Friday, 14 November 2025

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (21:42): (2129) My adjournment debate is for the Minister for Environment. It also cuts across planning, but I would like the Minister for Environment to take the lead on this. Coastal erosion is not only a statewide issue, it is a nationwide issue. We have got the Twelve Apostles in the west. We have got Torquay, where the area in front of the surf club is being worn down.

David Davis interjected.

Melina BATH: Wait, Mr Davis, I am getting to Inverloch, where there is erosion occurring. In Loch Sport there is certainly erosion and also down in Inverloch, at the surf club, which I know very, very well. Over in Silverleaves the fabulous people in that little community are really threatened. The government has been fairly piecemeal in how it is making amends on these things. I am asking the minister to look interstate, to look to WA and to make a review of Western Australia’s successful coastal framework as a potential model for Victoria. I am asking the minister to do some research and come back, not necessarily to go there but ask his staff to investigate.

What we are seeing is many of these communities – Silverleaves, Inverloch, places in the west – enduring months and years of concern as coastal erosion is impacting and eating away infrastructure, such that they are at real risk. The communities have faced fragmentation in terms of responsibility: is it the council’s fault or the state’s fault? They look for Commonwealth government funding and planning provisions as well. It is quite a reactive establishment.

What WA has done since 2020 is it has invested more than $25 million across 240 projects, moving systematically from planning into risk identification, design and construction. It looks at hotspots, so it goes and it investigates hotspots, it maps hotspots and then it makes an assessment. These decisions are evidence-based and staged over time. They have got community involvement. This is exactly the discipline that Victoria could use. It could be of benefit, not like an ad hoc approach with sandbags and scrambling. WA also couples policy capability and funding. I ask the minister to investigate this WA coast framework as a potential model to be used in Victoria and on Victoria’s coasts.