Tuesday, 7 February 2023

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Commonwealth Games Legacy, Minister for Equality) (13:29): Today, as Minister for Water and indeed Minister for Regional Development, I want to talk about the flood events which have swept through the entire state, in rural and regional areas as well as metropolitan Melbourne – flood events of significant magnitude, being one-in-50-year floods, one-in-100-year floods. Over recent months I have visited communities across Benalla and the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority. I have met with councils. I have been to Bendigo, to Echuca, to Rochester, to the Elmore Events Centre and to Maribyrnong to meet with affected residents, to meet with Melbourne Water and to see firsthand the impact of the flooding events.

There is a lot of work to go on in the rescue, relief and recovery efforts. I want to commend those who often put their lives on the line to make sure that others were safe in some extraordinarily swift water circumstances that took place and unfolded across the state. The water sector itself responded to more than 220 incidents during these floods, which ranged from inundation of water assets, including water treatment facilities and sewerage pump stations, right through to dam safety events, fish deaths, blackwater events, sewer spills and water service disruptions. These are matters which have occupied staff of water corporations, catchment management authorities and Regional Development Victoria, and communities. I want to commend everybody who has come together in the spirit of cooperation and of interoperability in the course of the immediate response as well as the relief and recovery efforts.

I also want to put on the record the collaborative efforts that have been undertaken by local, state and federal levels of government. There has been more than $1.8 billion of combined funding and resourcing to assist communities, businesses, farmers and not-for-profits to rebuild, and that work will continue now and into the future as an absolute priority.