Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I'm delighted to read a speech written by 12-year-old Bomaderry High School student Vihan Patel, the winner of the Raise Our Voice Australia competition in Gilmore:

My name is Vihan.

I am 12 years old and I am from the electorate of Gilmore.

I have been noticing lately that there have been a lot of water flooding problems with the winter season having heaps of rain.

I have even faced one of them where my garage flooded with water up to the car's wheels and we spent five hours cleaning everything up.

So my problem is to upgrade the drainage system.

In 10 years I would like the community to create a rain garden. They are attractive and can be made easily by maintaining everything.

They promote the growth of native, flood-tolerant perennial plants.

The second one, which I personally think is the best is, planting trees in community gardens or even parks. They come with many benefits like helping reduce flooding.

Statistics say that trees minimise surface water runoff up to 80 per cent more than asphalt.

Their extensive roots system helps absorb deeper into the ground, and help absorb the water flooded to help the tree grow and make community gardens or parks beautiful living places.

Parliament can also build more Channel Drains to move water to an area where it can safely be pushed back into the environment.

Those are the ways to reduce flooding and how I want some of these techniques in our community in the next 10 years.

See this speech in context