Mark Mitchell

And half the town flooded.

And I've still got $70 million sitting down there to do mitigation work.

That's taxpayers' money.

So I'm sorry, we just can't live in this world anymore where there's complacency.

It doesn't mean that we need to be alarmist, but we've just got to be prepared and we've got to make sure that we take this stuff seriously.

I'll get your view in a moment, Ginny.

News talks every 17 past 8, Ginny Anderson, Mark Mitchell.

You got anything to say on that, Ginny?

You don't have to, but just in case you want to?

And Mike, I take your point completely.

I think your point you're making is...

you know, let's not use language that is too alarmist and really scares people, right?

And I agree with that.

But the important thing is to get the information to people so that they can make decisions themselves because the best response to these events is whole of society with people taking some personal responsibility, making their own evaluations and making decisions.

But I do want to defend the mayors on this because...

I work very closely with them, and I always encourage them, and when they make their declarations early and make decisions early, I always support that because the best way for these responses is to make decisions early, pre-position, pre-prepare, and be ready that we can deal with worst-case scenario because the way that we look on the world, and I have to look on the world, is always worst-case scenario because every time we don't is when we get caught out.

All right, fair enough.

Ginny, did you read Thomas Coghlan's piece over the weekend on the problems that the Labour Party now have with the lack of policy and standing on the tiles not being able to answer questions?

Is Thomas wrong?

So is it a perception then, and does the perception worry you?