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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-02 Daily Xml
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St Kilda Mangroves

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:07): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Did the minister seek any assurance that changes in SA Water's supply to Buckland Dry Creek would not have any negative impact on the management of the salt fields?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:08): I thank the deputy leader for her question. As both the Minister for Energy and Mining and myself have said, this is a highly complex part of our natural environment here in South Australia, where industry is abutting up against important conservation land where we have the very significant Bolivar Wastewater Treatment Plant and the activities of SA Water on one hand and private enterprise on the other, with conservation and nature-based tourism, with a whole range of activities occurring there.

The level of complexity, the historic complexity and the historic problems that this site has presented governments over several decades, has meant it has posed challenges, from economic challenges to environmental challenges, to amenity challenges around the smells that emanate from that site and the insects that inhabit it.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: It is a particularly difficult site. As the Minister for Energy and Mining revealed, there is a particular challenge here around the changes to the way this site has been used over fairly recent times, the last half decade or so, and the re-initiation of industrial activity on that site has had outcomes that were unforeseen. They were unforeseen by the scientists who were working in the Department for Energy and Mining or its predecessor departments under the 16 years of a Labor government and, as the minister said, those are the same scientists who are involved now.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: The impact of this, going back to what this site had been historically used for and the reflooding of those ponds, has had an undesirable environmental outcome. The EPA is involved, SA Water is involved, the Department for Environment and Water is involved, independent coastal consultants are involved, and the regulator (the Department for Energy and Mining) is involved. Those people have been getting together constantly over recent months and frantically trying to find solutions, settle the science and work things out here.

We want a solution. We will work towards a solution. Whether it's SA Water as a stakeholder and an entity that can pull levers in this regard, whether it is the EPA, whether it is the private miner or the regulator, being the Department for Energy and Mining, we are working incredibly hard to get a solution. We are all asking questions, whether it be at the ministerial or bureaucratic level, and we are forming solutions to solve this once and for all.

The SPEAKER: I warn the leader and I call to order the member for Ramsay.

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