Senator Perin Davey in Molong | Central Western Daily | August 29, 2023 - video Dailymotion

Central Western Daily

Senator Perin Davey was on the ground in Molong on Tuesday to address lobbying on behalf of disaster-stricken communities following the November 2022 floods.

Transcript

00:00 Prime Minister has said the right things, now we need the action.

00:03 We need the action to match the rhetoric.

00:05 Senator, you mentioned flood mitigation.

00:07 What are some of the ideas that are being tabled at the moment for Cabon?

00:11 Well, there's a lot.

00:14 Certainly in Orange we've got some stormwater reservoirs that they are upgrading and improving

00:20 that will help catch.

00:22 We also need to look at ways to ensure that floodwater can move across the landscape.

00:27 I know the rail bridge here in town sometimes acts as a bit of a mini-dam, so if we can

00:33 look at ways to get box culverts put in place, retrofit box culverts, so that the water can

00:39 move across the landscape quickly, it doesn't back up, it doesn't sink in, that will be

00:45 one of the crucial ways to ensure that we minimise works.

00:49 There will be another round of disaster ready funding.

00:52 I commend the Council for doing all the work they did in very short notice to get applications

01:00 in in February this year and to be successful.

01:04 There's more that can be done, but it will be up to the Council to bring the best works

01:10 forward as well.

01:11 Just to switch gears, the resilient homes package, what would that include for people

01:15 in Cabon?

01:16 Well, what we would like to see it include is both buyback and retrofit.

01:24 So some people who are right in the middle of the floodplain, who know that they're going

01:31 to be in the path next time, they might want to sell their house back to the government

01:36 so that they can relocate somewhere else.

01:39 But there are also houses where retrofitting might be applicable, where you can go through

01:44 the house, lift up all the power points, make the house more suitable or more resilient

01:50 to floods.

01:51 And then there's also raising.

01:52 So in Queensland, they've provided funding to have houses raised, and that works quite

01:58 effectively in certain areas.

02:00 So you can't have a one size fits all, but giving those three options through the program

02:07 would be what I would like to see for this region.

02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Senator Perin Davey in Molong | Central Western Daily | August 29, 2023

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