ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much for joining us. Today. I was able to join the Premier of Victoria, firstly in Bendigo, to look at the work that emergency services personnel are doing – volunteers as well through the SES – to thank them for their service, but to also look at the quite devastating situation which communities in Victoria are facing at the moment. We also were able to view from a helicopter, from the air, Rochester, a community that has been particularly hard hit, that has seen massive evacuations and, tragically, has seen a loss of life, 71 year old Kevin Wills. My heart goes out and condolences to his family and to his friends. Today we have announced at Mickleham, the Commonwealth facility there will be made available with 250 beds for people who have been evacuated from flood-affected communities as part of our commitment in consultation with Victoria. We are working across federal, state and local government in a seamless way to make sure that every support is being provided to these communities that are under such enormous pressure. By the end of today over 100 ADF personnel will be on the ground here in Victoria, providing support with evacuations, providing support with sandbagging, providing whatever support is required and we will continue to respond positively to further requests. On financial assistance, I can today say, along with my Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt, and our Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, and his electorate has also been impacted by this as well, financial support for people affected by South-Eastern Australian floods. In Victoria, the Disaster Recovery Allowance is available in the 23 Local Government Areas that are impacted. In Tasmania, 17 Local Government Areas are impacted and eligible for the disaster recovery allowance and in New South Wales, an additional four LGAs have been added, unfortunately, due to the spread of the impact of this flood event, bringing that number to 31. In addition to that, in recognition of the number of homeowners affected in particular LGAs, a one-off non-means-tested Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment of $1000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child is available to people in the Victorian LGAs of Campaspe, Greater Shepparton, Maribyrnong, Mitchell and Strathbogie, and in the Tasmanian LGAs of Central Coast, Kentish and Meander Valley. This support is small compensation but it does mean support will be on the ground and we will make that available immediately. I have spoken with the Minister and that information will be available from this afternoon to ensure the money can flow immediately. I will hand over to the Premier of Victoria, but I want to thank him and his team for the way in which we are working together. That is what Australians want at a difficult time, and I pay tribute to the volunteers and the people in these communities who are showing such resilience, once again, in the face of enormous pressure that they are under. Australians are coming together, they are helping each other out. And once again we are seeing at the worst of times, the best of the Australian character.
DANIEL ANDREWS, PREMIER OF VICTORIA: Thank you, Prime Minister, and on behalf of all Victorians can I thank the Prime Minister and his colleagues for the partnership that we have. It is a strong partnership, it has been all about keeping people safe, providing relief to those in need and in the long challenging journey of recovery and rebuilding. It is made a little easier by the fact that all governments are working together. So PM, thank you so much for being here today. I think nothing beats seeing first-hand, being in important incident control centres like the one in Bendigo today where you can look people in the eye and ask them if they have everything. We both did that and we are very pleased to say that systems are working well, everyone is working together and, although it is a challenging time, there is a positive sense of partnership right across all of our agencies. I want to join with the Prime Minister in thanking every single member of our career staff and volunteers, and many more beyond who do not necessarily wear a uniform but worked very hard in their own local communities to keep people safe. I’ve got a number of things I want to run through and then I will hand to Tim Wiebusch who will take you through that call of the card across the state. Obviously, we have taken steps in partnership with the Commonwealth Government to stand up the Mickleham centre, the former quarantine centre. It’s got 250 beds, and we have done work over recent days in partnership with the Commonwealth so that we can be ready to take residents to move into that facility in the next few days. We will provide meals to each and every one of those people, three meals a day. They will be able to access healthcare, both mental and physical healthcare, 24/7. There will be co-located services like Centrelink and other wraparound services provided by the State Government so that families can have everything they need at a very difficult time, and it’s a stressful time for kids, we know, and there will be activities and supports targeted towards those youngest members of the community impacted by these floods. We will also work very hard to provide all of the other support that people