Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:36): I rise to speak on the Victorian Ombudsman’s investigation report When the Water Rises: Flood Risk at Two Housing Estates, which was referred to the Ombudsman by the Environment and Planning Standing Committee following its inquiry into the 2022 flood event in Victoria. Water is life. But as we saw in October 2022, it can also be devastating. That month was one of the wettest Victoria has ever recorded, and the floods that followed caused widespread damage and heartbreak. Sadly, as climate change accelerates, these events will become more frequent and more severe, and we must prepare. The Ombudsman’s report highlights critical lessons. First, flood modelling must be accurate, current and forward-looking. It cannot rely solely on historical data, because climate change is reshaping our environment. Second, planning schemes must reflect updated modelling. I thank the minister in the other place for progressing flood-related planning scheme amendments to address this.

Let me turn to the case studies that were examined in the report. They were Rivervue and Kensington Banks. Rivervue was a failure of process and oversight. Melbourne Water’s 2003 flood modelling for the site underestimated flood levels. That error flowed through the development plans into 2022, which then used incorrect figures, meaning homes were built without adequate safety buffers for any rising floodwaters. Melbourne Water should have identified this. Compounding the problem, a flood overlay was removed in 2016 at Rivervue’s request and approved by Moonee Valley council based on the flawed 2003 modelling. While the Ombudsman found this did not directly cause the flooding, it left residents without official flood guidance. Today, Rivervue residents, many older and with mobility or health challenges, live with real flood risk.

Kensington Banks presents a different picture. It did not flood in 2022, but the underlying issue is similar – outdated modelling. The last comprehensive update for the lower Maribyrnong catchment was in 2003, and Melbourne Water failed to meaningfully incorporate changing run-off conditions or the impacts of climate change. In 2024 Melbourne Water released new modelling, and many homes are now classified as flood-prone. Residents face uncertainty, higher insurance costs and the need for urgent mitigation works. I highlighted a few of the main themes at the start of the report. But it has also been identified that, going into the future when planning new developments, future conditions need to be properly taken into consideration, not just how things have functioned in the past, and that people also deserve better and more contemporary information. The residents at Rivervue were not expecting flooding. They thought their houses were adequately protected. The residents at Kensington Banks now have a brand new fear – one that should have been identified long ago and would have been identified if there were new and contemporary flood maps.

Overall, a better understanding is needed that the world is changing. The impacts of climate change are here, and it is real. We need to take this into greater consideration in our everyday lives, because we never know when a flood may come, so everyone definitely needs to be prepared. I commend the report to the house.