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Stephanie Convery
Power outages west of Shepparton may last up to a week
Nearly 6000 properties west of Shepparton have lost power after floodwater breached a levee in the Mooroopna zone substation overnight.
The substation powers approximately 10,600 homes, but it had to be turned off early this morning after it was inundated despite the efforts of the power company, a spokesperson for Powercor told Guardian Australia.
The company had sandbagged the site, constructed a levee and had pumps running in an attempt to keep the water out, but made the decision to shut the substation off this morning to minimise the danger to the community and any long term infrastructure damage.
As a result, 5,954 customers in Tatura, Mooroopna, Ardmona, Murchison and the surrounding areas have lost power. The outage will remain until water levels have receded and workers can access the site – which will be some days, and may be up to a week, depending on the flood conditions.
The power company has managed to maintain power to approximately 4700 households by routing them to other parts of the network.
Powercor is also monitoring conditions at the Charlton zone substation, which supplies electricity to Birchip, Charlton, Boort, Wycheproof, Watchem, Wedderburn, Korong Vale, Quambatook, Berriwillock, Culgoa, Sea Lake, St Arnaud, Donald and surrounding towns.
Sandbags, pumps and a levee have been in place at the Charlton site since Saturday, but Powercor is encouraging anyone in those areas to prepare for potential outages.
Major parties accused of copying each other in NSW election promises
Thousands of NSW teachers will be shifted from temporary to permanent positions under pledges simultaneously announced by the state government and opposition, AAP reports.
The two major parties on Sunday accused each other of copying the policy as both promised to move 10,000 staff into ongoing roles to fix shortages ahead of the March state election.
The government said temporary teachers and support staff in areas of need would be offered permanent positions to bolster classroom numbers.
Education minister Sarah Mitchell said the issue had been raised by both teachers and principals, adding that progress had been hampered by the current agreement with unions:
The department of education has been working to identify teachers and support staff in temporary roles who could be transitioned.
At least 10,000 roles have been identified and the department will continue to work directly with principals to identify more.
Opposition leader, Chris Minns, used a speech at the Labor state conference on Sunday to launch his party’s pledge to create 10,000 more permanent teaching roles by shifting temporary positions into ongoing jobs.
We can’t have a situation where teachers are leaving our schools because they don’t know whether they will have a job next term, or next year.
Labor education spokeswoman, Prue Car, accused the coalition of replicating the opposition’s approach, while Mitchell told the ABC it was a case of Labor “copying our homework”.
The government scheme differs in including support staff in its promise of permanent positions.
Josh Butler
New carers strategy to give volunteers access to free support services
Social services minister Amanda Rishworth is trying to encourage more unpaid carers to take advantage of free commonwealth support services, as the government looks to a new carers’ strategy.
She says there are 2.65 million unpaid carers in Australia, but only 1 in 5 know about the Carer Gateway program – a website that links people with peer support groups, counselling, tailored support packages, respite assistance, online skills courses and other resources.
There’s a new advertising campaign launching today that will look to boost awareness and use of that platform. Rishworth said Deloitte economic analysis found unpaid carers provided 2.2bn hours of care annually that would cost nearly $78bn if performed by paid workers.
“We know that carers are dedicated and selfless and National Carers Week is the perfect time to acknowledge the efforts of carers and to remind carers of the importance of looking after their own wellbeing,” she said.
The minister said the ad campaign, launching this week, would be “one of the first steps towards delivering a National Carers Strategy, a review of the Carer Recognition Act 2010 and better coordination of carer policy across government”.
On Channel Nine earlier, the minister said carers themselves needed more support.
“What we want to make sure is they are getting the help that they need. One thing we do know from a lot of researchers that often carers don’t identify themselves as carers and they don’t put themselves first in knowing where to go for help,” she said.
“We not a lot of carers are actually getting that support. So we want to increase the number of carers being able to access that support.”
Isabella Moore
Overcrowding in remote NT communities persists
The Northern Territory government has spent $2.65bn over the past 15 years to improve the quality of housing in remote Indigenous communities, but overcrowding remains a problem and many houses need repairs.
