The New South Wales deputy premier, Paul Toole, has been accused of using the state’s flood disaster to “guilt-trip” critics of the Coalition government’s proposal to expand and build new dams.
Labor, the Greens and independent MPs have rebuked Toole who used a press conference about the flooding emergency on Wednesday to address opposition to projects such as the proposed raising of the Warragamba Dam wall.
Toole had been asked a question about flood mitigation in Sydney and responded by urging critics of dam projects to “get out of the way”.
“Stop coming up with excuses and not allowing these dams to be built or raised where they need to be,” he said.
“Stop using the excuse of a moth. I say that protecting property and human lives should be the number one priority – not protecting some moth.”
The opposition and crossbench accused Toole of taking “political potshots” in the middle of a catastrophe.
“How dare the deputy premier use the death and destruction caused by these floods to guilt-trip the public into supporting the National party’s pet project of new dams,” Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann said.
Faehrmann chaired a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the rationale and impacts of new dams and other water infrastructure in NSW. She said successive National party water ministers had refused to factor climate change into water-sharing plans in the state.
“Now we’re supposed to believe that it’s climate change behind their push for massive dams that don’t stack up economically or environmentally? Give me a break,” she said.
The NSW opposition’s water spokesperson, Rose Jackson, said Toole’s comments were “immature and unhelpful”. “We’re in the middle of a major flood catastrophe and he’s seeking to take political potshots,” she said.
Jackson said much of the concern about the Warragamba wall raising proposal had come from within NSW government departments.
The NSW department of planning, industry and environment, Heritage NSW and Sydney Water have all voiced substantial concerns about the project during the planning process.
The government has also been warned the Warragamba project could put Australia in breach of its obligations under the world heritage convention.
“Drawing attention to the astronomical costs, impact on precious world heritage areas and important indigenous landmarks should not be dismissed as insignificant ‘excuses’, they are critical parts of this decision-making process,” Jackson said.
She said the moth that Toole referred to was not actually an issue at Warragamba but instead related to another project that had not been proposed for the purpose of flood mitigation.
The golden sun moth is a species that would be affected by a proposal to raise the Wyangala Dam wall near Cowra.
The cost of environmental offsets to compensate for damage to the moth’s habitat has been raised recently on Sydney radio station 2GB.
The project was originally conceived not for flood mitigation but to increase water storage and drought resilience and was last year put on hold by the government itself after advice from NSW Treasury.
Another proposal to build a dam at Mole River, also for water security, was postponed too.
In response to questions from Guardian Australia, Toole said his focus was “on the safety and wellbeing of the people of our state during these devastating floods”.
“I will not be distracted by sideline commentary while many people across NSW are in the grip of this natural disaster,” he said after Wednesday’s press conference where he demanded people “get out of the way”.
Harry Burkitt, of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, said the deputy premier had used a time of emergency to “further ridiculous culture wars about dam building”.
“We continue to stand alongside the Insurance Council of Australia and the nation’s leading flood experts in opposing the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall,” he said.
Justin Field, an independent MLC who is chairing a separate inquiry into the Warragamba project, said the inquiry had heard “expert evidence of how raising dam walls can lead to a false sense of security and higher flood risks”.
“Governments often use new dams to justify more development on floodplains exposing more people and property to harm when walls are inevitably overtopped,” Field said.
“We need an honest, nuanced and science-based conversation about how we are going to prepare our communities to mitigate and adapt to increasing climate risks and that is happening in many communities already.”
Prof Jamie Pittock, a professor of environmental policy at the Australian National University, said the $2bn Warragamba proposal would not control flood waters that come in from downstream tributaries in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, such as South Creek.
Pittock has previously criticised the plan to raise the wall and called for consideration of alternatives – including relocating people at the greatest risk from flooding.
He said flood infrastructure projects could perversely encourage more development on flood plains, leading to greater catastrophe when an overflow occurred.
“When the inevitable big one comes you end up with a more dangerous situation because you have more people, homes and businesses in harm’s way,” he said.
The director of the graduate school of engineering at the University of New South Wales, Prof Stuart Khan, said Toole’s comments were disappointing.
“In the past few days we have lost lives in Lismore and we are facing the real risk of losing more in the Hawkesbury-Nepean valley,” Khan said.
“I understand that the NSW government believe they have identified a solution to prevent or mitigate future flooding in western Sydney.
“But they also know that the obstacles to the implementation of that proposed solution are much more complex than someone having prioritised a moth over the protection of human lives.”
Khan said it was clear raising the wall would not stop flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean river basin.
“As we are seeing right now, the Warragamba catchment is not the only source of flood waters in the valley,” he said. “Floods also arise from the Upper Nepean River, the Grose River, the Colo River, the McDonald River, Eastern Creek and South Creek.”
