Key events
The SES has issued a weather warning for NSW, saying “prolonged heavy rainfall” will continue in the mid-north coast and flash flooding is a risk for areas as far north as Coffs Harbour.
Prolonged heavy rainfall is set to continue throughout Thursday, as Mid North Coast communities remain on high alert for moderate and major flooding and NSW State Emergency Service (SES) members continue to respond to rescues.
Flash flooding will again remain a significant risk today for communities between Kempsey, Coffs Harbour and Nambucca.
Widespread 24-hour rainfall totals between 100 and 150 mm are forecast, but higher localised totals of between 200 and 300 mm are expected. Locations which may be affected include Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Taree, Woolgoolga, Sawtell and Dorrigo.
In the last 24 hours NSW SES have responded to 1023 incidents, including 339 flood rescues.
NSW SES State Duty Commander, Assistant Commissioner Colin Malone said conditions overnight have been challenging, with many rescues still to attend to in Taree, Glenthorne, Oxley Island and Moto.
“We’ve seen continual rainfall and very fast flowing rivers, which when combined with flooded roads have made it very difficult to access some isolated people,” Assistant Commissioner Malone said.
“Our crews have been working through the night to complete flood rescues, but our message to people still awaiting rescue, is to remain in safe locations, away from flood waters in dry locations if possible.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issed a severe weather warning shortly after 4am which expanded the zone from the already badly hit Hunter Valley and mid-north coast regions to include the Northern Tablelands, Northern Rivers and North West Slopes and Plains Forecast Districts.
“Areas of heavy rainfall are expected to persist through Thursday as a weak low-pressure system develops within the trough, and it slowly moves further southwards throughout the day,” the BoM warning said.
It said heavy rainfall was forecast to continue over north-eastern parts of the state overnight on Wednesday and during Thursday bringing 24-hour rainfall totals of up to 300mm in some areas.
“Locally intense rainfall which may lead to damgerous and life-threatening flash flooding is also possible for parts of the mid-north coast district and adjacent Northern Tablelands during Thursday,” the notice said.
“This includes Kempsey, and coastal areas around Coffs Harbour and Nambucca Heads. Six-hourly rainfall totals between 100 and 150 mm are possible with 24-hourly rainfall totals reaching between 200 and 300 mm.”
Some 115 warnings were in place on Wednesday night, with local residents in the path of flooding urged to head to higher ground and evacuate if they could. The SES carried out more than 300 flood rescues on Wednesday alone, using helicopters to winch stranded residents off their roofs.
NSW SES commissioner, Michael Wassing, said rescue conditions had been difficult and dangerous.
“I cannot stress enough that it is important to heed the warnings of evacuations,” he said. “I cannot guarantee that our crews will be able to immediately rescue people.”
“Super saturated” river catchments were responding quickly to the rain, he said.
Evacuation centres have been set up at Dungog, Gloucester, Taree, Manning Point, Wingham, Bulahdelah, Tuncurry Beach, Kempsey and Port Macquarie.
The federal emergency management minister, Kristy McBain, said the commonwealth was working with the NSW government to provide support in 16 local government areas.
“These floods and severe weather are having a huge impact on communities,” she said.
Read our full story here:
Sydney’s rail network is again running to its regular timetable, transport authorities have confirmed in time for the Thursday morning peak, after a horror two days of network outages and delays caused by downed electrical wires that trapped a passenger train on Tuesday.
Transport for New South Wales said “passengers can expect a good frequency” across both suburban and intercity lines.
A “full timetable” will run on Thursday, with the exception of two damaged train sets which have been scheduled to run at a time of day with “minimal impact”.
In a statement, Transport for NSW said:
We thank the engineering crews who worked tirelessly to fix the issues on the ground, the operations staff in the Rail Operations Centre who got us back to timetabled services, and the station staff who helped passengers through a very difficult period.
We acknowledge how frustrating these past couple of days has been for passengers and apologise for the disruption.
NSW premier Chris Minns has apologised to commuters, pledged a fare-free day on the transport network this coming Monday and launched a snap review into the incident.
Minns said the downed wires “happened at the worst possible location at the worst possible time” on Tuesday.
You can read about the vulnerability of Sydney’s rail network to widespread delays from a single point of failure, and the agency’s “archaic” internal communications approach, here:
Josh Taylor
The reason for the Coalition split remains a point of dispute between the Liberals and the Nationals after Nationals senate leader, Bridget McKenzie’s claim Nationals shadow cabinet members’ ability to vote against shadow cabinet decisions in the parliament was not part of the Nationals’ demands was swiftly denied by Liberal leader Sussan Ley‘s office.
McKenzie told ABC’s 7.30 program Ley could not guarantee policies on divestiture powers for supermarkets, mobile phone coverage for regional Australia, lifting the moratorium on nuclear, and the retention of the $20bn regional Australia future fund.
She refused to. She put it in writing. We put that to our party room, and our party room decided we were to leave the coalition.
When asked whether Ley was lying when stating Nationals’ shadow ministers wanted to break cabinet solidarity as a condition of a new agreement, McKenzie said it was “not part of our consideration” and the demand was limited to those four policy areas.
McKenzie said:
Well, Sussan Ley wasn’t part of our party room discussions. I was. I won’t go into the details of that, but I can categorically tell you why we made the decision we did and what that was based on. It’s why we sought, in writing from the Liberal leader, her guarantee around those four policy areas.
7.30 host Sarah Ferguson read out a statement from Ley’s office refuting the claim:
It is not correct to subject that shadow cabinet solidarity was not a sticking point, and they – that is, Sussan Ley’s office – have that in writing.
Read the full story here:
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the best of the overnight stories and then it will be Rafqa Touma to take the wheel.
With 48,000 people already stranded by flooding in the New South Wales Hunter Valley and mid-north coast regions, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe warning for “prolonged” heavy rainfall that also includes the adjacent areas of Northern Tablelands, Northern Rivers and North West Slopes and Plains. Some areas could cop 300mm over the next 24 hours and there was also a risk of life-threatening flash floods. More coming up.
The reason for the Coalition split remains a point of dispute between the Liberals and the Nationals after Bridget McKenzie claimed last night on the ABC’s 7.30 program that Nationals shadow cabinet members’ ability to vote against shadow cabinet decisions in the parliament was not part of the Nationals’ demands – a claim denied by Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s office. More coming up.