Under the national partnership for remote housing Northern Territory policy, the government was supposed to improve housing conditions and reduce overcrowding in 73 remote communities and 17 town camps around Alice Springs. But the most recent data on overcrowding in remote communities managed by the national partnership reveals it has only been reduced by 3.2% in five years.
None of this is new to Miriam Charlie. Since 2015, the Yanyuwa Garrwa artist has been capturing the state of housing across all four town camps at Borroloola, with her Polaroid camera.
“All them houses, they’re too small, overcrowded,” she says. “So I went around and took photos of everybody’s houses. What part wasn’t fixed and what part was fixed.”
For more on the extraordinary work of Miriam Charlie, read the full story by Isabella Moore:
Protest against planned nuclear waste dump in South Australia
The Barngarla nation are holding a protest in Port Augusta today against plans by the federal government to build a nuclear waste dump at Kimba in regional South Australia.
Jason Bilney, chair of the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation said on Thursday the community had been deliberately excluded from the planning process by the previous Coalition government.
“We do not want radioactive waste on our lands, we have been very clear about this,” Bilney said.
Senate inquiry into poverty starts Thursday
A Senate inquiry into the level of poverty in Australia will begin from Thursday with the first hearing expected to examine housing issues in Melbourne.
The inquiry is being chaired by Greens senator, Janet Rice, and will coincide with the start of Anti-Poverty Week.
As the Labor government has been working to frame its October budget, Rice said the decision not to raise social security payments was a “political choice” that would hit children living in poverty hardest.
Poverty is a political choice and the Labor government is choosing tax cuts for the wealthy instead of making life easier for these families.
Currently income support payments are up to $40 a day below the poverty line, and there are 300,000 female single parents relying solely on Centrelink as their source of income.
NSW opposition leader pledges locally built trains in fleet upgrade
New South Wales opposition leader Chris Minns has promised an elected Labor government will “build trains right here” to replace the ageing Tangara fleet.
On Saturday, NSW Labor promised the next generation of passenger trains will be manufactured locally, creating 1000 jobs.
Minns attacked the state government over the decision to buy trains, ferries and trams off-the-shelf from overseas, which he says has lead to costs rising up to 50% and delivery delays.
“The Liberals have always said that New South Wales is not good at building trains. They are wrong. NSW workers are great at building trains and under a Labor government we will build trains here again,” Minns said.
“I am determined to bring back rail manufacturing to New South Wales after a decade of the Liberals sending thousands of jobs offshore and buying trains, trams and ferries filled with defects, faults and failures.”
Under the plan, the replacement of the Tangaras and the Millennium trains will require at least 50% minimum local content in future contracts.
The party said the requirement would “act as a floor, not as a ceiling” and any project that goes above and beyond will be “looked on favourably” during the tender process.
Amy Remeikis
National Carers Week begins
You might notice some new government ads from today, highlighting some of the support available to the 2.65 million Australians with caring responsibilities.
The national advertising campaign begins today for what is the 30th annual National Carers Week:
The ‘help for those who might never ask’ campaign will be translated into a number of languages, including 15 First Nations languages and is the first step towards the government meeting it’s promise to better support Australia’s unpaid carer’s workforce
As the floods have forced evacuations and emergency warnings across regional New South Wales, they are also forcing wildlife to move into urban spaces to avoid rising flood waters.
Around 600 properties in Shepparton area flooded
Stephanie Convery
Reports this morning that the SES had confirmed nearly 8,000 properties had been flooded in the Shepparton-Mooroopna area may have been slightly overstated.
A representative for the SES told Guardian Australia that it’s been impossible to confirm how many properties have been inundated so far as the conditions are “quite complex” and still changing. Due to dangerous conditions, it’s been difficult to get impact assessment teams into those places, the spokesperson said.
However, the SES working in collaboration with Fire Rescue Victoria have been able to assess and confirm that just over 600 properties in the Shepparton area have been flooded so far. Assessments are still ongoing, so that number is expected to rise.
The spokesperson could not confirm how many people had been displaced or evacuated.
The immediate worry is the flood affecting the town. The Goulburn River is expected to peak at 12.2 metres at 4am on Monday morning – that’s higher than the 1974 flood peak, which was 12.09m.