might need. Obviously a roof over your head at this time is very important, but there will be other things that need hard work and we will focus on that as well. In terms of families who cannot get back into their homes and want to be connected to that, Mickleham is an accommodation option. I’d simply say if you ring 1800 560 760, we are more than happy to talk you through those options. There will be similar processes on the ground reaching out into the communities where it would seem they would not get back home for an extended period and then Mickleham becomes a relevant option. We have 13 relief centres open across the state. We’ve got ten aircraft up in the air doing everything from damage assessments through to providing supplies and equipment to otherwise isolated communities, doing rescue work as well. Those communities in different locations that are cut off, getting in there and giving people the practical assistance they need. There remains 55 sandbag collection points across the state. 355 roads remain closed. In more recent developments we have around 6000 properties in the Mooroopna area that are without power. Teams are working as hard as they can, but obviously rising floodwaters there are a real challenge to Kyalla, Mooroopna, Shepparton, Murchison as well. There is a significant challenge there, just the volume of water and the levels that it is reaching. But Tim will go to that in a moment. But there are 6000 properties without power and everyone is doing their level best to get the power back on as quickly as possible and to support those power-dependant residents. On emergency payments, those that we have talked you through the last few days, I can now confirm that there’s 9,290 Victorians who have applied for those one-off payments. That is for people who are out of their home. That is for people who need it, whether it be shelter, food, clothing, medicine, all of those very practical things. That process is working well, we’re moving staff from different call centres across government, we’re moving staff from different departments to process those claims as quickly as we possibly can so that that money is with people who are doing it very tough as fast as possible. I will just again remind people: emergencypayments.dffh.vic.gov.au or 1800 226 226 if you want information and if you want to go through the process for applying for that grant. It is just over $2000 for eligible families, and it is for those practical matters that people need support with at this time. I am going to ask Tim to go through a number of different flood-affected communities and update you on what we think the trends are, what we think is going to happen over the next couple of days. There are a number of other issues, like school, exams, all manner of practical matters, waste disposal, all of those sorts of issues. We're going come back to those most likely tomorrow and try and give you a really clear update on as many of those matters as we can. I just wanted to finish off the top by saying that the government has determined to provide a $500,000 grant as a rapid first step to the 24 Local Government Areas that are affected by these floods, that is $500,000 per local council. That is a first step, there will be more to come. There are different amounts of money and different programs that are run for many weeks to come. But this is an initial grant of $500,000. We will waste no time in paying that out, and it is all about making sure the councils who are doing it tough, particularly those worst-affected communities, we do not want finances to be a limiting factor on them being able to step in and provide the care and support, the recovery, and, of course, the clean-up and rebuilding we know is so important. Back to the Prime Minister's early point: national government, state government, local government are all working together. That’s how we keep people safe and that is how we recover from what is a record-breaking flood event.
TIM WIEBUSCH, VICTORIAN SES: Thank you Premier, good afternoon everybody. This flood emergency is far from over in Victoria. And whilst we are seeing some communities that are now in the clean-up and early recovery phase, there are still many communities that are under risk of flood warnings at this time. I'm going to move from West to East across our state to give you a bit of an update on where we are at this present time. On the Wimmera River in the West of our state, we are expecting a major flood peak of 3.6m at Horsham, which is well below the 2011 peak of 4.27m, but we will still see 74 properties, the local showground as well as the caravan park and a couple of aged care facilities that will have water in or around them in the coming days. We then move over to the Avoca River, the Charlton Township that we have been talking about for a number of days now has an evacuation warning current. We are expecting a flood peak there of eight metres today. That will continue to peak through into tomorrow, at a level similar to what we saw in 2010, but we are not expecting a flood level that we saw in 2010-11, which was a record flood at that time of 8.6m. In Charlton we are expecting about 80 properties to come under threat of flooding, both in and around a range of properties around that township. If we then move over on to the Loddon River, we are now starting to see the downstream impacts from Serpentine as it