Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd just like to update the chamber on where my electorate is up to. It has been a really tough time for the people of Nicholls. There was a huge rain event in the catchment of the Goulburn River around Eildon Weir, which was already full, and around that area. Obviously the catchment was already charged and the soils were full of water, so any rain that fell ran into the river and this caused a serious swell which hit the town of Seymour very hard. There was some flash flooding in the lower parts of Seymour that damaged houses and businesses. I toured Seymour shortly afterwards with Minister Murray Watt, local representative Steph Ryan and Jaclyn Symes, who is the Attorney-General in the Victorian government. We talked to business owners about what had happened. We tried to give them some comfort that we were all working together, across party lines, to make sure that they were looked after.

The water then moved downstream—slowing down, but also rising as it picked up more water from the catchment. As it got to Murchison it reached almost record highs and inundated many businesses and houses, including Murchison Wines—a wonderful business. It didn't quite get to the cellar door, but it did get into where their barrels are kept. Also, some of the businesses around Nagambie were badly affected.

There were some heroic actions taken that I'd like to talk about. There are a lot of racing studs around Nagambie and a lot of foals were picked up by the water. Very courageously, people went out in little tinnie boats and pulled foals into the boats and took them to safety. The way communities come together and help each other and show enormous bravery in these situations, towards people but also towards animals and livestock, is to be commended.

What happened also was that the junction of the Broken River and the Goulburn River at Shepparton—both rivers received huge amounts of rainfall at the same time and they peaked at the same time, which affected parts of Shepparton quite badly. I do want to reflect for a moment that there are some new estates, including one called the Boulevard Estate, in Shepparton. This estate was designed very recently by Spiire. The Spiire team worked with the developer to realise the value of this block of land. It was low-lying and subject to flooding, but they were able to create higher and better land, increasing the size of the development by 250 residential lots, and undertook a complex draining analysis to assist a rezoning request. What all that means is basically that the water filled up the streets but didn't inundate the houses in that area, whereas in some of the older estates the houses were inundated. So I think we've got a lot we can learn about design and being able to make sure that there's somewhere for the water to go in these places that's not into people's houses.

But the water did move over and badly affect Mooroopna. Mooroopna is on the other side of the Goulburn River from Shepparton, and the water hit many areas of Mooroopna very badly. It was devastating to see the impact and, as the water receded, just how much had been destroyed. I'll explain in a moment where I was, but it's very difficult to go into people's houses in those circumstances and see children's toys and personal items ruined and to help take them out of flood affected houses. I want to mention and commend the Mooroopna Football Netball Club, which got almost 300 volunteers to come together with utes and cars with trailers. The council opened up the tip for free, and the people who were going through the devastating process of taking destroyed goods out of their houses—in some cases needing help to do that—and putting those goods on the nature strip, at least, had their neighbours coming along and picking them up and taking them to the tip. It was one less thing those people had to worry about. It was a great example of communities coming together. I was involved in that and very proud to be involved in that with the Mooroopna Football Netball Club.

The ADF did an amazing job also, so I thank them. I also want to thank an organisation called FoodShare. We actually gave a grant to them that prior to the election that wasn't signed off on, but the current government did sign off on that, so I thank them for that. FoodShare delivered parcels of food to people who weren't able to get out of their houses because of the floodwaters—an amazing community response. The Goulburn River's only just dropped below minor flood level for the first time in months. That was on Sunday, and it's hoped that it will stay that way so we can allow people to recover and the water continues to recede from some of the estates that have some inundation.

It's hard to compare one bad region with another bad region, but I have to say that the town of Rochester was devastated by the flooding. This time it was a different river, the Campaspe River, over to the west of my electorate. It's absolutely devastated by the flooding. The river broke its banks. Rochester had been through this in 2011 and it had rebuilt. This flood was worse. It broke the banks, rose and went through the CBD of the town. Over 90 per cent of the houses were inundated, and we're still working through trying to find how we house some of those people. I would like to pay tribute to, among the many people in Rochester, local champion Leigh Wilson, who has been working with the community to advocate for their cause—I'm in constant contact with him—and has been that person who checks that everyone's okay and who helps coordinate the effort of recovery for people. The house of Leigh's own mother, 83-year-old Lorraine Wilson, was also inundated. It was quite a sight to see her trying to pick up photos of her late husband from the fifties that had been swept away in the floodwaters.

Not only did it affect the township of Rochester; there were also some farms significantly impacted, including one farm in Nanneella that I visited with the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Maranoa. It was just a beautiful farm. He had lucerne ready to go, he'd laid down straw in the barn, the cows were so well housed and the pastures were perfect. It had been such a good year, and then this water came through and took that all away, and the rebuild for him is very difficult.

I told you about the junction in Shepparton before. The junction in Echuca is the Campaspe and the Goulburn, so, when that happened, the floodwaters rose in Echuca. They had more time to prepare, and they quickly put up a makeshift levee bank. It was quite controversial, because there were some houses that needed to be on one side of it, but, touring it with the Campaspe Shire Council, it does appear that that levee did work. Even though there were houses that were inundated, it did protect a lot more. That effort and that quick thinking and that quick decision-making is to be commended, though I know that there are some people who have got some concerns there.

I would just like to say that I'm a new member to this place and I came up here to work constructively with everyone and to represent my people as best I could, and the assistance that I've gotten from the Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Watt, and—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—