Thank you Yidan and good afternoon Rotarians and guests present at the Sofitel today and online.
Last week President Adrian advised us that our Club had reached out to the Rotary Club of Rochester, along with other Clubs in District 9800 to offer support to their community impacted by the tragic floods in cash and kind.
I did in fact drive through the region on the way to a client in Yarrawonga recently and observed the magnificent Canola plantations nearly ready for harvesting but sadly many of these crops have now been devastated right throughout North East Victoria.
Floods of this magnitude are nothing new and have been wreaking havoc on our State for centuries. Many of us will recall cars floating down Elizabeth Street in 1972 and similar scenes in Queens Road in 2016 and of course the Maribyrnong River in the past week at levels similar to 1974.
Our CBD has had 15 serious floods since 1891.
A so called expert Professor Tim Flannery stated over 10 years ago that “even the rain that falls isn’t going to fill our dams and river systems in the future”.
Well - how wrong that prediction has proven to be with dams full and flood waters right down the East Coast of Australia continuing to flow out to sea. What a waste of liquid gold.
It is a pessimistic time for communities in so many flooded areas across the country but surely the time has finally come for Government’s at all levels together with experts (whoever they are) to address the need to capture and store more water in order to protect our country against predictable and inevitable droughts and floods in the future .
Hopefully our Guest Speaker today will boost our spirits and provide optimism in terms of where leadership might come from in this critical area.
Thank you to Peter Dakin for providing this reflection on 26 October 2022.
