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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

When an inner suburb of Melbourne was hit by flooding a few weeks ago, attention turned to Flemington Racecourse: the home of the Melbourne Cup.

The track is a floodplain, and in prior floods it had become submerged in water. But not this time.

This year a flood wall protected it. But could the wall that saved Flemington Racecourse have contributed to the damage to nearby houses? Or is that debate obscuring the bigger problems facing our cities as the climate crisis closes in?

Today, associate editor of The Saturday Paper, Martin Mackenzie-Murray, on the Maribyrnong flood.

It’s Wednesday, November 2.

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RUBY:

Marty not long ago, parts of Melbourne, like large parts of the country now, became affected by flooding. And you went to one of the places that had it the worst in the inner west of Melbourne in Maribyrnong. So to begin with, could you tell me a bit about what it was that actually happened there as the waters began to rise and what it was like for the people who live there?

MARTIN:

Sure, I did go out there and saw the aftermath, and there's this kind of funky smell of decomposition. There's enormous amounts of mud, very sadly, like the verges and driveways are still filled with refuse corrupted beds and couches and chairs. It's a mess. But to go back, it was the night of Thursday, October 13, and one of the residents, Jane Trewin, told me her story.

Archival tape -- Martin Mackenzie-Murray:

“Jane, if it's not too painful, can you describe the morning of the flood for me?”

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“No, it's not too painful. I’ve sort of reconciled it in my brain now. The first Thursday night and I was watching the kind of the reports.”

MARTIN:

She was kind of anxiously refreshing certain web pages that offered flood and weather information. And because she'd been there for 40 years, she had precedent.

She was there for the 1993 flood, which was fairly severe, though not as severe as 1974, which is kind of part of local folklore.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“3.83 was 93. That went through my garage about four foot and about 18 inches in my family room. Okay that’s fine.”

MARTIN:

And early that Thursday, it had been heavily raining all day and early afternoon, early evening. The flood warnings were for 2.4 metres and she thought that was fine. She was kind of comforted by that.

So it's raining very heavily that night. And she thinks of something her husband, her late husband, Shane, had said to her. He had passed away 3 years before.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“It was pouring, absolutely pouring, and about 9:30 I kind of remember my husband always saying, just always take the cars up to high ground, always. It was his thing.”

MARTIN:

And she was kind of reluctant to do this because it was heavily pouring and she'd obviously have to walk back. But she was more reluctant to spurn the advice of her dead husband. So she drives the car up to higher ground and comes back.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“I remember looking at the clock, it says check at two o’clock. So I waited till 2, 2:30 came.”

MARTIN:

And she doesn't get to sleep that night until about 2:30. She's still kind of refreshing the flood warnings. The warnings are increased at 2.9 metres. She finally falls asleep around about 2:30. And this is where everything changes.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“And so about 4:28. My phone buzzed and I looked at my phone and went 'what, evacuate?'”

MARTIN:

Within those two hours roundabout 3-3:30 a.m. on the morning of Friday, October 14. The flood warning has gone from moderate to major, and the waters are rising very, very quickly.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“You know, it was just sending the message, evacuate immediately.”

MARTIN:

And rather than 2.9, it rose to 4.2 metres.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“I thought okay so I came out and went whoa, gee that's kind of on the road and the next thing ir was on my lawn next thing it was on the second step and I started to panic. Then I thought, okay, I had gumboots on, they were my husband's, he’d left them for me.”

MARTIN:

So locally, a very serious flood. 245 homes were flooded.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“I went to the other side of the river, saw my house. Yeah just burst into tears. I was inconsolable.”

MARTIN:

Jane is now staying in a hotel and she's unsure if the home is salvageable or not. It's condemned. It's now subject to building inspectors.

Archival tape -- Jane Trewin:

“But my life is here, it’s what I do everyday, so I'm just trying to get a bit of normalcy up - I haven’t been feeling... I feel a bit displaced… I feel a bit lost… because I'm 40 years in, you know?”

MARTIN:

You know, her anguish is quite extreme. She's lost her husband three years ago. She's now lost her home. She's not sure if she's adequately insured and she's not sure if the house will even exist shortly.

RUBY:

Hmm. Okay. And so, Marty, why is it that Jane's home and others in this area were particularly affected by a flooding and in such a quick way during that night?

