Thursday, 14 November 2024

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:11): Last week I had the opportunity to return to Mildura to catch up with the First People of the Millewa–Mallee, the Mallee Catchment Management Authority and Lower Murray Water to hear about our progress in several important projects under the Murray–Darling Basin plan. I joined Lower Murray Water to celebrate the completion of the Sunraysia water efficiency project, the SWEP. This is a project that will return 1.8 gigalitres of water through system efficiencies and further water to traditional owners and for urban water security. It has been a really wonderful community effort, engaging people from right across the region. It is a great example, for example, of the work with Nichols Point Primary School. I visited that primary school, where the project team engaged with the school while a pipeline was built along their fence line. That replaced an old open channel and has enabled students to access the oval, and it has transformed the school, opening it up to the broader community and also improving student and public safety.

It was an enormous privilege to spend a day on Latji Latji and Ngintait country with First People of the Millewa–Mallee at Lindsay Island. It is the largest of our Victorian Murray flood plain restoration projects, and this site holds enormous cultural and biodiversity values. The First People of the Millewa–Mallee are behind this project because they know that this approach is proven to work, as we have seen at Living Murray sites. It will restore thousands of hectares of country, safeguard them against the worst impacts of climate change to come and, importantly, protect cultural sites, including burial sites. I want to thank everybody who travelled out with me: Casey, Tim, Dylan, Aunty Carolyn, Aunty Winnie, Jason, Artie, Mike, Kenny and the river rangers team.

I was also privileged to open the Catfish Billabong regulator, and this was funded by us through the environment contribution. It is proven technology that will improve the health of our precious waterways, and this is about ongoing work in partnership with respective communities.