Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spent the morning inspecting levee banks and a rising River Murray at Renmark as South Australia's Riverland prepares for flooding in the coming weeks.
Flows down the river are forecast to peak at between 170 and 180 gigalitres per day on December 14, with thousands of properties to be inundated.
Mr Albanese said he had been heartened by the optimism of the local community.
"Businesses here need your support now," he said.
"They actually want people to come and participate and bring economic activity to this region, which will be important while this difficulty is happening — but will perhaps be even more important as the recovery period comes."
Mr Albanese flew into Mildura this morning and then took a flight viewing the Murray from above.
He praised the work of volunteers helping to prevent flooding.
"What we're also seeing is the resilience of the local community, people helping each other out, our emergency services, our SES, our volunteers and I want to pay tribute to all of those who've made an astonishing effort to prepare this community," he said.
Flooding reaches 1974 flood level
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the river level had been consistent with predictions so far.
"We are starting to see the level of the river increase to a level that is now consistent with around the 1974 flood here in Renmark," he said.
"The flow modelling is proving to be accurate, but we have to continue to monitor how that operates relative to the height of the river itself."
The final touches on levees built to protect the town from a 220-gigalitre flood are expected to be completed next week.
Some residents raised concerns at a town meeting on Thursday night about the potential for levees to break.
But Renmark Paringa Council chief executive Tony Siviour said it was possible to increase their height if flooding is worse than expected.
"In the event we do have to go higher, we can easily go higher and lay more material and compact it," he said.
About 3,300 of the 3,600 properties that are expected to be affected by flooding along the state's section of the Murray have been visited by police since Tuesday.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said there were still about 300 homes that needed to be visited and a further 700 that were water-locked and needed to be approached by boat.
"At this point in time, there are about 185 families who will require some sort of emergency relief accommodation, which would equate to about 400 people, so that work is now being undertaken to make sure we have the ability to accommodate those people in the short term," he said.
Business builds own levee
A caravan park in Renmark has built its own levee to prevent its land along the river from flooding.
It cost the owners about $500,000, a cheaper option compared with the damage rising waters could have caused the business.
"There is a $50,000 grant that's applicable to private levee builders in the state; however, that's probably one invoice from our contractors," caravan park manager Gayle Gudgeon said.
"We've spent substantially more than that."
Holiday-makers are supporting the region in any way they can.
"This place which is struggling at the moment financially, I think it's best to go there other than somewhere else," tourist Chirag Parikh said.
