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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-23 Daily Xml
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FLOOD WATCH ALERTS

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:54): I rise today to bring to everyone's attention the flood watch alerts that have been with us over the last few months, particularly in the Riverland. People in the seat of Chaffey have been very much affected by the continual flood watch alerts, which have been spread right across the media, portraying that the region is underwater. The reports have been saying, 'Don't come near the region because it is flooded.'

I would like to make sure that everyone here today knows that there has been no flood in the River Murray in South Australia. What we have witnessed is a high flow. The potential for tourism has been undone by what has been touted as a flood watch: the alerts issued by SA Water. The tourism industry is an emerging industry within the River Murray, particularly up in Chaffey. Over recent years, we have seen water restrictions, hardship with commodity prices and difficulties that people, irrigators and communities have experienced with water restrictions in particular.

Over these last few months we have been almost gifted with high flows that have come down from the Darling, out of Queensland, and the high flows that have come down the Murray from New South Wales and Victoria. It has produced an ebb and flow of a just higher river and just an average river. So, what we are seeing is continued high flows; we are not seeing a magnitude peak.

I think a lot of this was exacerbated by the unfortunate floods that happened in Queensland and Victoria. People were almost traumatised by what they saw on the TV, what they read in the media and what was portrayed happening to those poor people of Queensland and Victoria, but that was not happening here in South Australia. As I said, we were given almost a gift of just a very gradual rise in the river, a high flow. That high flow reached flows of about 94,000 megalitres a day. As I say, it was a gift to the environment; it was a gift to all the regions and all the communities that live up and down the river.

The caravan parks on the River Murray have reported up to 45 per cent reduction in their business during January and February, and some days they did not have even one single inquiry from the grey nomad, which is one of their big industries. They did not have any inquiries, such as, 'Can we come up and visit your region? Can we come and stay at your caravan park?' People were given the perception that there was a flood, and the flood watch was almost entirely to blame.

The reality is that it was a high river and not a flood event. As I said, the flows peaked at 94,000 megalitres a day and the peak height of the river was 6.3 metres recorded at Morgan. Just as a bit of history from what we have seen over time with true flood events, back in 1980 we saw 11 metres at Morgan, nearly five metres higher than what we saw this year. In 1956, which is the year of one of the historic flood events of this state, we saw 12.3 metres at Morgan, a flow of 350,000 megalitres a day. We are comparing 94,000 megalitres a day versus 350,000 megalitres.

I would like the minister and his Department for Water to recognise the impact that the flood watch had on not only tourism but on every visitor who wanted to come to the region but was put off by, 'Don't go to that region; it's underwater.' The current river height is not even as high as in 1993. That was 108,000 megalitres a day, and that was an event not considered a flood.

I note that last week SA Water ceased issuing flood watch alerts. Immediately after it stopped issuing those flood watch alerts, caravan parks received inquiries; people started coming to the region and it started to flourish again. This grieve is about the government and the Department for Water maybe changing the wording. Instead of using 'Flood watch alert', maybe we should use the words 'high river advisory'.

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