Melbourne recorded 47.8mm of rain from 9am on Thursday, and Victoria’s State Emergency Service received more than 200 calls for help as storms and flash flooding continued. Six calls involved water rescues. Rain was expected to continue Friday and Saturday, with a flood watch in place for catchments across much of central and eastern Victoria.
Greens Leadership Decision
New Greens leader David Shoebridge said party members would have input into the next federal leadership decision, but he hasn’t committed to a specific model. In a social media video captioned “your say on Greens leadership,” he said: “You absolutely should have a say in the leadership for the Greens”.
“The good news is Steph [Hodgins-May] and I are gonna make this happen,” Shoebridge said. He called it “a conversation we’re going to have right across the Greens. Every state and territory, hundreds and hundreds of branches, thousands and thousands of members, because members want to be engaged in this.”
Shoebridge said the change would happen “before we make the next decision on the federal leadership”. Under Greens rules, the party makes that decision after every federal election, so the membership discussion and any change would take place during this term of parliament.
The Greens’ party room chooses the party’s federal leader. The Liberal and Nationals parties also choose their leaders through their party rooms, while Labor uses both a party-room vote and a membership vote. The article didn’t specify what form of member input the Greens might adopt, or how much influence it would carry in a future leadership decision.
Shoebridge said earlier in the week, when announcing his leadership bid, that he supported members having a say. Mehreen Faruqi, who didn’t succeed in her leadership candidacy, also called for members to have input after the party-room vote. The party hasn’t announced a settled model.
Rainfall and Flood Watch
David Crock, a senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology, said Melbourne’s rainfall total was its highest daily rainfall since April 2024. The update reported significant rainfall continuing across much of Victoria after storms and flash flooding.
“There's much more to come,” Crock said. Rain was forecast to continue on Friday and Saturday, while a flood watch covered catchments across much of central and eastern Victoria. Conditions were expected to ease on Sunday as the low-pressure system moved offshore.
The update gave no further figures for rainfall outside Melbourne and no additional totals for the calls made to the State Emergency Service. It reported six water rescues among the more than 200 requests for help. The leadership discussion and Victorian weather conditions were the two developments covered in the live update.