Stormwater Management

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:46): I rise today to raise the important issue of the floods that hit South Australia and particularly Adelaide last week, which particularly hit the southern suburbs of Adelaide in my electorate as well as the neighbouring electorates of Mawson and Fisher. On Wednesday night, we started getting the warnings that the Onkaparinga River may flood. Those warnings started to escalate as the night went on, to the point that, at about 11 o'clock, SES volunteers were doorknocking across Old Noarlunga, asking people to evacuate. At least 100 houses in Old Noarlunga were flooded and there were significant floods in Clarendon as well.

Extensive flooding happened in the Port Noarlunga region, which luckily did not seem to get to any houses and cause much damage. When it came to Old Noarlunga, particularly, the impact was quite devastating and the damage was extensive across that area. People were not expecting that extent of flooding or for that extent of damage to hit the town. The day after, on Thursday, together with the Minister for Emergency Services, Peter Malinauskas MLC, the member for Reynell and the minister for community services, I went out to visit Old Noarlunga and meet a number of the people who were impacted by the floods. There were some really sad stories of what had happened.

One family we visited had been planning to move out to a new house in Morphett Vale in, I think, a couple of weeks and they would have missed the floods. Another family we know well was actually away in New South Wales at the time, and their children had to come and save a lot of their property. Another family had just installed a new kitchen and that was severely damaged. These are very typical of people's stories across the Old Noarlunga area that day. The clean-up and fixing up of these houses, gardens and public amenities is going to take a significant period of time.

We were lucky to be joined by the SES Chief Officer, Chris Beattie, on our tour around Old Noarlunga. I really have to commend all the SES officers for their enormously hard work on Wednesday night, which continued all of Thursday and much of Thursday night and was ongoing after that also. They were assisted by a lot of the local Country Fire Service crews. I know that Seaford as well as Morphett Vale were assisting, and they provided huge support for that community.

I had the chance to talk to some of the SES crews who are involved in the swiftwater rescue group. They rescued over a dozen people from their homes in Old Noarlunga that night. A number of elderly people, including at least one family of five people, had to be rescued on the boats to get them out of their homes safely. Full credit to all those people who gave up their time and put themselves on the line to help the people of Old Noarlunga.

We were able to visit the response office which was set up in the Old Noarlunga Institute Hall and providing a great support for people in the community in referring them to the right services, as well as helping people with emergency relief grants. There is up to $700 available for emergency relief for things like food and clothing for people in need. There are other grants available for clean-up, up to $700, that a number of people have taken advantage of. There is also the ability to get emergency accommodation assistance should people need it, and a number of people have taken up that option as well.

These people who day to day work in agencies like Housing SA drop everything when an emergency happens and quickly set up in a relief centre to help the community. They seem to be very well organised and I think the community appreciated having their assistance very quickly. Also, a very iconic structure in Old Noarlunga was damaged, the old wooden bridge, and a number of people were very concerned about that. I think we will have to look at how that is restored in coming days. I should also say the member for Mawson spent a lot of time in Old Noarlunga visiting residents and was there Wednesday night as well with the emergency crew. Full credit to all the emergency crews involved. I think the government is willing to stand with all the residents and work to make sure that they are able to recover from what was a devastating incident.