Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into the 2022 Flood Event in Victoria

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (17:38): I rise to make a statement on the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry report into the 2022 flood event in Victoria, which we tabled in July 2024. There has been a lot of discussion about emergency services, about the need and support for emergency services in the community recently, and given that the October 2022 flood event was the most significant that we have seen in Victorian recorded history, it is an opportune time to reflect on some of the recommendations that the committee made in its report in July last year. One of the critical things that the committee recommended was that our emergency services need to be better resourced.

We know that the flood event in particular in October 2022 was during the state’s wettest month on record and a disaster that affected thousands right across the state – rural communities, metropolitan communities. And it is clear in the evidence we received in the committee’s inquiry and as detailed in the report, from both emergency responders and from climate scientists, it is undeniable, that climate change is increasing cataclysmic weather events and increasing the risks of living in Victoria, whether they be from fire or storms or floods. As the control agency for storms and floods and other events, the Victoria State Emergency Service plays a really significant role in emergency response for the state. Our report found the work of the volunteers was critical in that flood response in 2022. The report goes on to say that:

To ensure the Victoria SES can effectively fulfil its emergency management responsibilities, it is essential that they are adequately resourced, both in terms of equipment and increasing operational volunteers.

We had evidence from right across the state to support that. Gannawarra Shire Council stated:

… VICSES did not have the resources to respond …

Rural Councils Victoria emphasised:

… a need for more volunteers and better resources, such as vehicles and other equipment, to improve the SES’ operational capacity during natural disasters.

I am pleased that the government, following that disastrous flooding event and following the recommendations of the parliamentary committee report, recognised that particularly the VICSES needed more certainty about its resourcing and needed additional resourcing in order to better support its volunteers and also get the equipment that it needed. The government recognised that those extra resources were needed to make sure that the VICSES and local search and rescue can continue to play that fundamentally important role in emergency response at any time of the year. The recent legislating of the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund demonstrates the government’s commitment.

I want to today in this contribution reflect on the work that our committee did to thank the VICSES as an organisation and its volunteers for the work that they did, both back in that flooding event of October 2022 but also more recently in suburban Melbourne when we saw that massive storm event that ripped through parts of metropolitan Melbourne. I was down at the Glen Eira SES not long after that event and spoke to them about the importance of and their need for additional support and resources. The government has acted, the government has listened and the government through the changes that it has made to introduce the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund is providing additional resources to our emergency service organisations, including to the VICSES. The report of our committee shone a light on just how important those resources are. I wanted to make sure that all of us who participated in that committee do not forget those recommendations.