Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The current wet season across the Murray-Darling Basin has resulted in the basin being at near-saturation point. High flows in our catchments have resulted in storage capacity running at near full, particularly in the southern basin. On the Murray, the Dartmouth Dam is at 85 per cent, and the Hume is at 98 per cent. The Goulburn storages have Eildon at 87 per cent and the Goulburn Weir and Waranga Basin both above 95 per cent full. I'd particularly like to draw attention to Lake Buffalo, on the Ovens River, which is at 98 per cent full. Lake Buffalo has reached 100 per cent capacity every year since 2003. There is real concern that further rain will create substantial flooding which will bring some serious damage to many of the Murray River communities.

Lake Buffalo was built in 1965 as a 24-gigalitre dam. That was just the first stage of a major project. The Victorian government owns all the surrounding land, and it was originally intended that Buffalo wouldn't be 24 gigalitres but would be 1,000 gigalitres. We have an opportunity now to build 'big Buffalo', construct it properly. This would act as a flood mitigator—which would enable people right now to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars of damage—plus, when we go through our dry periods, we would have this incredible amount of water for productive agriculture. It should be a win-win.