An evacuation warning is currently in place for Shepparton, Mooroopna and Orrvale but the SES is advising it’s now too late to leave. They urge anyone still located in those areas to seek shelter in the highest location possible, and not enter the flood water.
Here’s video from Shepparton where major flooding has inundated parts of the town on Sunday morning.
It’s a similar story in Echuca.
New evacuation orders issued in NSW and Victoria
New South Wales State Emergency Services have issued a new evacuation warning for those staying in Moama caravan and tourist parks to leave before 9am on Monday.
Meanwhile people in the region around Echuca have received text messages advised them to leave immediately and an evacuation alert has been issued for residents of Charlton township.
Josh Butler
Australian Defence Force deployed to assist with Victoria floods
Australian Defence Force personnel have been deployed to Victoria to help respond to emergencies caused by flooding with prime minister Anthony Albanese flagging the possibility of extra support for Victoria.
“We’ve made whatever assistance has been requested available, there are now 60 Australian Defence Force personnel on the ground, assisting with evacuations, assisting with sandbagging, doing their bit as our defence forces always do,” Albanese told ABC Radio this morning.
We’ve also made available the commonwealth facilities at Mickleham to create a Centre for National Resilience, which will ensure that 250 beds are available for those people who’ve had to, unfortunately, evacuate their homes.
Albanese said there may be additional support from Services Australia. We’re expecting a press conference from him this afternoon.
Anthony Albanese to tour Victoria’s flood-affected regions
Josh Butler
Prime minister Anthony Albanese will travel to Victoria today to tour flood-affected regions. We’re expecting him to visit Bendigo this morning and then hold a press conference in Melbourne in the early afternoon, with federal colleagues and Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.
The federal government has pledged more support for recovery and cleanup efforts, with defence force staff deployed to the affected areas. Andrews had also asked for federal money to help prepare the controversial Mickelham quarantine facility (which only closed recently, not long after opening, due to a lack of need for specialised Covid quarantine space) as an evacuation area.
Albanese may also get some questions about the infrastructure spending in the upcoming federal budget, with a big set of announcements on that today as the government confirms a $9.6bn spend. This is all confirmation of already known election commitments, but the government is painting the announcement as a course correction for how the former Coalition government treated this area.
Albanese and infrastructure minister Catherine King said in a statement:
The budget takes an important first step in ensuring the commonwealth’s infrastructure spending is responsible, affordable and sustainable.
We are putting sense back into infrastructure planning and delivery.
Scale of Victoria’s flood recovery efforts will be ‘significant’: King
Conversation turning now to the floods and the damage to infrastructure. The damage bill hasn’t come in yet but King says it is possible to get a sense from some of the pictures coming in about the damage to roads.
The good thing is now the government – you’ve seen it in Queensland and New South Wales – is actually building back better.
King says she expects Victoria will have a “significant ask” when it comes to the recovery effort from the floods.
She closes on saying “our hearts go out to people in Shepparton and Echuca”.
Who would have thought Maribyrnong and Kensington underwater? Terrible.
King on Coalition’s overpriced car parks and discretionary grants
Asked for examples of these extraordinary rorts, King cites overpriced car parks and the $2bn Regional Acceleration Fund:
That one in particular was a strange one, frankly. I think Bridget McKenzie put forward – again she sort of ran around the country during the election campaign announcing all sorts of bits and pieces.
Certainly we will be keeping some elements of that, that sit with the agenda of the new government around training people, making sure we have good university funding, a large proportion of it we won’t.
On the Building Better Regions fund, the applications have closed in December and wasn’t assessed before government left. King says she “hasn’t made a decision about that yet”.
There will be a regional grants program of some sort. It will not be the sort of terrible, skewed program that we’ve seen in the past.
King criticises Coalition’s ‘fanfare’ announcing projects with little follow through
King’s using the interview to take a few digs at her predecessor while discussing sports rorts and the former Coalition’s government’s habit of making splashy announcements but not necessarily following through.
The previous government announced a lot, with a lot of fanfare, but when you look at the capacity constraints and amount of money available.
King said that many of the projects that were announced will need to be reviewed to ensure realistic delivery times and proper funding.
There will be cuts particularly in terms of those things we just saw, extraordinary rorts in terms of commuter car parks.
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