Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:13): (2451) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is for the minister to work with the community and find and approve the allocation of an appropriate parcel of Crown land in Paynesville for the establishment of a purpose-built marine rescue facility for the Paynesville coastguard. These people are some of the most amazing people. As you can understand, they volunteer their time, they certainly protect and support human life in emergency situations and they do a wonderful job. The coastguard is an accredited marine search and rescue provider for the Gippsland Lakes, covering a vast area – very busy waterways, both the sea and the lakes, from Metung to Sale. Their volunteers operate around the clock, and they respond to life-threatening emergencies, assisting distressed vehicles and supporting Victoria Police in critical situations. Despite this essential role, the Paynesville coastguard is operating in an inadequate and fragmented arrangement in terms of facilities, and this significantly impacts their capability.

Their office – and I have been to their office and had some tuition on all things coastguard – is certainly separate, some 500 metres from their rescue vessels, and their equipment is spread across three different sites, which is clearly not ideal when you have got an emergency response organisation. It compromises volunteer safety, it restricts training capability and it makes coordination during time-critical call-outs unnecessarily challenging.

What do they do and what have they been searching for? Well, there are a number of different sites. What they need is a small parcel of land within 50 metres of the water’s edge, and they need to have an around 150 square metre facility to set up two berthing spaces for their vessels. There are three potential sites, and one is preferred. It is on a fantastic slip-road down there in Paynesville, south of the fuel storage adjacent to the Gippsland Ports land. This makes it possible to access both Lake King and Lake Victoria, as well as coming out into the ocean. It is a fantastic organisation, as I said. They have been seeking this for such a long time, and I call on the minister to work with this group, prioritise the request and approve suitable Crown land so that they can begin the long process of getting a new home.