Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Creswick flood events

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (19:08): (6539) My final adjournment matter ever in this Parliament is for the attention of the Minister for Emergency Services in the other place, and the action that I seek is support for the town of Creswick to floodproof themselves against future flood events. The 5 January storm and flood event unfortunately was not considered big enough to qualify for commonwealth disaster funding, but that does not mean the impact on the residents of Creswick was not and is not still severe. People are still living with tarps over their roofs, as I was devastated to see on the evening news a few nights ago.

Hepburn shire councillor Don Henderson and Labor’s candidate for Ripon, Martha Haylett, herself a Creswick resident, have shown me around the town to see the damage. Sadly, this is not the first time that Creswick has experienced flood damage, and it may not be the last, and it is not the first time that I have seen it in person. In fact it was in early 2011, after the 2010 Christmas storms, when I visited, then as Shadow Minister for Emergency Services, with then local MP Geoff Howard and the then opposition leader, now Premier. There have been four storm events since.

But I am relieved that now in Canberra there is a government that takes climate change seriously and understands that more catastrophic weather events are sadly expected. I understand that the Albanese government has established a new fund that could assist Creswick to recover and also to ensure preventative drainage and other work that may be funded to help this fabulous little town not be at the whim of Mother Nature. I urge the minister to look at funding sources within her own department, within Bushfire Recovery Victoria, but also to liaise with the federal government and advise them on how they are putting together the guidelines for the new fund. I feel certain that this minister will take this seriously and look at the needs of Creswick very closely in consultation with the local community, with Hepburn shire and with Martha Haylett as a local resident and the Labor candidate for Ripon.