Flood inquiry hears Maribyrnong River to cause damage ‘every few years’

Bunkers are needed along the Maribyrnong River to prevent significant flood damage “every few years”, a federal parliamentary inquiry has been told.

Flooding of the Maribyrnong River is expected to cause significant damage at least once a decade unless bunkers are built, Moonee Valley Council Mayor Pierce Tyson says.

The warning comes as a federal parliamentary inquiry investigates insurers’ responses to major flood claims in 2022.

More than 500 homes were damaged when the Maribyrnong River peaked at 4.2m in October 2022.

Mr Tyson said: “Unless we’re building bunkers along the Maribyrnong River with significant support from government, we would expect to suffer significant damage from each flood event of this nature”.

“We’re looking at every few years or at least ... once in a decade rather than once in a century,” he said.

Aerial photos of flood waters enter homes and streets by the Maribyrnong River in the Flemington area. Picture: David Caird

The council faced a clean-up cost of about $2.4m. But Mr Tyson said had received $1.5m, and was still waiting on insurance claims for damaged council buildings.

He said its insurance premium had increased by more than 50 per cent, however, its coverage had decreased from $50m to $20m.

Maribyrnong Council planning and environment director Laura-Jo Mellan told the committee that there were issues with the recovery and rebuild efforts.

Ms Mellan said future resilience was at risk because people affected were only able to build back like-for-like, which meant they were unable to improve structures.

“If they were building a brand new home, there’s certain requirements that they would have to meet to raise levels, make sure that they’re not restricting the flow of water,” she said.

The flood inquiry heard there were issues the recovery and rebuild efforts after the 2022 floods. Picture: AFP

“But in many instances if they’re just replacing like-for-like they don’t have that trigger.

“Our concern is some of those properties are not any better off now than we were in October 2022.”

She also raised concerns about the timeliness of insurance claims, saying many residents were still not back in their homes.

Both councils called for government support to improve flood modelling and planning, saying it should be treated similar to bushfire communities.

“There certainly needs to be some significant investment in those early warning systems and looking at how we can improve them, how we can make them more accessible to everyone,” Ms Mellan said.

Melbourne water says it will reassess the Flemington Racecourse flood wall. Picture: David Caird

Melbourne Water on Wednesday afternoon was grilled about its review of the Flemington Racecourse flood wall.

Craig Dixon, executive general manager of services and asset lifecycle, said Melbourne Water was in the process of upgrading its flood prediction models.

Mr Dixon told the committee that part of that work included reassessing the flood wall, which he said was a decision made on the “best available science” and modeling at the time.

He said the two were happening concurrently, adding some information had already been provided to an independent review panel investigating the October 2022 floods.

“The panel are processing that at the moment, and that will form obviously a key plank of the next report from the panel, which is due to be issued in the next month,” Mr Dixon said.