Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Railton is a small town in the north-west of my electorate—and it's a big electorate, as you know, Deputy Speaker. It's a classic Tassie town built on timber and farming but is best known these days for the topiary dotted throughout the main street and local gardens. It's a joy to doorknock and come across the various examples of imagination and creativity. But it's also a town with a long history of flooding. The floods have, in the main, been pretty rare but less so these days. What were once one-in-100-year floods are, as a result of changing weather patterns and climate change, becoming more common and unpredictable.

The floods in 2011 were especially severe, causing damage to more than 60 houses and 14 businesses, and contributing to a range of social, economic and environmental impacts in the town centre and surrounding regions. The town can't afford too many hard economic knocks. What may be relatively minor setbacks for bigger, more diverse communities can affect Railton much more severely. Five years after these floods, Railton was hit again—less severely, but still hard enough for more than 30 properties to be rendered unusable and uninhabitable.

Following the 2011 flood, Kentish Council received funding from the Natural Disaster Resilience Program to develop the Railton flood mitigation strategy. That strategy demonstrates how various water levels can affect the community and outlines what measures will best redirect water to lessen the impact. It includes the upgrading or construction of a range of infrastructure assets that would provide for a better flood protection system for the community. This includes increasing the size of culverts and channels to better manage water flow, the construction of a levy and upgrading two bridges. The estimated cost of the project overall is almost $2½ million, a price which excludes the upgrade of one of the bridges. The price tag is well out of the ability of the tiny Kentish Council to pay on its own, and it has asked the state and federal governments to support it—and rightly so.

The town of Latrobe is a mere few kilometres away and it also suffers flooding from the Mersey. Last year the federal government committed $3.4 million and the state government committed $1 million to fund the implementation of the Latrobe flood mitigation plan. It's money well spent, but it has certainly left the people of Railton asking why it's a yes for Latrobe but the sound of crickets for Railton. It surely would have nothing to do with Latrobe being in the electorate of Braddon, where there was a by-election! Surely not! It certainly led the then mayor of Kentish to ask me, 'What can I do to manufacture a citizenship crisis for myself so that we can have a by-election in Lyons and see the money flow in?' I didn't take him up on the offer, of course! So, I hope it has nothing to do with that.

But the fact is that Railton has the plan right now on how to improve its disaster resilience. All it needs is support from the state and federal governments to achieve it. I am pleased to tell the parliament that I have a petition underway—Fix Railton's Floods Right Now—that calls on the federal government to do its bit and provide funding for this important flood mitigation. It will make a significant difference to the people of Railton. It's a small town but it will make a big difference to their lives, their security and their economic security. I urge everyone in Railton to support the petition and sign it. I will be out there in coming weeks to press the case and make a nuisance of myself around Railton. They will see me out on the streets and on the corners at the shops, pressing their case with this petition to really get the government to commit to funding this important strategy, which will keep this town safe from floodwaters into the future. We need to get behind it. We need to fix Railton's floods right now. It deserves it—Railton deserves no less than the neighbouring municipalities that benefitted from having been in a by-election. This is much needed infrastructure and a much needed project and I urge everyone to support it.

To conclude, I'd like to say a big hello to the kids from Sorell and Campania primary schools, who are visiting today, and the kids from Tasman District School, who were here in the parliament yesterday. It's great to see Tassie kids coming to the Commonwealth parliament in its 30th year and enjoying all it has to offer.