The Victorian Greens have criticised the State Labor Government for rejecting two key recommendations from the inquiry into the 2022 flood events and not fully accepting others.
In their response to the inquiry tabled yesterday, Labor rejected two key recommendations including support to retrofit homes most at risk of flooding.
The Victorian Greens say that significant Government failures during and prior to the Maribyrnong floods resulted in thousands of residents being affected by floods, and thousands more having their homes re-classified as high risk for floods without warning.
Following the Maribyrnong floods, 900 homes in Kensington were re-classified as being at high-risk of flooding - despite people buying their homes under advice from Melbourne Water that they were above the flood level. This has left thousands of residents with homes that are at flood risk, sky-rocketing insurance premiums, and falling home values. The Greens say that the least the Government can do for these residents is support them with retrofitting for flood resilience. Other states have committed to assistance in retrofitting homes after floods.
The Greens say if the State Labor Government won't help retrofit homes, then they must urgently commit funds to flood mitigation along the Maribyrnong to prevent people's homes from flooding.
As stated by the Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell:
"Labor has so far turned their back on the residents of Kensington and Maribyong who were left stranded by these floods and by poor State Government decision-making. The least the Labor State Government could do is assist people with retrofitting their homes for flood resilience, but it seems they won't even do that.
I will keep pushing for the State Labor Government to fix the mess they created and find urgent flood mitigation measures. Local residents shouldn't have to bear these huge costs when the problem was created by poor state government decision-making in the first place.
"Severe weather events are only going to become more frequent and severe with climate change and we should be doing all we can to stop the devastation from 2022 from repeating so it's deeply disappointing that Labor has rejected some of the advice from the inquiry."
