Tuesday, 30 August 2022

 Mr TILLEY (Benambra) (15:26:256:): ‘Look out below!’—that is the warning for people in our district as the Dartmouth Dam prepares to spill for the first time since 1996. The maths has it spilling on Thursday, but given the rain yesterday it could be at any moment. Last Wednesday there was 56 gigalitres of airspace in the dam. Five gigs were being released each day with an inflow of 12 gigs—that was flowing in. That is an extra seven gigs a day or, at that time, eight days before it goes over the top. I went to the dam last week, when the water was lapping at the top of the spillway. This is a massive dam. In figures it is about 3800 gigalitres, which is about seven Sydney Harbours. There is no space in Lake Hume downstream, so once this goes it will flood properties right along the Mitta and then they will be forced to release more water from Hume Dam, which in fact means the Murray River is next. We cannot make the mistake of the past, from 2016, which certainly springs to mind. We must give landholders time to move their stock and pumps. We need to give caravan parks time to shift to higher ground. Vital infrastructure—the main gas interconnector pipeline at Albury, the interstate power connector—and quarries need to be ready. You need to be on the right side of it, and certainly the government benches need to be ready and on call. Prior preparation prevents poor performance.