Well done, Ed.

As Henry Ergas has pointed out, the flood crisis is waning but the policy challenge is escalating. As John Mant recently wrote on this site, town planners and other professions rarely work well together; but must. Henry E and Ed B should lead a national taskforce on neo-classical economic approaches to regional effectiveness!

I am impressed with the openness and professionalism of the OLO site.

It's relieving to see an academic finally reflecting long standing views of ordinary pragmatic people. I just hope it's catching.

Rebuilding residential homes in the flood plains and gullies will be folly and another clusterf..k if later this, next and the following wet years produce the same or more rain and flooding. What then say the governments who bent over to approve these sites for development in the first place when the then town planning reports advised against development in these areas in the first place? Who's paying whom? Real governments develop safe homes policies for their people in areas which are not flood prone and as an applicant who has made application to do so and is currently being blocked by government I continue to be dismayed at the ramifications of placing residents in harms way.