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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-28 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Fishing Restrictions

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Premier. When did the government first consult RecFish SA and the Marine Scalefish Fishery Management Advisory Committee regarding the fishing restrictions announced on 23 October 2025?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:07): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The government, through the Harmful Algal Bloom Taskforce, has been regularly receiving advice from our experts, particularly from SARDI and PIRSA. The Leader of the Opposition would well be familiar with the fact that when the government, some time ago, first announced our $28 million package to address the harmful algal bloom going back a number of months, one of the items that was contained within that package was the funding of a rapid fish stock assessment piece of work.

Evidently, of course, there has been an enormous amount of marine life lost to the harmful algal bloom. That's happened in a number of parts of the state but undoubtedly the most acute has been in the Gulf of St Vincent. The timing of the marine fish stock assessment work was important. We wanted to do it as quickly as we could, but it was subject to conditions. My advice is there were pieces of work they would have conducted earlier if not for the difficult conditions in the winter months.

We are also working collaboratively with the commercial fishing sector that is mandated to report where they go fishing, when they go fishing, what they go fishing for, and what they catch. A combination of that data-collection effort started to see results come in to the task force exercise in the last few weeks, and the government had a difficult decision to make.

The advice that we received at our most recent taskforce meeting, and the one prior to that, was that from the data coming in it was clear that there was a significant impact on the Gulf of St Vincent, in particular, and that the size that it impacted necessitated quick decision-making.

It was open to the government to delay our decision. That would have allowed far greater degrees of community engagement regarding the decision that we took. The problem was, however, the advice that the government was receiving was that every moment of delay that would allow for more catching of fish to occur, particularly in the Gulf of St Vincent, would result in potentially it taking longer to recover, hence why we made a determination to make a judgement quickly. There was engagement with RecFish SA in the immediate lead-up to that decision, but not necessarily on the particulars of the decision itself, which was taken in the task force on the basis of the advice that the government received from PIRSA and SARDI.

Herein lies the point—and it is a genuine point of difference between the government and the alternative government—on this side of the house we are being very deliberate in our commitment to follow the government's advice. We should scrutinise the advice we receive from our agencies, we should test some of the propositions that are put to us, absolutely, and that work has been happening. But it is also true that we remain determined to act on the advice and the science that we get access to in government to inform our decision-making.

I appreciate there are points of difference in that approach. I appreciate that the Liberal Party, who backed the science in the lead-up to COVID with our support, have departed from science. They are abandoning net zero, they have abandoned the science in regard to the algal bloom and they are embracing the Pangallo method of testing information—and that is your prerogative; you can do that. If you want to have that approach, that's fine. But on this side of the house we intend to be consistent, we want to listen to the science and we want to make sure we act in accordance with the science, because our solemn obligation is to do the best thing we can by the environment, ensuring a speedy recovery and the sustainable nature of the fishery, which is important to future generations.

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