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| Goodna Services Club, January 2011 |
Queensland water authorities are attempting to strike out a class action claim for damages stemming from the 2011 flood in south-east Queensland.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is representing about 4,000 Brisbane and Ipswich flood victims in a bid to claw back more than a billion dollars lost in the disaster.
The class action, which was being heard in the Supreme Court in Sydney, claimed too much water was released from Wivenhoe Dam at the peak of the floods to unnecessarily push up the Brisbane and Bremer rivers.
In 2012, the Queensland Floods Commission found the dam's manual was not properly followed on the weekend leading up to the flood peak.
Today, two of the three defendants - SEQ Water and Sunwater - filed motions to have the claims struck out.
The other defendant the State of Queensland did not support the motion.
A spokeswoman for Maurice Blackburn said applications to strike out claims were routine and believed the class action would continue.
The case resumes on Thursday and was expected to run all week.
More than 78 per cent of Queensland was declared a disaster zone during the floods in December 2010 and January 2011, which affected more than 2.5 million people.
