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Hastings Libertarian councillor Mark Hornshaw has blasted Port Macquarie-Hastings Council for adopting contested flood modelling, warning homeowners could face soaring insurance, devalued property, and unnecessary red tape.

Hastings Libertarian councillor Mark Hornshaw is protesting the use of climate change modelling to justify an increase in bureaucratic red tape.

Council recommended that councillors adopt the flood level findings in a new report on the Mid North Coast’s Camden Haven River.

Modelling Under Fire

Concerned residents speaking at the council’s public forum stated that the outcomes are skewed because the input data conflated two models, was out of date, overly general, and exaggerated.

They also argued that Hastings council’s career bureaucrats failed to properly address the over 50 submissions from locals.

Those submissions seemed to contradict the apparent climate change ideology seemingly behind the push to adopt the report’s recommendations.

Here is Libertarian Councillor @MarkHornshaw564 rightly calling out Port Macquarie’s career bureaucrats over climate change fear-mongering.

That activism influenced a vote in favour of adopting costly, new fear-based flood zoning recommendations about the Camden Haven River. pic.twitter.com/u10WY3c0Is

— Rod Lampard (@rod_lampard) February 24, 2026

Appearing to disregard the common-sense concerns of locals, Councillors voted 6-3 in favour of adopting the “mitigating climate catastrophism” recommendations.

Frustrated by the outcome, Hornshaw said, “he voted against the motion because the flood study exaggerates flood levels based on climate modelling.”

That modelling, he added, “is not backed by real-world observations.”

“Council used flood mapping parameters and assumptions provided by the NSW government’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.”

This is all funded by the NSW Labor government, suggesting that the council’s concerns are less about the climate and more about conformity.

Real-World Consequences

The discrepancies between the facts and the findings, Hornshaw concluded, “are so bad that it is hard to avoid drawing conspiratorial conclusions.”

“When the global warming hysteria eventually dries up — as it must do with its perfect track record of failed predictions — the land in the Camden Haven catchment will be as fertile as ever,” he said.

However, “it might not belong to you.”

Homeowners will be “squeezed out by insurance costs and building restrictions.”

In a speech asking councillors to reject the report, Hornshaw declared his reasons for voting against it.

Concerns about the report’s use of data “are not minor technicalities — they go to the heart of whether the model reflects reality,” Hornshaw explained.

“When inputs are wrong, outputs are wrong.”

“In this case, the effect is to inflate predicted flood levels, with real consequences for landholders.”

“Data and modelling parameters must be watertight,” he added.

This is important because we’re talking about “people’s homes, farms and livelihoods.”

Catchment Confusion

To add, this all appears to be part of a “broader pattern across the state: the use of modelling assumptions, justified in the name of climate risk, that consistently push flood levels upward.”

“When you add in questionable data,” Hornshaw observed, “such as rain gauges from outside the catchment, and ignore the insights of people who have lived on the land for generations, it only amplifies the problem.”

For instance, he said,  when staff were asked if the modelling “included rainfall from other catchments,” they said, “yes.”

In other words, the new flood zoning report ignores the fact that “rainfall from the Manning or Hastings river systems is not part of the Camden Haven catchment.”

“That is not marginal,” Hornshaw exclaimed.

It’s an important distinction “that can lead to a material distortion of the hydrology.”

“If those guidelines are wrong, then the outputs will also be wrong, and our ratepayers will suffer the consequences.”

Residents’ Concerns Dismissed

Raising the eyebrow of the Port Macquarie Mayor, Adam Roberts, Hornshaw then pointed out that the council had “not resolved concerns from homeowners to a standard that justifies adopting the study.”

Their objections, Hornshaw said, “were waived away by the council with PR spin, such as ‘these concerns are understandable’.”

Flood planning, he thus argued, “must be accurate, proportionate, and based on the correct catchment hydrology and historical records, not inflated assumptions.”

“For these reasons,” Hornshaw urged councillors, “not to adopt this flood study at this time.”

His comments about the indifference of bureaucrats are supported by the Hastings Council’s own executive summary.

In effect, this shows concerned homeowners being told that property values dropping and insurance costs going up “were not the council’s problem.”

To add, the Council appeared to then dismiss those concerns by strongly implying that property values wouldn’t be affected, nor would insurance prices become unaffordable.

It seems modelling about Noah-level flooding is to be believed, while the inevitable consequences of rezoning land as flood-prone — based on that catastrophic fearmongering — isn’t.

As Hornshaw, quoting those opposed, concluded,

“The only thing worse than no information is having the wrong information.”