Kangaroo Island Bushfire Recovery Support

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:33): Supplementary: what was the tender process for awarding salvage work on Kangaroo Island?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:33): I thank the member for Mawson for his question. I will take the detailed side of the tender process on notice, but again I come back to the complexity of this situation following the bushfires and the immediate need to deal with the hazardous waste where it was not completely possible to have people on the island deal with that in the first instance just through a skills shortage.

But all efforts have been made and are continuing to be made to ensure that work will go to islanders when it comes to the clean-up. There is no doubt this clean-up is going to be extensive. There is a huge amount of work to be done and, as a consequence, I believe it is inevitable that islanders will have a very key role in participating in that contractor work going forward. I mentioned earlier my conversation with Peter Wallis from Island Earthworks, and he is being engaged to undertake some of these clean-ups. I also think it's Curtis Wilson who is undertaking the clean-up of the Western Districts Football Club.

So we are working through this, trying to provide as many opportunities as possible, bearing in mind that there will, of course, be a requirement for mainland operators to go over and take a role in this work as well to ensure that that clean-up does occur as quickly as possible, that we deal with both the hazardous waste and then the broader clean-up. It's going to be a situation where we will need all hands on deck, and that will include a combination of both island-based operators and mainland operators.