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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-10-14 Daily Xml
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Climate Change

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:51): My question is to the minister for climate change. Will the minister inform the chamber about the South Australian government's efforts to provide public and reliable information on our changing climate?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:51): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. The government has always based—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —its decisions on scientific fact rather than blind ideology, which is what we see the Hon. Mr Ridgway come to this chamber with every day: blind ideology not informed by fact, with assertions that are made up on the run. We do it slightly differently. For example, we based our negotiations regarding the Murray-Darling Basin Plan on the best possible scientific evidence available. We listen to our experts, as well as historical and scientific evidence, regarding when and where to undertake our prescribed burning program, for example.

We introduced the ban of commercial solariums as a result of sound advice and extensive scientific evidence. Unlike the Liberal Party, the South Australian government has long accepted the science on climate change. This government also accepts that it is important for business and community to have access to reliable scientific data so that everyone has the opportunity to inform themselves. This is why we are making South Australia's most comprehensive set of climate projections available for re-use publicly as open data.

The data is available through SA Climate Ready and can be accessed from the Enviro Data SA website. It offers projections through to 2100 for a range of climate variables, including rainfall, minimum and maximum temperature and evaporation. Importantly, it also includes detailed information about each of the state's rainfall areas across natural resources management regions.

The SA Climate Ready project was led by the Goyder Institute for Water Research, a partnership between the South Australian government, the CSIRO, Flinders University, the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia. The data is the result of extensive research and analysis of multiple climate change models spanning a five-year period. It has delivered what has been described as the most accurate and extensive data available about our future climate.

The data is being made available, as I said, under the state government's open data initiative. Of course, many of us here in this chamber are aware that we are living in the age of data. Making such information publicly available is important for driving innovation and allowing creative types in our community, and others slightly less creative, to use it to make new applications and tools to help us improve our daily lives. This data will be of great use to people or organisations involved in planning, management, decision-making and modelling. It can help to ensure that planned infrastructure such as roads, bridges and farm dams are designed to take into account the impacts of climate change.

It will assist in anticipating changes in extreme heat and fire risk to help emergency services and other sectors in their planning. Most importantly, it will add to the information and facts that are available in the public realm. We know that people armed with the facts usually are able to make better and more informed decisions, unless they are members of the Liberal Party of South Australia.

I welcome this further engagement with open data. We believe on this side that making factual information available to communities means that they have a better decision-making process and can make better decisions for their own lives.

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