The story said: “The houses here on the outskirts of Shepparton, in regional Victoria, fell victim to the disastrous floods of 2022. More than 4,000 homes across the state were damaged or destroyed — 900 of those were in Shepparton.”
The story continued: “The impacts are already flowing through to home insurance, mortgages and the entire financial sector.”
A resident told the ABC: “This town has been described as the canary in the coal mine — what happens here could be Australia’s blueprint for success or demise.”
The ABC said while Shepparton had always been exposed to floods, climate change was increasing the number of properties in harm’s way, subsequently restricting the availability of insurance.
“New data commissioned by the Climate Council lists Shepparton’s CBD as one of the most vulnerable suburbs in the country for uninsurability due to climate-related risks.
This is the suburb of Shepparton, in the centre of town, which lies on the banks of the Goulburn River.
The latest analysis shows that 16,775 properties here — 88 per cent — are currently considered at “high risk” of becoming unaffordable or impossible to insure, due to the risk of climate-related damage, the ABC reported.
Recently, I sat through a meeting at which there was also a fellow who knows more about water and how floods behave in the Goulburn Valley, including Shepparton, than most.
He had few kind things to say about the story, arguing reporters had not pursued the right questions and had overlooked many realities.
His concerns that the ABC story painted an inappropriate and dark picture of floods in Shepparton were understood by those at the meeting, but some pointed out that insurance companies base their judgments, and premiums, on postcodes, and 3760 is high flood risk.
Commenting on insurance companies, the ABC story noted: “The information they use to do this is largely inaccessible to the public, but it determines how much cover insurers can offer and the premiums they charge.”
Those eager to understand more about floods, and water generally, in this part of the world should visit the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority website at tinyurl.com/mr2wwdx9.
Now, it seems most of us in the Shepparton area are stuck between immoveable insurance companies and increasingly high water, and a cursory glance suggests there is little we can do.
However, there is something we can do, and that is petition our re-elected man in Canberra, Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell, urging him, on our behalf, to support policies easing insurance pressures.
Beyond that, we should be asking him to step outside the National Party bubble and within parliament demand changes aimed at easing the climate change dilemma; a predicament that puts the seat of Nicholls among the most at risk in Australia from flooding, particularly riverine flooding.
And that flooding, of course, is worsened by a warming atmosphere.
Mr Birrell prefers policies and ideas for which I have little sympathy, but the May 3 election saw him resoundingly returned to Canberra, and so it falls upon us to stand with him as he drives a wedge between the big money of the fossil fuel industries and decisions made in parliament.
My home insurance, your home insurance, is linked irrevocably to our warming atmosphere and, beyond that, to what strings Mr Birrell and his counterparts can pull in Canberra.
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.
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