heads towards the Murray River. In particular, the townships of Pyramid Hill, and Kerang will come under threat in these coming days. At Kerang we are expecting a peak on Monday into Tuesday, before it reaches a higher peak on Tuesday into Wednesday. In Pyramid Hill, there was a community meeting yesterday and the community is well-readied, having sandbagged a range of properties around that location ahead of the peak which is expected into tomorrow. On the Campaspe River, as we know the Rochester township has experienced significant inundation, but it is now receding at that location, but we are still expecting major flood levels to be there for another few days. As we head down the Campaspe River to Echuca, Echuca now has evacuation messages out for a number of parts of that community, but also ‘too late to leave’ coming into play in some locations. We are expecting a peak this afternoon of 96.2m at that location, and this will mean there will be around a thousand properties which will either be surrounded or inundated by floodwaters. Fortunately, we have good support there for our emergency services from the ADF and other community groups that have been doing a terrific effort in terms of providing some mitigation through sandbagging and other means in that community. That will be just the first of two peaks for the Echuca community, with the Murray River then coming into play again Monday into Tuesday. We are expecting a flood peak of around 95m, which is above the major flood level. Again, we are expecting a similar amount of properties to be again under threat from that major flood level, for at least 3-4 days. If we move across then onto the Goulburn River, where it converges with the Broken, Sevens and Castle Creeks at Shepparton. That is going to be our most significant impact today and into the early hours of tomorrow morning. The Goulburn River last night around Mooroopna and Shepparton where the causeway was closed. But we are expecting the maximum peak to be around 12.2m early tomorrow morning, that is early Monday morning. Earlier this morning we issued emergency warnings saying it was too late to leave if people had not moved to the relief centres at Tatura or parts of Shepparton. At 12.2m, we are expecting 7300 properties to be surrounded, or some of those inundated by floodwaters. We could see in the order of 2500 properties seeing flooding above the floor level. But we are alerting Shepparton, Mooroopna residents, Kialla Lakes and the like to be alert to their conditions in case that continues to rise. If it goes up just another 0.1 metre to 12.3m, we could see a further 1600 homes that would come under threat of that major flooding. As we move across then to the Broken Creek, the communities north of Shepparton, at Numurkah and Nathalia. At this stage the local council is implementing their flood mitigation measure which is a temporary levee at Nathalia. But at this time all indications are that we are only likely to see minor to moderate flooding rather than major flooding. That is quite different to what we saw in 2010-11, where we had Muckatah Depression and the Broken Creek converging at the same time causing significant flooding in those communities. So for those communities, we are not expecting the same conditions we saw in 2010-11, but we are expecting minor to moderate flooding to be occurring. At Seymour, we are still seeing a major flood level, where we saw the peak on Friday at 8.26m, that is now down to 7.67 metres with the outflows that are still coming out of the Eildon Dam. We are expecting to see that major flooding level to drop away from tomorrow, and that community is very much now into early recovery mode. We then go to the South of our state to the Hopkins River, two communities there, Panmure and Allansford, are now see localised flooding impacts today. Those levels will be 400-500mm below what we saw in the 2011 record-setting floods in that area. So those communities have had gatherings this morning community meetings and are well prepared for this event. The good news at Mount Emu Creek at Skipton is that conditions are continuing to recede there, and they are very much in a clean-up and recovery mode at this time. Similarly, at the Barwon River in Geelong, the river has already peaked at 3.85 metres, just below the major flood level, and is now receding and so those in the caravan parks and the like are no longer under immediate threat of major flooding, but we did see between 15-20 local businesses that have been impacted along with sporting fields and the like in that area. As we go away from here, today, we cannot emphasise enough that when we issue emergency warnings we need the community to really look at the action messages that we are providing. We cannot afford for people to be attempting to drive through flash-flood waters as the rescues that are occurring are likely to continue to put our emergency services under pressure. We do have specialist capabilities in each of those communities that under threat today at Echuca, Charlton, also Shepparton, Mooroopna and Kialla in particular. But we are expecting over this next week to see further rainfall. The Bureau has indicated we could see another 20-50mm of rain particularly over the north-east catchments in the latter part of next week. We will come back to you in the coming days with some more information as the modelling firms up.
