Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A number of areas in my electorate of Boothby suffered extensive flooding yesterday, particularly near my home in Mitcham. My thoughts are with residents dealing with the stress of the past day and the clean-up to come. It has been a worrying time for the whole community.

I am grateful to City of Mitcham Mayor Glenn Spear and CEO Matt Pears, who have kept me informed of the situation and coordinated significant council support for residents. I pay tribute to our wonderful SES volunteers, who have dealt with around 1,000 requests for assistance in a very short period of time. I agree with The Advertiser's editorial today that states:

It takes a dedicated volunteer to drop what they are doing and head out in driving rain and howling winds to help others. ... They deserve our recognition and our thanks.

I would also like to thank my federal colleagues who are working with me to identify how we can work with local and state governments on flood mitigation, an issue the South Australian Labor government has ignored for far too long. Finally, I thank the Minister for Justice, who is continuing to monitor the impacts of the flooding and is liaising with the South Australian government regarding recovery assistance.

It is difficult to be in Canberra when events like this affect your community and I am grateful to the minister for his support and reassurance. The Australian government stands ready to assist South Australia through the jointly funded Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements to help with the costs of providing certain relief and recovery assistance to disaster affected communities. These arrangements allow the state government to activate immediate recovery assistance.