Campaspe Shire: levee wasn’t our call

By Gregor Mactaggart and Shannon Colee

Aug 27, 2023

Represent: Key officials at the floods inquiry hearing in Echuca on Thursday (from left) Gannawarra Shire’s Geoff Rollinson and Charlie Gillingham (obscured), Campaspe Shire’s Shannon Maynard, Pauline Gordon and Cr Rob Amos, Loddon Shire’s Lincoln Fitzgerald and Cr Dan Straub and Northern Victorian Emergency Management Cluster’s Ann-Marie Roberts. Photo: Aidan Briggs Photo by Aidan Briggs

Campaspe Shire Council officials told a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday that the decision to build the contentious temporary levee in Echuca at the height of last year’s flood crisis was not theirs.

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During the hearing at the Mercure Hotel in Echuca, Campaspe Shire highlighted a raft of issues that hampered the various authorities’ efforts to effectively tackle the disaster.

They included:

• a lack of role clarity and accountability, particularly in relation to the establishment of a temporary levee in Echuca;

• challenges faced by Campaspe Shire with a lack of staff resources to support the many flood-impacted communities across the shire while also performing multiple roles for days without a break;

• lack of data sharing by the Victorian Government; and

• government red tape and blockages hampering councils’ efforts to access funding needed to repair the extensive list of damaged infrastructure.

The mystery over who exactly made the decision to build the temporary levee was highlighted in this exchange between inquiry chair Sonja Terpstra and Campaspe Shire Mayor Rob Amos.

Cr Amos: “A decision (temporary levee) of that size I’m assuming makes its way all the way back to Melbourne, I would’ve thought, back to the SCC (State Control Centre).”

Ms Terpstra: “It definitely wasn’t made by Campaspe Shire?”

Cr Amos: “Correct. And there were decisions around why it was made and the heights that it was put at. That’s taken on advice from different experts and so on, but it certainly was not made by us.”

Ms Terpstra: “So why was it left in the shire’s hands to sell that to your community?”

Cr Amos: “Because it’s bad press and people don’t want to own bad press. That’s unfortunately a human reaction and I can’t put words in other people’s mouths about why they made certain decisions, but we tried very hard to refute that was not ours. But once that interview (with Today’s Karl Stefanovic) had happened, it just didn’t matter what was said and we are still dealing with it today.”

Hard at work: The levee bank being constructed on Bowen St. Phptp: Steve Huntley Photo by Steve Huntley

The 3km levee had two sections — one starting from the water treatment plant along Moama St, along Goulburn Rd, Bowen St and Pakenham St, and the other section running from the Port of Echuca to Victoria Park.

It remained in place for close to three months until it was removed over the space of a few weeks from early January.

Cr Amos said the flood was the “most traumatic and devastating event of its kind in living memory in Campaspe Shire”.

“It is now incumbent upon all levels of government to do everything in their power to take heed of the lessons learnt and work together in finding solutions and taking action to better prepare for, and mitigate against, the severity of any future flood events,” he said.

Council also highlighted that 40 per cent of its staff was directly impacted by the flood, and when combined with the sheer scale of the event, and urgent, wide-ranging need to support residents in multiple communities, there was not enough staff to factor in shifts and breaks.

Funding blockages, red tape and delays have also put pressure on Campaspe Shire’s resources, while resistance from the Victorian Government to share data gathered from impact assessments caused issues in terms of managing follow-up processes, such as building matters and determining rates relief eligibility.