The Victoria Racing Club is standing by a controversial wall built around Flemington Racecourse after it went relatively unscathed while nearby homes were inundated during floods in 2022.
Club executives were on Wednesday quizzed at a parliamentary inquiry about the disaster, which affected about 600 properties in the Maribyrnong River catchment.
The local community was furious, with many claiming the flood wall exacerbated the impact on surrounding homes.
An independent panel concluded its contribution to the duration and extent of the flooding could not be directly assessed because of out-of-date modelling.
Melbourne Water, which appointed the independent panel, has promised to revisit the wall's impact after the development of new modelling in April 2024.
However, the agency's executive general manager Craig Dixon on Wednesday claimed existing modelling showed the flood wall did not have an adverse impact on the township.
Victoria Racing Club chief executive Steve Rosich said while the wall served its purpose during the October 2022 floods, it was for experts to determine whether it had any impact on the flooding of surrounding properties.
He suggested that if not for the wall, the consequences of the October 2022 floods could have been significant and expensive for the racecourse.
Mr Rosich maintained the wall was integral to Flemington's master plan and fundamental to ensuring the safety of some 600 horses stabled on its grounds.
He said the club raised more than $500,000 in donations towards flood recovery efforts after the October 2022 event.
"We understand the flood had an impact right across the state," Mr Rosich told the inquiry.
"As a significant Victorian entity, we tried to play our part in that."
Mr Rosich said he contacted his predecessor Dale Monteith and asked him to reconsider a tweet he posted at the time of the floods given the sensitivity of the situation.
Mr Monteith's tweet showed before and after photos of Flemington Racecourse with the wall and read: "Then and now. Took (five) years with process and build. Pretty happy that we have left a legacy for future of Flemington. Was always going to happen but ignored previously."
Mr Rosich said the Victoria Racing Club was not warned about the scale of the 2022 flood ahead of the Maribyrnong breaking its banks - a factor that garnered Melbourne Water criticism after residents of the city's northwest complained they did not receive adequate information about the looming flood.
Melbourne Water managing director Nerina Di Lorenzo on Wednesday told the parliamentary inquiry floods could escalate quickly in the Maribyrnong system and in October 2022, water levels in the lower catchment went from moderate to major in about 90 minutes.
She said modelling "very closely" reflected the actual extent of flooding during the 2022 event, except in the case of the Rivervue Retirement Village, where 47 properties were inundated.
Melbourne Water was working with the retirement village on flood mitigation, she said.
Victoria State Emergency Service (SES) Volunteers Association president Faye Bendrups earlier told the inquiry flood warnings to the community in October 2022 were too little, too late.
In a submission to the inquiry, the association derided information disseminated by authorities and the media before the floods as "alarmingly misleading advice which put hundreds of residents at risk".
The parliamentary inquiry is due to hear from Rivervue Retirement Village management and residents and the Victorian Planning Authority on Thursday.
