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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-12 Daily Xml
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Algal Bloom

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. Why was there a delay in seeking formal commonwealth assistance with the harmful algal bloom? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BASHAM: The bloom was first detected in March but formal commonwealth assistance was not sought until July 2025.

The Hon. L.P. HOOD (Adelaide—Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:54): I thank the member for his question. This just highlights the more than $130 million that has been invested in our state, both through a $28 million initial response and then the $102.5 million summer plan. This is significant investment—

Mr Brown: Not one question before the break.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

The Hon. L.P. HOOD: —in our coastal communities, our coastal small businesses and also science, research, and environmental resilience and recovery. This is a cross-coordinated agency effort. It has been a collaboration with our federal counterparts, and I would say that that is a significant response to what has been an event that has no precedent.

As I was saying in my previous answer to the member, our most recent bloom was in Coffin Bay in 2014 and it only lasted a matter of months. When the bloom was being undertaken, the scientists were monitoring that and we were being provided that expert advice. When we saw that the bloom was not dissipating, we ensured that there was a coordinated cross-agency effort that has delivered significant investment to South Australia.

I would perhaps suggest that the member have the same concern for some of his colleagues, particularly in the other place, for the way in which they have spoken about this unprecedented event that is hurting coastal communities. Perhaps he should speak to his colleague in the other place about AI-generated images showing our beaches with blood in the water. Perhaps he should talk to his local small businesses about how they feel about images such as that being posted on social media or dodgy AI links being created to suggest links between the harmful algal bloom and the desalination plant.

Perhaps he should ask industry how they feel about those kinds of assumptions being made as part of this harmful algal bloom, because on this side of the house we are backing our coastal communities, we are backing our coastal small businesses and we are investing in the science, research, and environmental resilience and recovery. I am happy to continue to talk about some of those investments we are making.

I was talking earlier about the establishment of the algal bloom office. Yesterday, I spoke about the AI cytobots, a $1 million trial of state-of-the-art AI-powered submersible cytobots, which will help build our understanding of phytoplankton communities and help with the development of live detection and early warning systems. We are looking at algal bloom mitigation, as I said, and large scale shellfish reef restoration.

I think it has been very clear on this side of the house that we are backing our coastal communities, our coastal small businesses, our environment and our experts with significant investment between the state and federal governments: $102.5 million in our summer plan and $28 million in the initial response. Whilst we have seen some positive results in the last couple of weeks in terms of that dramatic decline in Karenia cell counts, we continue to roll out key elements of the summer plan to make sure that we are supporting our coastal small businesses, our coastal small communities and the sectors that rely on our oceans.

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