His family has farmed the land just outside Rochester for 104 years, so he has a strong understanding of what is required to not only survive, but protect his land from impending flood disaster.
Such was the force of the 2022 event that none of the flood measures he put in place 12 years ago had an impact on protecting his land and stock.
“We got smashed pretty bad in 2011. As a result we spent about $4 million on changing the way we farm,” he said.
“But we got smashed again in 2022.
“We lost a lot of cattle and the work we did raising our feed sheds didn’t prevent two feet of water going through them. In support, we got $70,000 from the government.”
Mr Christie said he could manage a drought, but a flood was another story.
“We are just about uninsurable,” he said.
It wasn’t only Mr Christie who was left helpless by the flood — the frustrated Rochester Flood Mitigation Committee member explaining that what he thought Goulburn Murray Water could do to help the situation, they couldn’t.
“We could have saved some of our farm with channel drops, but it would have flooded someone else,” he said.
Farm and town businesses alike were destroyed, as evidenced by another committee member, Sharon Williams.
Operating a business for 31 years and providing a home for two sets of parents, aged from 82 to 90 years old, since the flood, she made an emotional plea for mitigation and further support from the government.
“Once the water receded it was up to us to complete the recovery. We have a population of 3000 and everyone has been affected,” she said.
“We were failed by all organisations in the management of the flow of water.
“There needs to be a new set of operating rules for Lake Eppalock.
“An interim amendment needs to be made to the legislation today, reducing what needs to be kept in the lake.
“That needs to happen now, until we can find a permanent solution.”
Mr Christie said what he considered the failure of the Victorian Government was in stark contrast to the Queensland Government’s response to a variety of natural disasters.
“Queensland is great, something will happen and there will be someone from the government there straight away,” he said.
“NSW is wishy washy, but Victoria is hopeless.
“The government could change things straight away, only 40 per cent of the water in Lake Eppalock is owned by entitlement holders and 60 per cent is owned by the government.”
Mr Christie said he was an irrigator and had water in both Eppalock and Eildon.
“We pay whether we get the water or not. There needs to be a rule introduced that if you don’t lose it, you lose it. We shouldn’t be trying to carry it over,” he said, referring to the next irrigation season.
Mr Christie said the frustrating thing was that everyone knew the region was heading for a long dry period, which made making a decision even harder.
“It is not just Eppalock we need to focus on. Just putting gates in the lake will not solve the problem, there are lots of one and two per centers,” he said.
“There are channels that have been decommissioned and other factors that need to be modernised.”
The reality of water being a commodity, rather than simply a means of irrigation, further complicated the process, he said.
Mr Christie did not directly blame anyone, but said co-operation between all parties was the only way to come up with a suitable answer.
“We need a list of options and what they will cost,” he said.
“We spoke with (Victorian Water) Minister (Harriet) Shing for a couple of hours and walked out with the knowledge that nothing would be done until the report was complete.”
Mr Christie, who is also an SES volunteer, recalled the events of 2011 — when he had a five-day-old baby and was door-knocking in the town to help people — when he lost all the hay on his property.
This time round he stayed on his home property, but the result was the same.
“We need change and we need it now,” he said.
