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Man found dead in floodwaters Rochester
Victoria has recorded its first flood fatality.
A 54-year old man has died after being found unconscious in a backyard swimming pool in the regional Victorian town of Rochester, ABC is reporting.
The man passed away last night, and was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Saturday morning.
NSW SES conduct seven flood rescues overnight
Communities across southern and western New South Wales are still on alert for flooding as waters continue to rise on the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers.
The Lachlan River reached major flood level in the central-west town of Forbes yesterday, with its CBD still cut off. The SES say 2200 residents and 250 homes had been affected.
Further down the Lachlan River, the search for missing 63-year old man Phillip Alvaro at Helston (about 300km north-west of Wagga Wagga) continues.
NSW SES southern zone commander Benjamin Pickup spoke to ABC News earlier this morning.
At the moment the focus is the Lachlan River in the Forbes community where we have seven evacuation orders in place.
Downstream at the Murrumbidgee River, at Wagga Wagga, we have a prepared to evacuate for Narrandera as well, for low-lying areas.
We continue to see major flood warnings across the Murray River with a significant rainfall events they have in Victoria yesterday on the day before. There will be a focus going through the next week.
Pickup said the SES received 213 requests for assistance and seven flood rescues overnight.
We encourage people to not drive or walk into floodwater.
Independents welcome expansion of paid parental leave expansion
Independent members of parliament Zoe Daniel and Zali Steggall have expressed their support for the government’s expansion of paid parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks.
The increase to six months will be rolled out with an extra fortnight added each year until 2026. The leave will also be flexible, allowing parents to take blocks between periods of work but the “use it or lose it” provisions will remain.
Daniel highlighted those provisions are important for achieving gender equality in so far as both mothers and fathers taking leave.
Use it or lose it leave for dads is really important to encourage dads to spend time with their babies and to enable more family flexibility.
Finally! Paid parental leave to be extended to six months by 2026. There are a few bits of this left to work on, but let’s get on with empowering our educated and smart women to participate in the workforce. #auspol https://t.co/ZTyAgeGDWK
— Zoe Daniel (@zdaniel) October 14, 2022
✅Albanese readies to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. This is a much needed step forward for women’s participation in the workforce and pay equity. There also needs to be a use it or lose it amount for Dad’s to take up parental leave. #auspol https://t.co/TrJJfaIiSe
— 🌏 Zali Steggall MP (@zalisteggall) October 14, 2022
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will be making a speech later today officially announcing the measure at the NSW Labor state conference.
I’ll be announcing this in a speech later today, but I wanted to share it with you here first.
This is the biggest boost to Paid Parental Leave since it was introduced.
Six months of paid time off – and the flexibility to choose how to split it between parents. pic.twitter.com/Sm9ICyqEkq
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 14, 2022
You can read the full story from my colleague Josh Butler here:
Rivers likely to remain high for a few weeks, BOM says
However, How goes on to say rivers are likely to remain high for a few weeks:
We have seen extremely high rainfall totals but that cold front moving through over the last few days, the highest rainfall totals were through the northern part Tasmania where we saw falls up to 400mm, over and above many times the October average and many other communities recorded more than 100mm.
In Victoria, falls up to 220mm particularly across the Divide and north of that as well. Many places did set October rainfall daily records including Mildura, One Hill, Bendigo and into southern New South Wales we saw records broken at Broken Hill with rainfall totals well above the total rainfall records and averages, so a huge amount of rainfall to come over a few days.
Catchments are very, very wet and rivers have responded very, very quickly. And these rivers are expected to remain high for at least a few weeks.
Over the next few days, we are looking at the dry sky, so we will see the river start to subside gradually, but near the coast rivers will drain a little bit faster, but we are keeping an eye on the next system coming through.
And showers will be increasing for South Australia and Queensland:
Across the northern parts of South Australia, so showers increasing for South Australia and Queensland and then through to next Saturday and Sunday, looking at widespread showers and thunderstorms which can of course produce flash flooding, but looking like more widespread showers all the way up the east coast between 25-30mm, so he that will likely lead to further river rises.
Heavy rain has cleared in southern Victoria and Tasmania: BOM
Jonathan How from the Bureau of Meteorology has spoken to ABC News about the severe weather, saying the heavy rain has cleared in southern Victoria and Tasmania.
Overnight we did see rainfall totals of 5-15 millimetres across parts of southern Victoria and Tasmania, but the good news is that the heavy rain has cleared but we are seeing ongoing flooding for New South Wales and Victoria.
