Question Time

Algal Bloom

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:06): My question is to the Premier. Has the government issued a directive to scientist Dr Donald Anderson to not speak to media, and, if so, why? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: On FIVEaa radio this morning, host Will Gooding said Dr Anderson had previously agreed to go on the program. However, after contacting the state government he was, and I quote, 'entirely unavailable to come on'.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:06): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I am not too sure if the Leader of the Opposition might have been preoccupied earlier today, but the Deputy Premier and I had an open press conference with Dr Donald Anderson this afternoon. And every—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left! The leader, you're on your final warning because I gave you all those warnings yesterday. This is a really important matter for people in all coastal areas around the state, including the students from KICE, and we do want to hear the Premier in silence.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I know that those opposite have an increasing degree of preoccupation with conspiracy theories, and are increasingly associating themselves with this, but on this side of the house what we have actually done with Dr Anderson is really important because Dr Don Anderson is one of the world's leading experts when it comes to research around harmful algal blooms. He has done research into algal blooms where they have occurred around the world. He has only been here a few days and is only able to be here for a few days more.

On the back of his research and the work that he has been doing with SARDI and other agencies over the course of the last couple of days, he provided a report to the task force this morning that was particularly insightful and something we are very grateful for. He was able to go through in a great degree of detail the challenges associated with algal blooms of this nature, particularly their relative unpredictability, and that the science is not progressed enough anywhere around the world to be able to make accurate predictions around how they operate, mainly because they are all different in terms of their make-up. Nonetheless, there are things that we can learn from other parts of the world that have had the harmful algal bloom.

There are a couple of examples that were particularly talked about this morning: one that occurred off the Russian coast, one that occurred in Alaska and another that is obviously still very much having an impact in Florida. The Russian one was interesting because Dr Anderson was able to recount how there was a bit of a theory getting around that there was something to do with a Russian military base that had leaked some sort of chemical into the water and that was alleged to have caused the harmful algal bloom; of course, after being investigated, that was completely debunked. He was able to talk to the fact that the science here is what we should be relying upon in terms of governing judgements going into the future, which is exactly what we are doing on this side of the house.

Naturally, having been able to get one of the global leaders around this area of science to our state, we wanted to make sure that he was available to the media. We had the opportunity to have a fully open press conference only a short moment ago that was quite lengthy, and that's not surprising given the legitimate media interest there is in what Dr Anderson has to say. In regard to FIVEaa this morning, I understand that there was someone who was muzzled; however, it turns out the watchdog was muzzled. That didn't take very long, but I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question nonetheless.