River Murray flood lessons must be learnt, inquiry finds

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The Lower Murray’s levees need regular maintenance to protect farms and towns from future floods, a report into the 2022-23 flood has recommended.

The landmark report by five state MPs, which followed an 18-month investigation, was recently published by South Australia’s parliament.

One of their 23 recommendations was that annual funding be set aside for the maintenance of the government-owned levees which protect River Murray communities.

Most of the levees between Mannum and Wellington broke or were overrun during the floods two years ago, causing untold millions of dollars worth of damage to more than 1200 hectares of highly productive farmland and threatening low-lying towns such as Mypolonga.

Regular maintenance would avoid the need for the kind of rushed work that went on in the weeks before the floodwaters arrived.

During the flood and recovery, the MPs found:

• Some government agencies fell short or didn’t meet expectations
• Flood forecasts should refer to water levels in metres, not flows in gigalitres per day
• Information should be provided via a “single, cross-agency platform” rather than a hodge-podge of websites, social media accounts and community meetings
• Relief funding needs to be more accessible

They also recommended that future floods be managed differently, recognising that their scale was much greater and their duration much longer than any other kind of natural disaster.

While flood coordinator Alex Zimmerman had done a great job, an everything-runs-through-one-person approach was not ideal for such a big operation.

Finally, the report also recommended that governments identify and consult “representatives of relevant groups with experience and local expertise” during future floods – groups like the LMRIA recovery committee which was hastily set up in April 2023 in response to irrigators’ complaints that they weren’t being listened to.

MPs visited the Lower Murray several times during their investigation, and heard from locals at a public hearing in Murray Bridge in March 2024.

Their report was shaped by input from dozens of members of the public, including Jervois’ Dino Gazzola, Long Flat’s Jo Pfeiffer, Mannum’s Kylie Rochow and Ray Weedon, Mypolonga’s Corey Jones and David Smart, Riverglen’s Ian Mueller, Swanport’s Owen and Kathryn Rothe, Wall Flat’s Les and Daniel Martin, Wellington East’s Bardy McFarlane, irrigator Richard Reedy, mayors and council CEOs, and the author of this story.

‘The time to act is now’

The chair of the committee which led the investigation, Liberal MP Nicola Centofanti, urged the state government to adopt its recommendations.

Urgent reform, smarter planning and honest reflection were all needed, she said.

The government needed to learn from its mistakes.

“We found a system built for bushfires and short-term events, not slow-moving, complex disasters like this flood,” she said.

“Agencies operated in silos, communities were left in the dark, vital infrastructure like levees was neglected, and the communication failures – both within government and with the public – put lives and livelihoods at risk.”

“The next flood won’t wait for this government to get its act together.

“The time to act is now.”

She also criticised the fact that the government had tried to stop the inquiry from happening at all: “After a disaster of this magnitude, South Australia’s worst River Murray flood since 1956, every other government around the country would have commissioned an immediate, independent review.”

Premier Peter Malinauskas said the state government would formally respond to the report “in an appropriate time frame”.

It had already spent $170 million on the flood response and levee repairs, he said; and more investment was on the way, including on new river flow measurement tools which would be installed later this year.

Climate, Environment and Water Minister Susan Close said the government was also developing a statewide policy on levees, with references to “high-level principles, levee classifications, and clearly defined roles and responsibilities”.

In the meantime, Mr Malinauskas credited everyone who had worked on the flood response.

“The response to this flood has been recognised as being one of the more professional and expeditious roll-out of services to support affected communities that we’ve seen in the state’s history,” he said.

“The fact that we were able to get through it in the way that we did is, I think, a great credit to all the men and women that worked so hard on the ground.

“But this report allows us to assess areas of improvement in the future, and it should be treated with the seriousness it deserves.”

• Read the report: drive.google.com.

Disclosure: As noted above, the author made a submission to the flood inquiry based on Murray Bridge News’ reporting of the 2022-23 floods.