First in Melbourne, flood warnings out for the Maribyrnong and Werribee rivers. Keep following the advice of local police and SES, but at tension is very much through the northern and inland parts of Victoria.
To the Goulburn River, some areas did see major record flood levels already, and will impact down stream Warburton and Shepparton today. Other locations include tonne as well as Forbes in New South Wales and Lachlan. They are also experiencing major flooding.
Peak of Tasmanian flooding extending into next 24 hours
Leon Smith, the acting director for Tasmania’s State Emergency Service, has spoken to ABC News about the severe weather in the state:
The north and the north-west of Tasmania had the highest level of rainfall. Record-breaking rainfall over the previous few days. That rainfall accumulated at altitude and made its way down the landscape into the riverine.
The last flooding of significance was in 2016, but the rainfall in 2022 we’ve experienced has exceeded a lot of those values and has been far-reaching by comparison to that previous event.
The state’s quite diverse, from the north-west, the topography changes from the north-west to the north. We’ve got a situation in the state at the moment whereby we are starting to see the rivers recede in the riverine systems. There’s a combination of people returning in the north-east in a methodical and managed manner.
However, in the north, there’s a different situation whereby we’re actively still monitoring that and monitoring the peak period, which is expected to extend into the next 12-24 hours.
Sikh volunteers deliver meals to flood affected communities
As is often the case with natural disasters, amid the devastation, kindness also shines through.
Shepparton prepares for major flooding to hit by evening
While floodwaters are receding in some parts of Victoria, for some areas such as Shepparton, north-east of Melbourne, the worst is yet to come.
Major flooding is predicted to hit the regional Victorian city by this evening, with predictions it could exceed 1974 flood levels and reach up to 12 metres.
The Shepparton mayor, Shane Sali, has just spoken to ABC News from the showgrounds where there is a “massive line” for sandbags. Sali is urging those who have been issued with evacuation orders to follow them.
At this point, Murchison, which is where the water will be heading effectively as we are speaking now, the most important thing we’re wanting to do now is get the messaging out there clear as we possibly can to ensure that if you have been notified to evacuate your premises, that you please do that. Act as early as you possibly can, if you are not in those affected areas right now but may be effected through the floods in Shepparton and Mooroopna, and keep up to date with all the information on social media platforms.
We are going to have a significant amount of water come down to Mooroopna and Shepparton, which are highly populated areas here in greater Shepparton, so we are asking community members to be calm but react accordingly and prepare as best you possibly can for what is due over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours.
Sali says there is support from the Australian Defence Force as well as volunteers following a call to the community put out overnight.
We had significant amounts of people turn up and support us with filling sandbags in the really early part of this morning … so it is a big community effort and with events like this that is what we need, we need everyone to rally behind each other and that is how we get through it.
Bill Shorten says his electorate’s resilience tested by worst flood in 50 years
One of the worst hit areas by flooding has been the inner-western Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong, where residents had to be evacuated and emergency services used boats to rescue people trapped by the floods. This is just one of the images from yesterday:
While the Maribyrnong River is receding, the area remains littered with debris from the flooding and many houses have mud up to their front door steps.
The local member for Maribyrnong is NDIS minister Bill Shorten who spoke to ABC News this morning:
They are upset. They are resilient people here, they live near a river, but this river hasn’t flooded like this for 50 years. It moved very quickly. After the adrenaline and exhilaration and fear of yesterday, it is now sinking in, the river has receded which is great, it is down a lot, where we are now the river would have been over the top of our head. But it is the cleanup, and people will want support, and certainly that is why I am down here today.
Clean up begins for flood affected communities
Flood waters are starting to ease in some inundated areas, but of course that’s not the end of it for those communities who will now have to start the clean up.
The local member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters shared this image of a bridge and road linking Heathcote to Bendigo.
Yesterday, a sinkhole opened up in the carpark of Echuca Primary School.
Data breach strikes 2.2m customers of Woolworths subsidiary
MyDeal, the online retail marketplace of supermarket giant Woolworths, has announced that 2.2m of its customers have had their personal details compromised in a data breach.
The company says that a compromised user credential was used to gain unauthorised access to its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, resulting in the exposure of customer data including names, email addresses, phone numbers, delivery addresses and birth dates.
Woolworths Group completed the acquisition of 80% of the online marketplace on 23 September 2022.
The company has released a statement saying:
The MyDeal customer data which has been accessed includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, delivery addresses and, in some instances, the date of birth of customers (who have previously been required to prove their age when purchasing alcohol). For 1.2 million customers involved in the breach only their email addresses were exposed.
