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The Australian government has been heavily criticised over its response to the flooding disaster, and the arrival of Singapore’s air force has added fuel to the fire.
Locals have expressed confusion after aircraft from Singapore arrived in northern NSW to help in the aftermath of horror flooding that destroyed much of the region.
Footage of a Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) helicopter surfaced on Saturday as it touched down in Lismore after the regional centre was hit with some of the worst flooding in Australia’s history.
Images of two Singapore choppers, which were already in Australia, came as a surprise amid criticism of the Australian government over its response to the flooding disaster.
Two Chinook helicopters were deployed by RSAF from its Queensland base to assist the Australian Defence Force (ADF) last week, the Singapore government said in a statement.
The ADF had also accepted offers of relief packages from Singapore’s armed forces.
The assistance from Singapore joined more than 7100 ADF personnel on the ground across flood-affected Queensland and NSW by Monday, including over 1650 in Queensland and more than 5500 in NSW.
Families last week reported being left stranded as army personnel were “on standby”, relying on their community for rescues, shelter, and food and water.
Frustration continued over the weekend when locals caught wind of overseas help arriving.
“Sorry to be naive, but seriously, shame on us,” a response to the video, shared to Facebook, read.
“Singapore can what Canberra can’t! Typical,” another said.
“Well done lads, keep up the amazing work, but what’s our lot doing?” a third said.
Lismore locals earlier spoke out about feeling “abandoned” by the government, particularly after Prime Minister Scott Morrison avoided speaking to furious residents during a visit to the region.
“We wanted to speak to the PM and talk to him about our experience. We feel completely abandoned. We feel like there’s no help from the people that we have elected. Some of us elected. And we just feel forgotten. We feel like we’ve been swept under the carpet,” she said.
“We were hoping just to talk to him and to see that he could see the distress and the carnage and the trauma that we have all endured here. That hopefully would have a better response than giving us $1000 that we cannot spend because there‘s no town.”
Mr Morrison addressed the anger being directed towards him, telling reporters he empathised with those affected by the floods.
“It is very common in natural disasters that the frustration and the anger and the sense of abandonment, this happens in almost every natural disaster, because of the scale,” he said.
“I feel deeply and empathise absolutely with how people feel when they find themselves in these situations. As the rain comes pouring down and places are cut off and the inability of get help, to be able to get help, whether they be Defence Force assets or trucks and vehicles and others.”
Mr Morrison has maintained his response has been adequate, and there had been more than enough ADF personnel deployed to assist in the devastating clean-up.
Scott Morrison claimed on Sunday that suggestions his government had been slow to respond to natural disasters – including the 2019 bushfires – were the product of a “Labor narrative”.
He said the ADF and other agencies had swung into action to assist with immediate and essential community needs.
“I understand the frustration because in a disaster like I have seen up in Lismore, no response is ever going to be able to meet the overwhelming need,” Mr Morrison told Nine’sChris Uhlmann.
He also indicated the public had unreasonable expectations of the ADF.
“You are never going to have an ADF base sitting around the corner in every single town,” he said.
“To deploy nationally positioned forces around the country, and mobilise them with the country, and mobilise them with the equipment and the heavy equipment and the supplying and the provisioning, that … You can’t just turn that off and on.”
Multiple air assets from Singapore were deployed over the weekend to NSW and Queensland areas affected by floods to assist in search and rescue, aerial reconnaissance, food and stores distribution, patient transfer and logistics support.
The Singapore chinook chopper filmed on Saturday was delivering disaster relief supplies, donated by the Singapore government, from Queensland’s Amberley RAAF Base to Lismore.
It was part of a joint effort with the Australian Defence Force, with 10 total helicopters being based at Oakey, in Toowoomba, to support the NSW and Queensland flood recovery.
The defence air fleet consists of four Army MRH-90 Taipans, two Army CH-47F Chinooks, two AW-139s, and two CH-47F Chinook helicopters from the Singapore air force.
