Thursday, 9 June 2022

Adjournment

Echuca Cemetery

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (17:01): (6416) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, and it is on behalf of the Echuca Cemetery Trust. I ask that the minister re-examine the issue of access to Nolan Street for the trust for a parking area. I previously wrote to the minister, and she wrote back, and the department explained that they believe the land was in the urban flood zone overlay—which it is, or some of it is, and the trust is well aware of that—but given that it would probably flood only once every 40 to 50 years, I think they could actually live with the fact that they could not park there while there was a flood on, and there probably would not be an interment while there was a flood on anyhow, so I do not believe the department’s reasoning about it being in the urban flood zone is a valid one to deny them access to that land for parking.

The other thing that the department wrote back saying was that in addition to being flood prone, the site also contains good-quality native vegetation, enhancing the ecological and amenity values of the area. It is not appropriate to use props, but I have a photo from an article in the Riverine Herald from when I went down to that particular site with the chairman of the trust, David Jones, and it is covered in prickly pear. There is absolutely no ecological value in the prickly pear, which is a noxious weed which covers this land. So I would ask the minister to re-examine that response and actually have the department inspect it and have a look at the fact that it has effectively no ecological value at all.

This land was a road. The Campaspe shire actually took it off their roads register because they do not need it as a road. It does not serve any useful purpose for anyone. The trust is happy, if someone needs it for access in the future, to allow egress across that land. They actually want this land as an area for parking so the land they currently use for parking within the cemetery proper can be used for interments in the future. If they do not get access to this land, they will have to start planning for a whole new cemetery in Echuca, but if this land is made available for parking, it makes available the current land for future interments, and that will futureproof that cemetery for quite a while. The current cemetery trust members have been working on this for a number of years with the department. They would like to see it resolved so as they finish their time on the trust they can hand it on to the next trustees as an issue that is resolved rather than handing it on as an issue still to be resolved, so I ask the minister to please re-examine this issue—have the department inspect the site and it will prove that their response denying the trust that land is for all the wrong reasons.