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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-02 Daily Xml
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Algal Bloom

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is to the Premier. When, if ever, did Surfing Australia first raise its concerns with the government about relocating the 2025 Australian Junior Surfing Titles from the Fleurieu Peninsula to Wollongong over safety concerns about the bloom? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: On 30 August 2025 Surfing Australia announced, via its website, that the decision to relocate had been made early due to the unpredictability of conditions associated with the algal bloom.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:12): I can speak to this because my office has been directly engaged with the organisers of this surfing event. It is unfortunate that they have chosen to reschedule the event, although we totally understand their reasons for doing so. This is the reality of the circumstances we are now in. We understand, particularly when you are talking about younger people, that event organisers—for both practical reasons but also out of caution for their participants—might choose to take a risk-averse approach.

My office was dealing directly with the event organisers to put forward a couple of things to them. The first thing we wanted to do was make sure that over recent weeks they had access to the public health advice and our officials from SARDI. In fact, my advice is that the event organisers met directly with senior officials from both SARDI and the public health team in SA Health, who were able to provide them with advice around what the circumstances are with respect to the algae and what we anticipate the algae will be doing in that part of our waters later in the year, and furnish them with the modelling that we have available to us.

It is important to note that in the electorate of the member for Finniss, on that southern part of the Fleurieu, we haven't seen algae present for some time. The cell counts have been negative; that is to say we have not had algae in the region for some time. The nature of the oceanography in that particular environment is far more open water as distinct from what we might see in either Gulf St Vincent or Spencer Gulf, which means that it flushes more quickly, so even if the algae was to re-emerge the likelihood of it being maintained or sustained is less than what would be the case if it was on a location, hypothetically, on one of our metropolitan beaches or on the eastern side of Yorke Peninsula.

We were able to provide all that advice, including the public health information around 'even if the algae is present what would it mean for surfers?' The member for Finniss would be able to attest that there are a lot of people surfing down in those southern areas of the Fleurieu at the moment—and surfing unaffected, which is great to see—so we were certainly hopeful the event could go ahead.

What we also were able to do was offer the organisers of the event potential options around contingency funding in the event that they decided to go ahead with it and cancel. Discussions were had between officials to put offers on the table. The SATC were already making a contribution to the event—from memory somewhere in the order of $80,000—so we were looking at options of scaling that up if it was required. We were doing everything we could to see the event happen.

But we totally respect the organisers' decision. Like I said, it is a reflection of the circumstances that we now operate within. We have to respond to these realities. We will work with any event organiser along our coastal communities if an opportunity presents itself to do so and make available all the information we have, and then ultimately they will make their own decisions.

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