MARTIN:

The short answer is there was an enormous amount of rain in a short period of time. And they live on a floodplain, directly, you know, right on the banks of the Maribyrnong River, which has historically flooded quite seriously every 20 or so years. So the very short answer is heavy, heavy rain in a short period of time. The complicating issues are, we've experienced three consecutive La Niñas. So Earth's capacity to store or absorb water is exhausted, and so any additional rainfall now manifests as flood flow. We also have increasingly urbanised our cities, which means more concrete, which is impermeable. And a complicating local factor is the very controversial Flemington race course wall.

RUBY:

Hmm. Okay. So let's talk about the Flemington Racecourse wall because Flemington Racecourse, that's obviously where the Melbourne Cup was held just yesterday. So when was this wall built and what role did it play in this flooding event?

MARTIN:

So Victorian Racing and the Victorian Racing Club were mindful of the 1974 floods, which were major and swamped the racecourse. So mindful that they're in an area that is subject to fairly frequent flooding, they proposed a retaining wall 2.5 metres high that runs the riverside perimeter of the racecourse.

Archival tape -- A Current Affair:

“The wall loops the race course and was erected in 2007 to save one of Australia's richest races from being cancelled in the case of a one in 50 year flood.”

MARTIN:

This was approved by Melbourne Water in 2004. But it was subject to pretty intense local objections.

Archival tape -- A Current Affair:

“The wall getting the go ahead despite getting the fierce opposition from Maribyrnong families tried to stop it, all of them fearful floodwater would get redirected onto their doorsteps.”

MARTIN:

Including Jane Trewin’s late husband Shane, who kind of led community protests alongside a hydrologist called Geoff Crapper.

And, local council objected as well. There were a number of objections and the idea being that in the case of a flood, the racecourse acts as a natural floodplain. The retaining wall would obviously reject that water and displace it somewhere else. The water has to go somewhere else. And so it was irresponsible for the racecourse to protect itself in that way when it should be absorbing the water in the case of a flood crisis. So that finished on 2007.

Fast forward to October 14 and there's 245 homes being flooded.

Archival tape -- 9 News:

“The Great Divide, Fortress Flemington, its manicured lawns luscious, pristine and green just beyond the walls this - a torrent of brown mud and filthy debris.”

Archival tape -- 9 News:

“Locals are furious with the Victoria Racing Club saying their properties were flooded because of a controversial wall. They believe the structure designed to protect Flemington Racecourse diverted water into their houses.”

MARTIN:

And there's a sort of acute moment of insensitivity from the ex-Victorian Racing Club chief, Dale Monteith, who kind of gloatingly tweets before and after photos. So the racecourse in 1974 when you can barely see it for the water and then an aerial shot from that day, October 14 this year, which shows the racecourse as this kind of brilliantly emerald green island surrounded by sea and deluged homes. And he says, look, see this is why we needed to do this. That tweet was obviously acutely insensitive, quite inflammatory to locals who had lost their homes and believed that wall to have contributed to it. The tweet was quickly deleted. I think it was the next day that Andrew Jones, who's the chief of Racing Victoria, apologised and suggested there may have been unintended consequences of that wall.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“But it’s got a bit of controversy from locals who claim that it diverted the floodwater away from the racetrack and into their homes. Do you understand their anger over that?”

Archival tape -- Andrew Jones:

“Look, it's a difficult situation. The VRC took steps to flood-proof or flood-protect its property 15 years ago, which it's entitled to do. That's obviously had unintended consequences for neighbouring residents. I know Kensington quite well…”

MARTIN:

So right now an enquiry has been called which will be undertaken by Melbourne Water and they will use quite sophisticated modelling to look at whether or not - that wall obviously didn't cause the flood - but whether or not it exacerbated flooding and whether or not it meant more homes were flooded than if the wall didn't exist.

One possible problem with Melbourne Water conducting this enquiry is that they were of course the agency that approved the wall back in 2004 and its current chief was the then water minister back in 2004. He has recused himself from this enquiry, but there are questions, for instance, being asked by Ted Baillieu, the former Victorian premier, about the independence of the inquiry.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Marty, there will now be an inquiry into the wall that was built at the Flemington Racecourse. And as you say, these aerial photos where the racecourse is left pretty unscathed while the surrounding suburbs are in ruins, it does look pretty damning. So will this inquiry give people who live in the area and have been flooded out, a definitive answer about why their homes are so devastated?

