Local government candidate promises and policies on flood
6 March 2024
The local government elections are set for the 16 March 2024.
For residents living in Kurilpa, the Gabba Ward candidates are:
Trina Massey (Greens Party)
Rebecca Macintosh (Labor Party)
Laura Wong (Liberal Party)
We will also vote in the next Brisbane City Lord Mayor, from candidates:
Adrian Schrinner (Liberal Party)
Jonathan Sriranganathan (Greens Party)
Tracey Price (Labor Party)
The role of council in flood
Local government plays a key role in mitigating the impacts of floods on residents. They have various powers that can prevent exposure of our growing population to flood risks, ensure our infrastructure and community is prepared, and strengthen how we respond and recover from future floods.
Some of these areas include public drainage and electrical infrastructure, changes in development, local planning schemes, building standards and natural environment conservation, recovery services and hubs, as well as flood and river data that can be used by our community to anticipate impacts.
Image: Ferry Street, February 2022, taken by Ben Kaufman.
What actions on flood would each lord mayoral candidate take?
Adam Young posed the issue of flood resilience and mitigation in Brisbane to all three lord mayoral candidates, in his YouTube channel.
Here’s what their main actions were:
Increase funding to suburban and stormwater drainage and maintenance, desilting creeks, and vegetation management.
Lower Council barriers to house raising above previous flood levels.
Read more on their policy: Labor’s Plan to Make Brisbane a Climate Resilient City.
Ban new development on sites that are at high risk of severe flooding and allow flood resilient housing development on moderately flood prone sites. Read the detail on this policy.
Explore blue-green infrastructure (e.g. detention basins and natural gullies) to soak up storm water and allow water to flow.
Develop a long-term transition plan to relocate neighbourhoods highly vulnerable to flood and sea level rise, and replace with green space, sports fields, and native habitats.
Stricter development controls that build more resilient infrastructure.
Brisbane City Council have almost doubled the budget for drainage works which will be ongoing.
Kurilpa Futures forum recap
On Saturday 17 February, Kurilpa Futures continued their tradition of hosting community forums for Gabba Ward residents to raise matters with local candidates.
The presenting lord mayoral candidates included:
Tracey Price (Labor Party)
Jonathan Sriranganathan (Greens Party)
Adrian Schrinner (Liberal Party) declined the invitation due to a prior engagement.
The presenting Gabba Ward candidate included:
Rebecca Macintosh (Labor Party)
Trina Massey (Greens Party) sent apologies as she took a short mental health break after responding to State Member Amy MacMahon’s accident.
Laura Wong (Liberal Party) declined the invitation due to a prior engagement.
Image: Sitting left to right, Jonathan Sriranganathan, Tracey Price and Rebecca Macintosh at the Kurilpa Futures Candidates Forum.
What were their priorities?
Flood disasters were raised as a land use planning issue by both mayoral candidates, Tracey Price and Jonathan Sriranganathan.
Tracey Price stated a Labor Council will explore a comprehensive review of the Brisbane City Plan 2014 to implement better standards for development in flood prone areas.
Jonathan Sriranganathan referred to the Green’s newly announced policy on banning new development on sites that are at high risk of severe flooding, noting flood-resilient design standards would apply to moderately flood-affected sites.
Both stressed their opposition to the Temporary Land-use Planning Instrument (TLPI) spelling out a fundamental threat of putting an additional 20,000 more residents, with thousands of additional cars, onto flood-prone land.
Floods were not a dominant focus of the candidate’s presentations, nor the forum questions, however the community voiced numerous concerns about strengthening the safety of our public realm. These issues included:
safer streets,
stronger pedestrian connectivity,
redirecting money away from road widening and into cycling / active transport solutions,
more green space for a broad range of uses to reduce travel needed to sports fields,
looking at alternative sites for large public and affordable housing development to address the housing crisis.
While a safer and more connected public realm has everyday benefits, we know these areas also reduce our carbon footprint, and boost flood and climate resilience.
West End Community Association forum recap
On Thursday 29 February, the West End Community Association (WECA) held a candidates forum focused on housing security, affordability and liveability.
Image: Watch the livestream recording of the WECA forum here. Sitting left to right, Rebecca Macintosh and Trina Massey.
This time they were joined by local Gabba Ward candidates:
Rebecca Macintosh (Labor Party)
Trina Massey (Greens Party)
Key points related to flood from each candidate included:
Rebecca Macintosh
Labor Council will offer voluntary resumption of houses on the floodplain for green space.
Wants to revisit the Green Space Strategy to identify more green space in the Gabba Ward.
Trina Massey
The Greens Party plan to ban development on Flood Planning Areas 1 and 2 (the areas at highest risk) include the cement factory, and,
Will convert 11 hectares identified in the Green Space Strategy into green space without the need to resume any homes on the Kurilpa Peninsular.
Image: Design ideas for floodable riverside park land, flood plazas, channels and mangroves could direct the flow of flood waters (Green Space Strategy 2017).
“The Green Space Strategy repurposes eleven hectares of hard space into park and permeable areas that can act as a network of local ‘sponges’ to absorb, purify, hold and recycle stormwater, rather than piping it all into the river. Each park must feature water sensitive urban design. “
Resilient Kurilpa’s questions
Finally, Resilient Kurilpa sent the following questions to the all three Lord Mayoral candidates:
What should Council be doing to make a real difference to City flood vulnerability?
What are two (2) flood resilience priorities for you in your role as Lord Mayor in Council?
What would you do to promote greater action by apartment dwellers in flood-prone areas to be better prepared? Please refer to our apartment flood mitigation tool.
Responses were varied:
The Labor Mayoral candidate’s team did not respond.
The Greens team responded with their banning development on the flood plain initiative. They also pointed to their policy platform (particularly items 36 to 42) which gives extra detail about their priorities for improving sustainability, minimising flood risks and preparing for climate change.
The LNP team responded with this letter citing their existing Brisbane’s FloodSmart Future Strategy, tools and information on the Council website, as well as a new factsheet on Building back better basements.