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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-22 Daily Xml
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VIRGINIA FLOODS

The Hon. P.L. WHITE (Taylor) (15:35): I rise today to remind the house that it is two years since the most recent flood event in Virginia, which was a particularly catastrophic event for those who live in that area. In recent weeks I have attended a number of functions to commemorate that event and also to celebrate what has been achieved, in a lot of ways, for residents and growers of the Virginia area who were affected by that natural disaster.

There was a flood recovery program conclusion celebration, which was attended also by Rory McEwen in his capacity as Minister for Regional Development. A number of people were intimately involved in the coordination of the recovery effort. Ronnie Faggotter was appointed as the state recovery officer, and she and Mary Ireland, a very talented community development officer, have done a lot of work over the last two years helping the Virginia community not only to recover but also to advance from that day in November 2005.

The celebration also covered industry recovery and what has been put in place by PIRSA and other departments working through the Virginia Horticulture Centre, which has done much to aid growers in developing plans for the future and improving upon practices—not only replacing practices and replacing crops, but also improving on what they had before.

Of course, there are some whose businesses and homes did not survive the event, but, for the most part, people have been very impressed with the recovery effort that has been led by minister McEwen and minister Jay Weatherill working with the Department for Families and Community Services. Indeed, last week I attended an event for the Virginia Community Safety and Health Awareness Expo, which also was a wrapping-up, if you like, of that department's involvement in the recovery effort.

I represented the Minister for Emergency Services (Hon. Carmel Zollo) at that event which saw the launch of a DVD called Virginia Flood Safety, which contains information on what you can do before, during and after a flood. It is a particularly good 10 minute DVD, produced in English with subtitles in Greek, Italian, Khmer and Vietnamese, who are the people who make up a large proportion of the community in Virginia. This program is aimed at addressing the fact that many people in the Virginia area were not prepared for the flood event. So it is about preparing and then recovering— what you do in a flood event, what services are available, and how you go about things (from the emergency response end to the clean-up end and the recovery stage).

I commend both departments that were involved for the way they responded to the incident and their delivery of a good outcome for the community. I also pay tribute to Mary Ireland, who has worked in the community. I went to Mary early in the piece and asked if one of the outcomes of the Virginia flood incident could be that we provide some English language classes for Vietnamese people. That has been successful, and I had the pleasure of giving out certificates from the first round of those classes.

Time expired.

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