Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity to place on the agenda a looming issue in my electorate—the threats to the operation of the Great Ocean Road. I want to put on the table the need for resources to be made available to protect against immediate climate change threats and for the establishment of a special fund for this purpose. The Great Ocean Road is one of Australia’s three great environmental and tourism assets, which are generally referred to as the rock, the reef and the road. The Great Ocean Road is an economic engine room of the Surf Coast region and, of course, is a major contributor to the Geelong and Colac-Otway regions.

Today, the Great Ocean Road is under threat. Modelling I have undertaken using a professional cartographer shows that, with projected sea level rises over the years to come and storm surges, at least 14 different parts of the Great Ocean Road may be breached. Following on from this work, the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment are undertaking comprehensive studies looking at vulnerable areas along the Great Ocean Road. They are studying the ocean floor off the Great Ocean Road to see where storm surges may hit hardest and are crossmatching this with low-lying areas of the road and the coastline. This will give us a very accurate picture of the level of risk as well as the vulnerable areas along the Great Ocean Road. The threat of high sea level rises to the Great Ocean Road is, however, a foregone conclusion. When these rises will occur is just a matter of time.

My purpose here today is to try to think ahead of the game and signal the need for resources to be made available to address the trouble spots. I am suggesting that one way to do this is to establish a special Great Ocean Road fund so that when problem areas arise they can be addressed immediately or, more importantly, we can do the work ahead of time in the trouble spots to reinforce the road where needed.

The road services many, many thousands of people, particularly during the peak holiday seasons, and we need to make sure that we have got the resources to ensure that the Great Ocean Road is protected as we move ahead. If we do not put the resources on the table when we do have these flooding events, particularly those related to climate change, then I think many, many businesses will be at threat.