James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give my very best wishes to all the communities in South Australia that are already experiencing—and will, regrettably, experience even more—impacts of the flooding of the Murray River from the Riverland right down to the Murray mouth. Although my electorate is in metropolitan Adelaide, there are many members of my electorate that will be affected by this through both having family members in the area and owning property in the area. Most importantly, the solidarity of all South Australians is with the communities that are going to be impacted.

I make special mention of the members for Barker and Mayo, who both have the Murray running through their electorates in the state of South Australia. Their communities have tough times ahead. The next days and weeks are going to be very difficult. There's a whole lot of uncertainty around just when the river is going to peak. We know there will be property damage, and we desperately hope there will be no loss of life. We thank the emergency services—volunteers, most of them—who are going to be doing so much. The rest of us look forward to spending time with family, and they will be on high alert supporting those communities and heavily involved in the clean-up afterwards. My very best wishes to those who are going to be affected. We are with you, we will support you through these challenges and we hope that the damage will be as minimal as possible.