JOURNALIST: In the areas you mentioned where the water is rising, have residents evacuated? What’s happening there right now?
WIEBUSCH: Look we have seen great response in the townships of Charlton in particular in terms of heeding those warnings. In Echuca, people are moving well in and around an area that is really quite constricted in terms of roads that have been cut. Echuca is effectively isolated from other parts of Victoria at this time, so people moving across into Moama in particular and we have been working with our New South Wales counterparts on that. Particularly in the town of Shepparton, while we have seen some really good movement of people either to family, friends and to relief centres in Tatura and Shepparton, we are concerned that there are a number of people who have chosen to stay. We are asking them to be within the highest part of their home over the next 48-72 hours in particular while we see that peak flooding go through the township of Mooroopna, Shepparton and Kialla in particular.
JOURNALIST: Are there any estimates on how many houses will be effected by that Campaspe River flood? Is there any estimates on the Murray River (INAUDIBLE)
WIEBUSCH: At this stage it’s a little bit too early to know the exact numbers but we are expecting about 1000-1200 properties when the Murray River peaks and it will be similar areas that will come under pressure because the Campaspe River will still not have dropped below the moderate flood level coinciding with that major flood peak on the Murray River.
JOURNALIST: On Shepparton, how many people are you aware of that are choosing to stay?
WIEBUSCH: We believe there are hundreds of people that have chosen for one reason or another to stay in their homes and that is their choice. I guess we had been appealing for people to move to family and friends and to relief centres for quite some time but it is now unsafe and too late to leave.
JOURNALIST: Is there a reason why all beds at Mickleham have not been opened? Is there an estimate that 250 beds will be enough for everyone that requires it?
PREMIER ANDREWS: 250 is the initial number and there is capacity to open another 250. This has never been used for this purpose before so we will have to wait and see what demand there will be. It won't be for everybody. It is an option. But the key point with this event, unlike other flood events is that because of just how sodden the ground is, just how full the catchments are, just how significant the rainfall event we have been through with more rain to come, these peaks, even once they recede off the high mark, there is still going to be water in these communities and houses that are just uninhabitable for extended periods of time. For some people, the notion of coming to Mickleham and being well-cared for and being able to focus on their wellbeing while the clean-up happens, while waters recedes, the passage of time will be really important with this, particularly as we see more and more rain, not just this week but rain being a feature of the next month or two. It won't be for everybody but it will be a really important additional tool that has not been available to us before. We will have to see if the first 250 beds are used and then we will open up the second. And as I said, it is a tool that has not been available to us previously.
JOURNALIST: (INAUDIBLE)
PREMIER ANDREWS: People won’t have to make their own way, as best we can we will provide transport options for people to get there. We want to make this as seamless as possible. And as I said, it is an option; it is not mandatory and not something everyone will choose to do. For instance, there are very important relief centres being set up the Bendigo Showgrounds today, that’s about supporting communities from Echuca and Rochester. There are lots of different options but this is one that has not been available to us previously and we want to make it as easy and as seamless as we possibly can make it.
JOURNALIST: (INAUDIBLE)
PREMIER ANDREWS: Yes they do, or they spoke to the relief centre they are already in contact with and we will take it from there and provide people with all the support they need. So you will be fed, you will be well taken care of and health services, other government services are there for you. We will look after your kids. It is an option that has not been available previously and I think people will take it up. We're talking about many hundreds and indeed maybe thousands of people who are out of their homes, through no fault of their own, it’s either isolation or there’s water over the floor. They will be out while we do an enormous amount of work cleaning up in partnership with the Commonwealth.
JOURNALIST: Premier, on the amount of time people might be out of their homes, we have spoken to people who said that once floodwater comes in over the floorboards and the carpet, there is obviously not enough tradies and materials for everyone to do this at the same time. So is there support or any representations you have made to other states or the Insurance Council to make sure that people can get the repair work done quickly?
