Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell says the region needs to be future-proofed and protected from the next major flood, whenever it may be, while guidelines should also be drawn up to provide more clarity in times of emergency.
Many residents in Echuca were left blindsided during floods last October when a temporary levee was constructed down the middle of streets in town, leaving many homes at the mercy of the rising Murray River.
While the latest data from the Bureau of Meteorology indicates south-eastern Australia is exiting La Niña and heading into a drier El Niño period, major flooding has occurred several times in Rochester in the past decade, with Shepparton hit in 1974, 1993 and 2022.
Mr Birrell said while different levels of government were in the process of determining the format of a review into the flooding, he said he wanted to see recommendations put in place alongside immediate support for communities.
He also wanted to know the extent of the impact of the levee in Echuca and lack of levee in Seymour.
“We need the hydrological study of what happened, what would have happened if certain things weren’t done and all those things need to be thrown into the mix,” he said.
“We’re trying to get the community back on its feet, but we also need to ask what can we do with the infrastructure to try and guard against something of this magnitude happening again.
“Who runs it is what’s being discussed at the moment. There definitely needs to be an analysis of what happened, what worked, what didn’t, what infrastructure and design principles have been put in place.”
A $1 billion fund has been announced by the Federal Government to help future-proof Australia for future climate disasters, which are expected to be more frequent as the globe warms.
Mr Birrell said he was still working with communities across the electorate from Seymour to Echuca to secure immediate funding as well as looking at that $1 billion fund to “see if we can build things (in Nicholls) to mitigate against having the worst effects for when there’s another flood”.
The first-term MP said the review needed to examine how newer estates were built, with most newer estates avoiding the worst of the flooding, and older areas near the river being hardest hit.
Residents in Mooroopna said after the flooding that new estates had contributed to floods reaching heights more than a metre above the 1974 level, with less area for the water to disperse.
“There were some areas of Greater Shepparton where houses went under and other, newer areas where it didn’t, so we need to take the lessons of that design and move forward, to say this is how we need to do new estates going forward,” Mr Birrell said.
“The same thing for a place like Rochester, there’s been a devastation over there.”