50,000 pools’ worth of Wivenhoe water to release early after flood fear

About 50,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water will be released early from the south-east’s major drinking water and flood storage dam.

A two-week lowering of Wivenhoe Dam from 90 to 80 per cent capacity, freeing up about 116,000 megalitres of flood mitigation capacity, comes after the weather bureau warned of a higher chance of “widespread flooding”.

To coincide, the government will apply an automatic $55 discount on the next quarterly water bills of more than 1 million south-east Queensland residents as a cost-of-living measure, Queensland Water Minister Glenn Butcher told parliament.

Parliament resumed this week for the first time in six weeks, after a postponement during the national period of mourning after the Queen’s death, where the government has been lashed over health and budget overruns.

A cabinet briefing by the Bureau of Meteorology has sparked warnings from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk about the heightened and earlier risk of flooding and cyclones this summer, after some of the worst floods in decades.

“This isn’t a decision I’ve taken lightly. We saw in February that these extreme weather events can be unpredictable and keeping Queenslanders safe is at the top of my priority list,” Butcher said while announcing the measures.

“Seqwater will be providing regular updates to councils and the community before releases commence this Saturday and over the duration of the two-week release period.”

He said that advice from meteorologists, scientists, environmental experts, dam engineers and the dam safety regulator had informed his decision — which would see controlled releases in line with the dam’s flood manual.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner pushed the government last month to make the move, amid a stoush over blame for delayed alerts sent to residents in February. NSW and Victoria are now bracing for new major flooding.

Sitting for the second day of a series of four-day parliamentary weeks, the opposition used parliamentary question time to push the government on hospital investigations.

Palaszczuk was also asked what more she would do beyond “a stern talking to” frontbencher Mark Furner, who apologised on Wednesday night for earlier comments about opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates.

The interjections calling Bates a “dopey, stupid woman”, not picked up by Hansard, sparked a rebuke in parliament by Bates, who called the comments “deeply offensive” and “misogynistic”.

The Premier first hit out at former opposition leader Deb Frecklington for past comments about her appearance, before answering the question to say that she had also reminded all government MPs about being respectful.

Shadow treasurer David Janetzki has also criticised Treasurer Cameron Dick for overseeing unplanned expenditure of $2.8 billion in the past financial year, outlined in a report to parliament on Wednesday.

Almost two-thirds of the money was spent between the environment, local government and treasury departments.

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