SARDI Fish Deaths

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): I rise today to address what is becoming a defining trait of this government—that is, its lack of transparency. Yesterday, in this very chamber, the Minister for Primary Industries lectured us on the importance of accuracy and public information. She accused the opposition of political opportunism, of spreading misinformation and of undermining political confidence.

Today, I want to turn those accusations back on the government itself and examine them in the context of the catastrophic fish deaths at the South Australian Aquatic Sciences Centre. That event decimated our state's aquaculture research and industry support. It caused devastating losses to the snapper restocking program. It destroyed the barramundi hatchery run by a private company next door. Worst of all, after about a 100 per cent mortality rate, the valuable oyster breeding program has now left the state entirely.

The minister has repeatedly stood in this place and declared there was no evidence that dredging contributed to those deaths, yet the timing was no coincidence and the science is clear: dredging can release hydrogen sulphide, a substance highly toxic to fish. Despite this, when the council voted on 19 February for an independent investigation into these deaths, the government simply ignored it. The will of this council and the people of South Australia were brushed aside.

When the final report was eventually published, quietly and tellingly during the distraction of Gather Round weekend, it bore the unmistakable signs of having been edited. Freedom of information requests since obtained make that all too clear. Emails show that immediately after the mass mortality, SARDI staff sought meetings with DEW and the EPA, the very departments responsible for the dredging trial, to discuss dredging as a possible cause.

The original draft of the report concluded that dredging was a likely cause, and certainly the emails suggest just that. But the EPA staff objected. They disputed the findings of that report and in subsequent emails they went so far as to suggest edits to parliamentary briefing notes themselves. Internal EPA meeting notes specifically mentioned sulphides. One note records, and I quote:

Dredge area had posidonia species that created elevated organic matter in the sediment that would have been associated with sulphide that would have caused toxic effect to young fish.

That is not speculation; that is direct acknowledgement of risk. The first draft report was circulated to DEW and EPA on 24 December 2024, with a request for, and I quote, 'comments and contribution'. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, those who oversaw the dredging trial and had the most to lose were invited to shape and amend the report. Later emails even show EPA staff expressing anger at SARDI's findings, with one remarking, and I quote:

The whole report focuses on the AMBRI being the cause and does not include an assessment of other potential risks.

Alternative content was proposed, and, sure enough, the final report contained the conveniently diluted conclusion, and I quote:

No direct evidence has been found to establish that the mortalities at the SAASC were caused by the sand placement and dredging activities.

Contrast this with the private consultant engaged by the barramundi hatchery, who concluded dredging was the most likely cause. That independent report stated, and I quote:

The potential for dumping of dredge spoil to create a plume entrained in the farm's marine intake seems high on the likelihood list to explain these events.

It also said the coincidental timing across the SARDI snapper and oyster systems added further circumstantial evidence and that such events were, and I quote, 'highly unlikely to be repeated in the absence of further dredge spoil dumping'. So whose word should we take? The government's carefully sanitised version, shaped by the very departments under scrutiny, or the independent consultant whose business relied on truth, not politics?

Adding insult to injury, the government has refused to release earlier drafts of the SARDI report, claiming they were prepared for cabinet. That excuse defies logic. Either these drafts were scientific investigations or they are political documents. They cannot be both.

The picture is now clear. The government oversaw a dredging trial that, on the weight of available evidence, could not rule out—and cannot rule out—that it did not participate in the killing of fish and shellfish in its own facility. This government has ignored the will of this council. It has ignored the need for independence and it has sought at every turn to obscure the truth. This is not transparent. It is not accountable. This is a government addicted to manipulation and to spin, incapable of admitting failures and unwilling to put the truth before its own political interests.