MyDeal does not store payment, driver’s licence or passport details and no customer account passwords or payment details have been compromised in this breach. The customer data was accessed within the MyDeal CRM system and the Mydeal.com.au website and app have not been impacted.
The MyDeal.com.au data network and CRM system is operated on a completely separate platform to Woolworths Group. There has been no compromise of any other Woolworths Group platforms or the Woolworths Group customer or Everyday Rewards records.
The company says they are in the process of contacting the approximately 2.2 million affected customers by email, and that customers who are not contacted will not have had their details accessed in the breach.
MyDeal CEO Sean Senvirtne said:
We apologise for the considerable concern that this will cause our affected customers. We have acted quickly to identify and mitigate unauthorised access and have increased the monitoring of networks. We will continue to work with relevant authorities as we investigate the incident and we will keep our customers fully informed of any further updates impacting them.
Woolworths Group chief security officer Pieter van der Merwe said:
Woolworths Group’s cyber security and privacy teams are fully engaged and working closely with MyDeal to support the response.
Indigenous rally against South Australian nuclear dump
An Indigenous group fighting the construction of a nuclear waste dump in South Australia will rally against the proposal this weekend, AAP reports.
The Barngarla traditional owners and their supporters will march through Port Augusta from midday on Saturday, about 150 kilometres from the Kimba dump site.
The Barngarla are also fighting the plan in the Federal Court, arguing they were not properly consulted by the previous federal coalition government in the site selection process.
Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation Chairman Jason Bilney said:
We do not want radioactive waste on our lands, we have been very clear about this.
We were ignored and excluded by the last government and we are asking federal Labor to right these wrongs and scrap the Kimba waste dump plan.
In November last year, the previous government announced it had acquired 211 hectares at Napandee, near Kimba, with the proposed facility subject to heritage, design and technical studies.
If constructed, the site would be used to store low-level nuclear waste currently spread across more than 100 facilities including universities and hospital basements.
The vast majority of nuclear waste in Australia is associated with the production of nuclear medicine.
Here are some visuals from Victoria, as towns like Elmore remain inundated.
In Melbourne this morning, the Maribyrnong river is expected to drop below a minor flood level, but dozens of residents are still unable to return home.
Good morning!
Parts of Victoria are in the midst of their worst flooding in decades with more than 500 homes damaged and another 500 others cut off.
Emergency evacuation orders are in force this morning for several communities, including Charlton Township at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, Rochester along the Campaspe River, low-lying parts of Benalla on the Broken River gateway, Murchison along the Goulburn River, south-west of Shepparton, and Maribyrnong in Melbourne.
Another evacuation order was issued for residents of the north-eastern town of Wangaratta on Saturday morning for properties within the Parfitt Road levee system. It said major flooding was occurring on the Ovens River at Wangaratta, where the river was expected to reach 12.8m this morning.
Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley is bracing for its worst flood since 1974, with the Goulburn River set to reach the major threshold on Sunday before peaking there on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, residents in flood-hit parts of Tasmania face an anxious wait for rivers to subside before they are permitted to begin assessing damage.
Evacuation orders remained in place along the Mersey and Meander rivers in the north-west last night after record-breaking rain across the state’s top half. The town of Deloraine in the north-west is among the worst affected, with aerial footage showing flooding of properties and businesses.
A reprieve from rainfall is forecast for most of New South Wales in the coming days, but the Bureau of Meteorology says renewed flooding is still possible or parts of central west and southwest inland rivers before more rain will lash towns such as Gundagai from mid-next week.
Warnings for renewed flooding from recent rainfall are current for the Belubula, Gwydir and Macquarie rivers.
The main flood peak along the Lachlan River is now approaching Forbes, where major flooding is occurring and river levels were expected to peak near 10.6m overnight. These floodwaters are also causing major flooding at Cottons Weir, Nanami, and Jemalong.
Late yesterday the Albanese government announced Australian families will soon receive an extra six weeks of paid parental leave in a shake-up designed to get women into work and help households with the cost of living.
An extra fortnight will be added each year until the full 26 weeks is available from July 2026. By that time, every family with a new baby will be able to access a total of six months paid leave, shared between the two parents.
Families will also have access to more leave and greater flexibility, with paid parental leave able to be taken in blocks between periods of paid work. Single parents will be able to access all 26 weeks.
Anthony Albanese will make the announcement during a speech to the NSW Labor state conference today.
Let’s get into it.
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