Keep them coming and have your say is the message from a member of the nine-strong Environment and Planning Standing Committee responsible for completing a state government inquiry into the 2022 Victorian flood event.
State Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell is on the Legislative Council committee that will be responsible for delivering a report on June 30 next year into its flood-event findings.
There are already 200 submissions available to the public on the inquiry website, but Ms Lovell said she wanted to hear everything and she was certain there were people who had not yet had their say.
“We want to know how people could have been better warned and how they could have been better assisted before, during and after the flood,” she said.
Online submissions have been advertised to close on June 5, but that will not mean people who are unable — or not inclined — to use modern technology will be ignored in the process.
Before then Rochester Secondary College is hosting a submission workshop (tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 24), supported by the Campaspe Shire.
A second submission workshop (which will be attended by flood inquiry staff and is one of three being held in support of the submission writing process) will be held at Rochester Secondary College on Wednesday, June 14, at 5pm a week after an event in Seymour.
Submissions made at that event, and for two weeks afterwards, will still be included in the process.
“We couldn’t run these prior to the closing date because of the workload of the inquiry secretary,” Ms Lovell said.
“There will be forms handed out at that event and the submission process will be further explained to those who attend.”
She said at the end of the process every submission would have the attention of at least a couple of sets of eyes, but for her it would be a task completed during the winter break of parliament.
“At every committee meeting there is a new batch of submissions that are put up for acceptance,” she said.
“Before they are published on the website they are approved by the committee.”
Ms Lovell said the inquiry had received a huge amount of submissions from Rochester.
“There seems to have been a concerted effort to promote the writing of submissions in Rochester, because the community was so heavily impacted,” she said.
“(Lake) Eppalock is featuring a lot, but people don’t need to go into technical details.
“I don’t want people to not put in a submission because they think it is all about Eppalock.
“They should let us know anything — how they could have been better warned, better prepared and how we could plan better for future events.
“Telling us things that may have helped them personally is important.”
Ms Lovell said she had managed to read “parts” of the submissions, but guaranteed more than one person would read those submissions before the report was finalised.
“I will read all the submissions from my electorate,” she said.
