Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the rainfall and floods impacting NSW

Thousands have been left stranded by flooding overnight in New South Wales.

NSW State Emergency Services personnel have rescued hundreds of people from floodwaters and rooftops in the Mid North Coast and Hunter region - while thousands have lost power or been isolated by inundated roads. 

One person has died and five have been reported missing.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says multiple small towns have been cut off - and rescue efforts are ongoing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And murry Old's Ossie corresponds with us hamas.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good here they're going to appen into you.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, So what's the latest with these floods?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh? Look, bloody terrible to be to be quite frank,
I mean in now I just lost the name of
the town. Nineteen twenty nine was the flood record. Nineteen
hundred and twenty nine has been exceeded in the last
twenty four hours. As you said there in the intro,
one dead, five missing, and fifty thousand people evacuated from

(00:29):
homes and businesses. The rain has not stopped. It's the
worst flooding, as I said, in almost one hundred years. Now,
here's the thing. These people that are missing may not
be in fact casualties of this. They may be on
these isolated properties. And there are scores of farm properties,
even entire small towns that have been basically cut off.

(00:52):
More than one hundred emergency warnings that have been scores
of emergency flood rescues from absolute bloody clowns who have
been driving through flooded roads and guess what happens. The
cars stop and they get washed away. So they are idiots.
The state government's called in for federal government help to
try and get some assistant to these people. The army's

(01:12):
being deployed in some parts, but some people who were
cut off are likely to be in that position for
quite some days. How much longer will the rain's going
to keep on going? At least till the weekend some centers,
are you sitting down? They've had half a meter of rain,
half a meter of rain in seventy two hours, man
a lot?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, totally is hey? So Susan lay Lee rather is
she trying to patch things up with the Nationals.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I think it's the other way around, to be honest,
Susan Lee. Look that they may have kissed and made
up in the last few minutes. I know that Susan Lee,
she agreed to hold off naming her shadow cabinet. Let's
make no mistake here. The Nationals Party is the junior
coalition partner, always has been, always will be. But they

(01:58):
went into the talks after the election shellacking and David
little Proud said, oh, look, we need cast iron guarantees
on four policies. Oh and by the way, any Nationals
MPs that you happen to name in your shadow cabinet,
I want them to be able to breach shadow cabinet
decisions and go public with their opposition. Well, that's never

(02:18):
going to fly, Heather, That's not the way the parliamentary
system works. Susan Lee said, you forget it, you're out
of your mind. That's not going to happen anyway. Eminence
degrees like John Howard, Tony Abbott, even Barnaby Joyce came
lumbering into all of this and said, listen, you've got
to kiss and make up because individually they will never
be able to form government. Simply won't happen. So it

(02:39):
looks like they've actually come to some agreement. The details
are yet to be made public, but maybe they've kissed
and made up, because certainly that's what the Conservatives over here.
They are desperate for that coalition to get back together.
They're looking at years and years of labor government without
that coalition agreement. Ah.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Interesting, Now what's going with PwC. Do we think that
things have all we have been cleaned up after that
big tax scandal.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well that's what it looks like. The Australian newspaper, the
Murder National newspaper here has spoken to the guy he
was called in to kind of fix things up and
it was a mess. PwC humiliated, not just here globally.
What they did as senior partner was privy to government
plans to change some tax laws. They're all, you know,

(03:25):
top secret, secret, spiral stuff. He shared that confidential information
with clients of p WC. Well, gee, that went over
well not They had to sell their Candorra business and
there were tens of millions of dollars that were being
earned from government contracts. They dried up overnight. Well, PwC
had to call in the cavalry. The guy. Two years on,

(03:47):
he's told the Australian newspaper Listen, it's not perfect, but
it's a bloody sight better than it was when I
was called in. We've still got, you know, a few
things to make right, but we're on the way. It's
a whole lot better now. We're promising to make it
completely better in the not too distant future. So yeah,
maybe pw season the good books again.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Good stuff, Hey Mars, as always, thanks so much, really appreciated.
Murray Old Zussie corresponds for more from Hither Duplessy Allen
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