Thursday, 8 February 2024

Flood recovery

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (17:54): (698) My adjournment is for the attention of the Premier. After floods hit our region again in January this year I visited Huntly, Yea and Rochester to listen to locals talk about the impact on their communities. These communities have experienced successive floods. There is no mental health plan and support is lacking due to staff changes and the short-term contracts that finish in June this year.

Primary producers hit again by floods finally called out for assistance after experiencing significant fencing loss and high costs to recover pastures or resow lost crops. I was told Agriculture Victoria were missing in action. They were not on the ground but simply referred producers to an online tool to collect data. Local councils, overwhelmed by the burden of further flood damage to roads and bridges, cited a lack of funding and a heavy burden of paperwork to again apply for grant funding and prove flood damage. Rather than build back better to aid resilience, they can only rebuild to the same level so history can repeat itself. The standard roads funding made available after the floods is not sufficient and valuable staff resources are taken up by red tape as councils yet again go cap in hand to the state government for funding.

Huntly residents raised concerns about continued development in flood-prone areas and a lack of adequate drainage and maintenance to keep pace with population growth. After requesting drains to be cleared out and maintained well before the floods, assistance came too late when a fleet of trucks was onsite the week after the floods. In Rochester up to 500 homes are yet to be repaired and locals still live in caravans and sheds nearly 18 months on from the October 2022 floods. The Rochester hospital still needs support to help build a levee around it to create an emergency centre that could be used in future.

Locals are concerned that their calls to the Minister for Water for a review of operations at Lake Eppalock, for more airspace and the installation of gates are falling on deaf ears, and the much-talked-about flood study that was due to be done has not yet started. Given the floods require a multi-agency response, I call upon the Premier to ensure that the state government addresses these issues and supports communities that have once again been hit by floods.

As we talk about the issue of floods, this week marks the 15th anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires that devastated many parts of Northern Victoria. Our local communities have been hit hard by floods, storms and fires, and work to support their recovery is not lost as we must work together to build a more resilient state.