PREMIER ANDREWS: We have spoken to the Insurance Council, we’ve spoken to the banks and we are in constant communication and partnership with the Commonwealth Government and its agencies. There are grants, there are different phases, and when we move from the active flood, when it's all about safety then and providing relief, and then we move into a recovery and rebuilding phase. We will have more announcements to make over the coming days about, for instance, the government stepping in and having some lead or head contractor arrangements as we have done in previous floods and more recently in terms of fires. Those grants to local government that I just announced are about them being able to do what they can around clean-up. This will be a massive task. Some of it will fall to local government as well as us and the Federal Government. Other elements of this will be people taking responsibility for their own property but they will need support and assistance and not everyone will be able to do that. There will be a range of people who simply won’t be able to do the bits that a homeowner might do, let alone tradespeople. And you are right, there will be significant shortages of the skills and expertise that we need. That is why working together is so important. That’s why providing people with options to be housed elsewhere, particularly vulnerable people, to be housed elsewhere while we get that work done is a really important development. But I hope to have more to say tomorrow about a whole series of different programs, everything from waste and landfill and those sorts of issues through to other supports that will be provided to those hardest hit.
JOURNALIST: On the floods on the Maribyrnong, there is still anger and questions being raised about the flood wall around Flemington. You said yesterday that it was up to Melbourne Water –
PREMIER ANDREWS: Yes I can confirm that Melbourne Water will conduct a thorough review of this flood event and the impact that that wall had on this flood event. They will do that work at arm’s length of the Government and I will report progress.
PRIME MINISTER: Can I, just before we move off the immediate, as of a couple of minutes’ time, the system will be available for online claiming of the disaster payment, 24/7 through my.gov.au and we have an Australian Government emergency information line: 180 22 66. That is available from two o'clock today.
JOURNALIST: Premier, do you have a rough idea of how many people across Victoria have been impacted? Just an overarching number?
PREMIER ANDREWS: We’ve got 9000 people who believe themselves eligible to apply for that one-off payment. They are payments to people who are out of their homes either because their home has been flooded or their home is isolated because of floodwater. We may have some multiples in there, but once we reconcile those numbers we will get them to you. I think they have been double-checked and we will triple-check them. Obviously that number is going to continue to grow so we are certainly talking about thousands of people and communities right across regional Victoria and some even in metropolitan Melbourne who are out of their home and we will stand with them and support them to get through this initial phase. Then we will move to clean up, and today's announcement of support for those 24 councils is very important. We do not want finances to be in any way limiting the care and support we provide to those who are doing it really tough. Those grants are a first. There will be subsequent steps that we take and we will have more to say tomorrow. But it is certainly thousands and thousands of people that are out of their homes. And we can be absolutely certain, sadly, that in places like Shepparton, places like Echuca and others, that these waters will continue to rise and more and more homes will be flooded. That is why there are important evacuation efforts going on right now in a number of different places.
JOURNALIST: That payment for people who are out of their homes, does that include people who perhaps evacuated when they were told to by the SES, have returned later, floodwater did not come in but they did have to pay for alternative accommodation?
PREMIER ANDREWS: Yes, if you are out of your home because you have been flooded, or because your home has been cut off, or indeed, if you have been out of your home because of the flood event, so listening to advice, then you will be eligible. We will make it as easy as possible for people to claim these funds, it is not a time to be going through 20 different hoops in order to get the money. We are trying to make this as easy as possible, as seamless as possible. We want to encourage people: when you are told to leave, that is exactly what we ask you to do. That advice is carefully considered and it is offered with only one purpose, and that is to keep you safe and to prevent somebody else having to come and rescue you because it is very dangerous for them as well.
JOURNALIST: Maribyrnong locals today are claiming that their payments were already rejected (INAUDIBLE).
PREMIER ANDREWS: I am happy to get advice on that for you.
