Tuesday, 2 May 2023

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:49): (165) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Environment, so I am really pleased that she is in the chamber tonight to listen to this terrible predicament. It relates to the allocation of state government funding towards the replacement of Middle Creek bridge in Yinnar South. She will not know the specifics of it, so I am happy to elaborate. The action I seek is for a co-contribution from the state government that is acceptable to the landowner in question, Mr Greg Davis. He needs his bridge to be reinstated. Here is the problem: Crown land abuts both sides of Middle Creek, and Mr Davis’s only safe passage to his home is via this bridge, which is on Crown land. He has had no physical access to his home at 220 Upper Middle Creek Road, Yinnar South, for the past two years, so he has had to create a makeshift bridge that he walks over, with pallets. He parks his vehicle on one side, walks across this bridge and then walks up to his home that is about 200 metres away. He also has family at home, and this has caused them incredible distress.

Prior to 2019 he had the bridge and it worked. But it was built in the 1950s, certainly before my constituent owned the property, and there have been a series of events that have both weakened and then ripped the bridge out completely. It is a wicked problem, both because previous local governments enabled the planning of a house to occur across Crown land, but also subsequently because in March 2019 there was a bushfire in Yinnar South, and Mr Davis claims – and I respect his claim; I have seen his photos and I have been out there – that the bridge was weakened by state government or we will say emergency services vehicles reducing this bridge and damaging it along the way. Then in 2021 we had the storms and the floods, and that washed the bridge completely away.

He has had some help from our local Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and now Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action people, and they have really tried their hardest. But there seems to be a butting of heads in relation to this funding. He is asking for some fair and reasonable funding from the state government as their contribution, and he of course will then come to the party. There has been some offered, but it is absolutely not fair from his point of view, and he needs safe access. It is causing him, his family and his stock deterioration – the family’s mental health and the stock’s wellbeing – so I ask the minister to review this case, come to Mr Davis and negotiate fair funding for a reinstatement of this bridge.