While the state government has announced an independent expert inquiry into the 2019-20 bushfire season, the NSW Labor leader wants to ensure the voices of those affected by the crisis are front and centre during the process.
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The six-month inquiry will review the causes of, preparation for and response to the recent bushfires.
"This inquiry will allow NSW to learn from this season and the catastrophic conditions we've faced, and apply these learnings for the future," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Speaking from Quaama on Thursday, Labor's Jodi McKay welcomed the expert panel established by the government, but said she was not supportive of how the inquiry only called for written submissions from the public and would not travel or be an "open, transparent inquiry" so residents of fire-affected regions could have the opportunity to have their say.
"I don't think that written submissions to an expert panel based in Sydney is appropriate at all," she said.
"These fires have occurred in regional NSW.
"Areas right across the state that have been impacted by these ferocious fires deserve the right to have a public inquiry in that area.
"Bring that inquiry here and have a public hearing, because that is the only way that residents are going to be able to tell their story."
For instance, Ms McKay said the inquiry should listen to voices such as disability accommodation organisation Nardy House in Quaama, as she claimed its clients were turned away from the Bega hospital when they were evacuated on New Year's Eve.
She also said the recent federal Productivity Commission report showed there was 20 per cent less funding for firefighting and emergency services in NSW than in Victoria and some smaller states which was "simply not good enough".
"We have said from day one that we believe there has been a lack of resourcing of the RFS, Fire and Rescue, National Parks and other agencies involved," Ms McKay said.
She also commented on what she called Ms Berejiklian's "reluctance" to explain how the state government's billion dollars announced for the fire effort would be spent.
"So far we have no idea how that money is going to be spent," she said.
"They said three weeks ago that that funding would flow immediately.
"It is our belief that much of that money, most of that money, the majority of that money, has not flowed at all to communities in need."
The inquiry into the bushfires will be led by former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens and Independent Planning Commission chair and former NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Professor Mary O'Kane AC.
UNSW Research Fellow Sophie Adams from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences said the inquiry will have to strike a balance between identifying actionable recommendations and taking into account the complexity of the issues at play.
"A substantive part of the challenge will just be to define the scope of the inquiry: both the causes of, and our responses to, environmental impacts like the bushfires connect to so many aspects of how we manage ourselves as a society - including zoning, building codes, land management, as well as the drivers of climate change," she said.
Albert McKnight
Journalist at Bega District News.
Journalist at Bega District News.
