Murray River Council Mayor Chris Bilkey has urged NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet to act on a number of key projects in the area, including a long-awaited upgrade to Moama’s police station.
Cr Bilkey spoke with Mr Perrottet on Wednesday after the premier and other government officials viewed some of the flood damage in the region.
While he brought up the need for assistance to aid flood recovery efforts, Cr Bilkey also used his chat with the premier to highlight other important issues in the area.
Those topics included a new police and ambulance station in Moama, and improved emergency communication at Picnic Point near Mathoura.
“The police station and ambulance station are not related to the flood, but they are desperately needed in this town,” Cr Bilkey said.
“We have been advocating for them for years and haven’t seen a sod turned yet.
“They tell us they are on track, they tell us the police station is happening, but they told us that five years ago and it just hasn’t eventuated.”
Cr Bilkey said an ambulance station was just as important to the town, something he stressed to Mr Perrottet.
“It is absurd that a town as big as this doesn’t have its own ambulance station,” he said.
“With the increase in the number of patients using the Echuca hospital and are relying on ambulances from Echuca to get them there, that is starting to cause delays in getting people from Moama into Echuca hospital.
“The governments, I perceive, assume that because we are relatively close to Echuca that we don’t need one, but the reality is not that at all. An ambulance station is desperately needed.”
A key safety issue near Mathoura was another hot topic that the mayor brought up with Mr Perrottet, as well as an upgrade to Moama’s water filtration plant, albeit an expensive project.
“At Picnic Point, there is a danger there that is represented of having 3000 people there with one means of escape, exposure to floods and fire and no effective communications,” he said.
“That is a powder keg for me. That is a disaster waiting to happen.
“Mobile phone service is patchy at best in there. They could be isolated and unable to talk to anybody and only have one access point.
“Water filtration plant for us is a big issue. It is about $30 million worth of an issue.
“Because we have grown so fast and our population has exploded, it is over capacity at the moment.
“It is okay at the moment because there is so much water around, but it is not going to be when we get into the dry periods again and people want to start using more water.
“That is going to be a problem and we have to start planning early for that, because that is not going to be a problem that would be a quick fix.”
The visit was Mr Perrottet’s first time in Moama as the leader of the NSW Government.
Deputy Premier Paul Toole, Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience and Flood Recovery Steph Cooke and Member for Murray Helen Dalton were also in Moama for the visit.