MARTIN:

So I spoke with Professor Rory Nathan, who's a hydrologist and flood expert, and he studied flood behaviours for about 40 years. And one thing that he impressed upon me and it was something that has been really at the front of my mind is the importance of not jumping to conclusions, the importance of not pretending to knowledge we don't have. We don't, to answer your question know, at this moment, Rory Nathan thinks he can see evidence for both sides. One, that the wall did exacerbate the flooding and perhaps meant more homes were flooded than not. He can also see good evidence that the wall was ineffectual, that it wouldn't have much mattered if at all, given the significance of this flooding. So Rory Nathan has counselled that we sort of wait, and I very much agree with him. I think we pretend to knowledge we don't have. We pretend that our certitude is unchallengeable, but at this moment, we don't know, however damning those photos are. But Rory Nathan does say that we should be able to come to a conclusive answer. It just won't be for a while.

RUBY:

Hmm. Okay. But it does sound like there is a lot of community anger right now at the Flemington Racecourse and the actions of people, as you mentioned, who are associated with the racecourse hasn't really helped that. And you can understand where they're coming from as they look at their homes that have been - many of them - destroyed by the floods versus this racecourse which has hosted thousands and thousands of people for the Melbourne Cup. I mean, the contrast couldn't be more stark.

MARTIN:

Sure, I mean it was very, very plain from Jane Trewin her level of anguish. You know, like three years after losing a husband, she has now lost her home of 40 years. She had committed to pretty serious renovations since her husband passed away as well. She's really anxious about whether or not she has sufficient insurance. She's a pensioner now so is unsure whether or not she can get a bank loan. And then to see these condemned homes that are now housing the local brown snakes, I mean, it's genuinely awful. There's obviously a lot of anger, but let's separate the locals from commentators or from policymakers, because the issue of flooding is much, much bigger than the Flemington Racecourse wall, a much bigger issue. And it may well be that we find some villainy here. We may well find that this kind of private interest that is racing and gambling has trumped the safety of locals. It may well be, but we can't say at the moment.

RUBY:

Hmm… and I guess at the same time, Marty, there’s another conversation which can be difficult to have in the aftermath of people’s homes being destroyed but it often looms in the background after a natural disaster… and that is how do we reckon with the question of whether these homes should be rebuilt in an area that is at risk of flooding and should be a conversation about bigger changes to where we actually live in this country?

MARTIN:

Yeah. So I spoke with Rory Nathan, this hydrologist. I also spoke with Micah Cork, a historian of natural disasters, who's written several books, including books on flooding. And they both really complemented each other a lot and said what often happens and this is completely natural for those intimately affected, but there's less excuse for others, whether that be reporters or policymakers, politicians. We often sort of myopically narrow down or focus upon one issue with a flood, but it's not that simple. You know, we obviously have an enormous spate of floods, at the moment. We have to consider three consecutive La Niñas, which has exhausted our soils capacity for absorption. We have to consider climate change. An additional thing with climate change is not just that's going to increase such incidents and the severity. It also means that the modelling or the data that we use for modelling is outdated. We have to talk about development and increased urbanisation, the deforestation of forests, the channelisation of rivers. All of this contributes to flooding. So there's a lot there to consider. And both of them said there's a recurring political rhetoric following natural disasters. And that is we will help you rebuild. But if Lismore is experiencing three one in a 100 floods a year. At what point does saying rebuild become insensible and unsustainable?

They're talking about us needing to adapt, changing, altering the definition of resilience from one of stoicism and sticking and fighting and rebuilding to resilience, meaning us kind of courageously and inventively, adapting to our circumstances, those circumstances being climate change, a change in climate, a gravely changing climate. And we're going to have to adapt to increasing flooding, increasing fires.

So. There's a weird discrepancy that suggests to me that we're not quite ready for kind of a radical adaptability, but we're going to have to try because this isn't going anywhere.

RUBY:

Hmm. Marty, thank you so much for your time.

MARTIN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Gold Trip has won the Melbourne Cup.

Earlier in the morning a man allegedly broke into Flemington Racecourse to disrupt the event, a video appeared to show him dousing the track in an oily substance.

A statement released by the man allegedly behind the protest, criticised the flood wall protecting Flemington Racecourse and denounced the race as a “superspreader event for the virus of gambling addiction.”

And the Reserve Bank has raised its cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.85%.

This marks the seventh consecutive monthly increase, taking the rate to its highest in nine years.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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