Wednesday, 19 June 2024

Kensington Banks flood mitigation

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:12): (717) My adjournment tonight is for the Premier. The action I seek is for Labor to fast-track appropriate flood mitigation options for Kensington Banks and the Maribyrnong catchment and to financially compensate over 900 Kensington Banks households who have now been told with no notice that their homes are in a flood zone.

Full disclosure: I also live in Kensington Banks with my partner and my three young children. I absolutely love this community – it is a community that really looks out for each other – but right now this community is very worried and very angry, because in April with no notice Melbourne Water reclassified over 900 homes in Kensington Banks as now being in a flood zone. These homes are only between 10 and 25 years old; it is a new estate. It was developed as a joint venture by the state government, the City of Melbourne and the developer Urban Pacific. Residents were told by government agencies right up until April this year that all their homes were above the flood zone, and people moved into the area, reassured by this government advice. They have now had that rug pulled out from under them due to no fault of their own.

Families with huge mortgages are now facing skyrocketing insurance premiums, huge risks to their homes and huge risks to their financial future. No other suburbs along the Maribyrnong face this level of drastic increase to their flood risk. One resident has had her insurance premium raised tenfold, from $140 a month to $1400 a month – that is over $16,000 a year – to insure her house, and she simply cannot afford it. One of my neighbours is a teacher with two young kids. They bought their home in January. At the time Melbourne Water explicitly told them that they were above the flood risk zone and gave them no indication that that would change. Three months later they were told that advice had changed, but they had already bought their home. There are over 900 stories just like this.

This is an untenable situation, and I am asking the Premier to urgently step in to give support and certainty to the community. I am asking the Premier because it falls under several different departments. To be clear, this is not a change to the existing 2024 flood level; it is not just a result of climate change increasing flood risk. People have a lot of questions like: how did Melbourne Water get it so wrong 20 years ago? Why wasn’t flood modelling done more frequently? Was Kensington Banks ever built above the flood level, and were residents just told it was? Were mitigation works for the banks ever actually fit for purpose? Will there be an independent review of the modelling, given that it was wrong last time? Will Labor demand that the racecourse take down the flood wall? And importantly: will the government compensate residents for these huge financial losses that they now have to bear because the government got it wrong? Families are being told that flood mitigation works could take more than a decade and there is no offer of compensation or support during that time. Ordinary families really should not have to bear the huge financial costs of government planning mistakes, which is why I am calling for action.