Tony Sivour is the general manager of the Renmark Paringa Council in South Australia. Born in Barmera, he’s a long-term Riverlander who returned after gaining valuable local government experience elsewhere.
Tony worked tirelessly to protect Renmark during the major 2022 floods. His efforts focused on managing the levees, coordinating with authorities, and keeping the community informed and safe.
As flood warnings loomed, Tony quickly initiated the emergency incident management team, ensuring the council was ready to face the approaching deluge. Renmark’s levee banks span 38 kilometres, and Tony coordinated repairs and fortifications, involving 350 private landowners to get consent for necessary work.
There was the additional challenge of managing media communications. Local media support was invaluable, though sensationalism required quick, centralised messaging.
Through daily meetings, Tony’s team tackled urgent issues like stormwater management, preventing internal flooding, and utilising digital elevation models for priority decisions.
Tony addressed community concerns firsthand and discussed strategies with veteran residents, reinforcing trust and ensuring everyone understood the situation’s gravity. He liaised with other affected councils, offering insights from Renmark’s experiences.
Managing cleanup efforts, Tony ensured the council’s continuous support to help the community bounce back from the flood’s aftermath, prioritising safety and infrastructure.
——
We hope that you enjoyed this episode of River Murray Recovery Stories, brought to you by Kintsugi Heroes.
Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.
If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here – https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/con…
We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!
Warmly,
The Kintsugi Heroes team
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience, disability, and transformation.
Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what’s been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath.
We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard.
🏷️ Topics we cover: resilience, disability, trauma recovery, mental health, transformation, lived experience, chronic illness, neurodiversity, grief, identity, community, caregiving, refugee stories, animal therapy, ageing, older Australians, wellbeing, invisible illness, inclusion, personal growth, hope, rebuilding, human connection, Australian stories
📺 Series on this channel:
– Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham
– Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale
– Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova
– From There to Here | hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
– Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔗 CONNECT WITH US
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐
▶️
https://youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes
📘
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084850387170
📸
https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes
💼
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter.
❤️ Donate (tax-deductible):
🤝 Partner with us:
🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories.
We’re all in this together. 🩡
#KintsugiHeroes #ResiliencePodcast #TransformationStories #DisabilityAwareness #AustralianPodcast #MentalHealthAwareness #RealStories #NotForProfit #HumanExperience #Resilience #PodcastAustralia #TrueStories #HealingJourney #StrengthInVulnerability #DisabilityInclusion