JOURNALIST: It might be a bit early, but an issue that came up in New South Wales post-floods, polling booths and things like that were unavailable for the communities because of the floods. We are about to come into a state election, I know pre-poll is in a number of weeks, what might be will be available to those people?
PREMIER ANDREWS: I would be very confident that the Victorian Electoral Commission will have a range of contingencies. Those plans will be particularly well-developed, given that this rain has been forecast for quite some time. Just like the SES, EMV and all of our emergency services have been doing a lot of work these past few months. I would be pretty confident that the Electoral Commission has done the same. But we can have someone come back to you from the VEC on that.
JOURNALIST: (INAUDIBLE)
PREMIER ANDREWS: No. Melbourne Water will review the wall issue. In terms of notifications, doorknocking, the footprint for text messages, Tim went through all of that in quite some detail yesterday. I want to thank all of those volunteers and all of those career staff who are out there trying to make sure the community knew. I was just speaking with Kevin from the Bureau, their forecasting has been very accurate, and we were just commenting that it was good that we stood up on Tuesday to give people as much warning as possible. But as to what exactly occurred in that Maribyrnong area, Tim took all of us through that in some detail. We are happy to give you timelines and more detail. But the total footprint of warning activity was designed at a standard that was well beyond the houses that were in fact flooded. We have to support those families and we will. As for any grants that have not been processed, I’m happy to chase that up as well. Nothing else for me? You can talk about infrastructure, talk to a Prime Minister who keeps his promises, which is very good.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you have promised $2.2 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop. That was less than what the Victorian Government promised overall would contribute. Are you waiting for Infrastructure Australia to do a full assessment before you do that? And do you know when we could expect that funding?
PRIME MINISTER: We promised $2.2 billion and we will deliver $2.2 billion in our first budget. I made it very clear where I stood with the Premier on a number of occasions about this exciting project. It is a nation-building project for Victoria. It will transform the way people get around this city. One of the things I know is that when Infrastructure Australia have done assessments about particularly our East Coast capitals, they were confronted with the same problem in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, which is a problem at the centre, at the core of the system. In Melbourne it has been dealt with by the Melbourne Metro project, which we had substantial money in the budget for, that was withdrawn and cut by the first Abbott budget. That is a pity, because there was even a federal person on the board that was established, and we worked with both the Labor and the Coalition government here in Victoria to deliver that project. The next step of avoiding going into the centre and out, the hub and spoke approach that Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane all suffered from, is the Suburban Rail Loop. Why should you have to go into the city to then go out again? This will make an enormous difference to productivity. It is very much a commitment that we’ve given of $2.2 billion, because we know that this is an exciting project. Infrastructure Australia will continue to work with the Victorian Government, not just on that, but on a range other projects as well. We are committed to the Camerons Lane Interchange at Beveridge, and we will provide funding of $150 million there. That is a growing community there in the northern suburbs that I went to and made a commitment along with the Federal Member and the local council as well as state. And, of course, the Barwon Heads Road Upgrade as well, the next stage of that will also be funded in the budget. But we will continue to work with the Victorian Government as we will with every state and territory government. Infrastructure Australia, the model that says the money should go to the most productive areas, is a model that unfortunately was undermined by the former government. They did keep Infrastructure Australia there, they just politicised the board and politicised the processes and undermined it. We're trying to fix that, I look forward to doing that, and delivering $2.75 billion of new commitments for Victorian infrastructure that we will deliver.
JOURNALIST: The Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said today that he would be keen to have a conversation with you about repurposing the money for the Suburban Rail Loop. Would you be open to that conversation?
PRIME MINISTER: No. It is a commitment for the Suburban Rail Loop. We make commitments to specific projects at specific times very clearly. The sort of nonsense that we have seen from the interchange that went on, whereby money was so-called kept in locked boxes and all this sort of nonsense, you will not have that from my Government. You will have straight commitments, straight delivery, real funding for real projects that will make a real difference to people's lives. I am absolutely convinced the Suburban Rail Loop will do just that. Thank you very much.