he said. “It was never a question of whether these areas may flood; the science, data, and modelling show we know they will flood – to put further housing in these areas of unmitigated flood risk would have been a terrible strategy.”
The NSW government's decision follows calls from the ICA and other peak bodies for strengthening the controls around developments on high-risk flood plains.
The ICA has also been calling for the strengthening of the National Construction Code to make new homes more resilient to extreme weather.
