House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Algal Bloom Algal Bloom The Hon. V.A. TARZIA House of Assembly Hartley Algal Bloom The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier and the government be amending the algal bloom in South Australia signs installed at beaches, ramps and jetties to include official SA Health advice warning that bivalve shellfish may not be safe and should not be harvested? The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS House of Assembly Croydon Premier Minister for Defence and Space Industries Algal Bloom The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:11): He moved on from housing pretty quick. That's okay. Members interjecting: The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS House of Assembly Croydon Premier Minister for Defence and Space Industries The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: You changed the subject. That's my point. So, given the change of tack, in respect of the harmful algal bloom, the state government this week released what was a thoroughly exhaustive exercise that led up to the release of our summer plan. It is a serious policy effort. It's a policy effort that has been underpinned by public health advice, it has been underpinned by science, including the rapidly accelerating investment in science and research that we've got around harmful algal blooms. I am happy to report to the house that South Australia is going to have a strong representation by a really important scientific forum that's happening overseas in the not too distant future, because some of the work that we are now doing is up there with internationally leading scientific efforts. The Hon. V.A. Tarzia interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: The leader, if you ask a question it is probably a good idea to sit in silence and listen to the answer. The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS House of Assembly Croydon Premier Minister for Defence and Space Industries The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The Leader of the Opposition interjects and says, 'You had to get an international scientist here.' Yes, that's right, because Australia hasn't had a harmful algal bloom of this nature before and we make no apologies for engaging with international science. We get the international science— The Hon. V.A. Tarzia interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: The leader is on his final warning. The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS House of Assembly Croydon Premier Minister for Defence and Space Industries The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —you get Frank Pangallo to do your homework, and we all know how that ended up. We had a lengthy taskforce meeting this morning for the harmful algal bloom response team. Present at that taskforce meeting were public health officials, including the Chief Public Health Officer, Nicola Spurrier. We are constantly examining and reviewing, on the basis of the information that we receive, ways we can better communicate with the South Australian community on how the bloom is evolving—and it is evolving. We have seen, thankfully, some improvements in terms of the algal bloom, in terms of where it is, where it's leaving. We have even seen in Gulf St Vincent some positive results in terms of what's happening with the chlorophyll-a results, which are a proxy for the presence of the Karenia. In the event that the government receives any advice from the public health team that communication efforts need to change, we will do that. What I would submit to the opposition, as I know they are aware, is that this thing is changing all the time. It is dynamic. You could have a test here in one moment, a test a few hundred metres up the road in another moment and you could get very different results. It moves, it is dynamic, it pulsates relative to the weather conditions, including the sunlight, which makes it an insidious challenge because you have to make sure your communications, the information that you put out to the public, you want to make sure it withstands the test of time. We want to keep that information as updated as we can but we do not want people making decisions on the basis of information issued at 9 o'clock in the morning only for that information to be different at 10 o'clock in the morning, and someone's decision would have been different had they known that. So that represents some of the challenges that we are dealing with in the way that this is communicated in terms of real time, but we will seek to rise above that challenge as best as we can and put on the public record the information the South Australian community genuinely wants.