WAMBA WAMBA Aboriginal Reserve’s levee bank suitability for further pemanant housing would be tested by the flooded Murray River next Monday.
According to Wamba Wamba Local Aboriginal Lands Council coordinator Kim Pear, the record river level forecast for Monday would be the acid test that the reserve is not threatened by flood flows.
“If we can withstand this flood, it negates all the arguments in relation to this site,” Mr Peat said.
The council desperately wants to start building another duplex on the reserve, but Wakool Council cannot grant the building approval until the results of a Murray-Darling flood plain management strategy are released in 1995.
Mr Peat said Wamba Wamba had $120,000 already set aside for the duplex by the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission.
He said there were families still living in time sheds at Wamba Wamba.
“They’ve got no cooking or toilet facilities and the tin sheds are overcrowded,” he said.
Mr Peat said Wamba Wamba residents could not wait another two years for a further duplex.
He said the council raised the issue strongly with Opposition Aboriginal Affairs spokesman Colin Markham when he visited the reserve last week.
He said Mr Markham was thoroughly briefed on every aspect of the housing development application.
“But he can only act within the constraints of his shadow portfolio,” Mr Peat said.
He said he believed about $50 million would be spent at the reserve in the long term to provide substantial infrastructure.
“We are looking at providing dormitory facilities for the 15-20-year-old group, so we can equip them with the skills to live in a flat,” Mr Peat said.
He said the council planned to build kerbing and roads at the reserve, and provide lighting and sewerage infrastructure over a five-to-six-year period.
Mr Peat said e understood the need for the flood study, but the reserve already had very good levee bank protection from the Murray and was planning any works to alter flows.
He said while the proposed housing development dominated discussions with Mr Markham, the council also outlined its wish to take over two areas of Crown land in the Swan Hill district.
Mr Markham stressed that in no way would the application impact on private property and the areas would remain open to the public.
