Northern Victoria Region water
Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (17:28): (126) The adjournment matter I would like to raise is for the Minister for Water. I would like to extend an open invitation for the minister to join me on a day trip to the Murray region. After spending the whole day on a tour of the Cohuna, Gunbower and Koondrook areas with the Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group, visiting key areas that have seen the worst impacts of environmental damage due to mismanagement, it has become even more clear to me that much more work in this area is still to be done. The ‘bush tea’, as it is locally referred to, is stagnating the system. This problem not only decimates the freshwater habitat, killing numerous species of both native fish and turtles as the water recedes, but also poisons the waterways as water levels rise, picking up the stagnation and rotting flesh carcasses and floating them downstream in the public waterways. Just yesterday I received footage of another large-scale fish die-off upstream near Kangaroo Lake. If left unattended, it is only a matter of time until this reaches Lake Boga.
The last time this occurred, over 10 years ago, it decimated the town socially and economically. The Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group is a fantastic example of a compassionate, non-profit community group that wishes to preserve the natural ecology and biodiversity of the northern rivers system without decimating the industries that it sustains. The members who I had the pleasure of meeting have a combined 300 years of flood plain observation and management experience. These subject matter experts have viable solutions and would like the opportunity to show the minister firsthand how they can be implemented.