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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-16 Daily Xml
Contents
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Motions

Algal Bloom

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. B.R. Hood:

That there be laid upon the table of this council by the Leader of the Government within seven sitting days of the passing of this resolution the following documents:

1. All budget proposals or funding requests submitted by the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) to the Treasurer from 1 November 2024 to present;

2. All internal proposals developed by DEW regarding responses to the current harmful algal bloom that were not submitted to the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) from 1 November 2024 to present;

3. All internal memoranda or briefing notes produced by DEW relating to the current harmful algal bloom from 1 November 2024 to present;

4. All documents prepared by, for, or received by the Chief Public Health Officer or their staff that relate to public health advice concerning the current harmful algal bloom, including but not limited to risk assessments, health alerts, interagency communications, or advice to ministers from 1 November 2024 to present.

(Continued from 3 September 2025.)

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:04): I rise very briefly to indicate my support for the request for these documents to be made publicly available. As members will know, I am Chair of the joint parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry is looking into a number of these issues, and I recognise the support of the government and the opposition in setting up this inquiry. That said, I do think there is a public interest in this information being made more broadly available and so I am happy to support the honourable member's motion in that regard.

I understand there is an amendment being advanced by the government. No-one from the government has spoken to me about that, so I am not sure what the rationale is. I can assume that the inclusion of 'as soon as is practicable' is designed to give the government more time to comply with the request. I understand that, but I worry, given the dwindling number of sitting days that we have before us, that in real terms that may mean that the document is not made available. In those circumstances, I am not inclined to support the government's amendment unless a very compelling reason is presented to do so.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (16:05): I move to amend the motion as follows:

Leave out 'within seven sitting days of the passing of this resolution' and insert 'as soon as is practicable'.

I rise to speak as the lead government speaker on this motion. I am informed that the motion is of unprecedented breadth in South Australia. Advice from DEW and Health is that the timeline provided of seven sitting days is unreasonable, given it likely includes well over 1,000 documents. This would represent a substantial and, indeed, unreasonable diversion of the agency resources at a pretty critical time in response to the bloom, with the implementation of the summer plan. This would also put significant pressure on parliamentary staff in managing the physical documents and subsequent viewings. I am not sure if the mover is aware of the gravity of the work that would actually be involved in proceeding with the motion. Subsequently, we are proposing to amend the motion.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (16:07): Today, I rise in support of this motion, which seeks the tabling of key documents relating to the harmful algal bloom which has devastated our gulf waters and impacted communities, fishers and our marine environment for months on end. This motion is not about politics: it is about transparency, it is about accountability and it is about timeliness.

I just want to make the point that seven sitting days gives this government well over a month—close to six weeks—to be able to produce these documents, so I think there is plenty of time there. The motion requests three categories of documents:

internal budget requests by the Department for Environment and Water;

internal proposals that were never submitted to Treasury; and

memoranda of briefing notes, alongside any public health advice provided by the Chief Public Health Officer regarding the risks to human health.

The reason the Hon. Ben Hood has brought this motion forward in his role as shadow minister for government accountability is simple, although it is disappointing that it has had to be brought. For three months, we have heard little more than vague assurances from this government. We have been told that assessments are underway, that conditions are challenging and that solutions are being explored, but what we have not seen is a clear plan, transparent advice or timely action.

South Australians were promised openness. They were promised that the government would govern differently, yet when it comes to the most serious marine environmental event in memory, critical information has been withheld. We know businesses are suffering. We know fishers are suffering. We know coastal communities are living with uncertainty, and they should not have to wait months for the truth to be dragged into the light. Accountability demands transparency and transparency demands timeliness.

If action has been taken, then the government should have no hesitation in demonstrating it. If funding has been sought, then the government should be willing to show it, and if warnings were given then the public deserves to know. This parliament cannot perform its duty, it cannot scrutinise and it cannot legislate in the public interest without access to the basic facts.

I note the government has sought an amendment to this motion, although I do note the error in the Hon. Justin Hanson's printed amendment, in that it says 'within seven days of the passing of this resolution'. Of course, no-one expects people to produce documents within seven days of the passing of this resolution, but, as the Hon. Ben Hood's motion states, it is 'within seven sitting days' and what seven sitting days means is that this government has a number of weeks, in fact, more than a month, some would say six weeks, to produce these documents.

So it will not be any surprise that we will not be supporting this amendment because it goes against the motion's main purpose of timely information sharing. We could FOI these documents and the government would have to produce them in 30 days. This is about being practical. This is about the timely sharing of information and if the government is true to its word and if it is throwing everything it has at this algal bloom then the timely sharing of information I would have thought would have been easy enough to do. That is what the public expects.

Therefore, as I have stated previously, we will not be supporting the Hon. Justin Hanson's amendment and I hope that the other members in this chamber will also not support the Hon. Justin Hanson's amendment. I urge the government to respect the communities that are affected and to table these documents without significant delay. Sunshine is the best disinfectant and the people of South Australia deserve nothing less. I commend the motion.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:11): I rise to support this motion and to indicate that I do oppose the government amendment. I support this motion, having moved one similar myself seeking documents related to the algal bloom, which the government then duly provided after the winter break after a significant period of time. I note that, when those documents were tabled for the ecologists who had lobbied me to put that motion before this chamber, the information was still substandard. It did not include all of the requested phytoplankton counts, even though the government had argued commercial in confidence to already restrict what that particular motion asked for.

Also of incredible concern is that the documents were incorrect. The documents detail that at Boatswain Point in the South-East in March there had been identified brevetoxins and the algal bloom had seen to be in that location. That certainly added up, with a local shark fisherman already raising it in the media on the ABC. This is really important. The government actually got the last lot of documents wrong and then they had to come into this place and very quietly slip in a correction. That correction was around the data collected at Boatswain Point, which the government now claims was all a clerical error, yet at Boatswain Point and around the South-East a local fisherman had been raising the alarm about the impact on his catch, which was non-existent in that March period, and the fact that he had identified foam and the fact that he had identified dead fish in the sea at an unusual rate.

So I do question: what happened to create that clerical error that in that first tranche of documents seemed to back up what the local fisherman had been telling not just the department but of course the ABC and is well documented by the ABC in that timeframe? These documents, I think, are incredibly important and I do commend the Liberal Party for seeking to use parliamentary processes to gain the information that South Australians are seeking with regard to this harmful algal bloom. The government at the moment cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim that there is misinformation out there when they refuse to release full information that, in fact, feeds into further misinformation.

I draw members' attention to the submission made to the Senate algal bloom inquiry by ecologist Faith Coleman, who has been variously quoted in recent weeks in this place. Her contribution to the Senate inquiry goes to commend, and quite rightly so, the way citizen scientists have stepped into the breach where there has been a dearth of information to inform our understanding of what is going on with this harmful algal bloom.

In fact, it has been heartbreaking, as she has watched particularly those in the fishing industry, but others as well, go to the wall literally and lose their income, including that shark fisher in the South-East. He, of course, is not able to apply for any of the government compensation packages because the government says that he has not been affected by the harmful algal bloom, despite, as I say, his loss of catch and observation of in that area in that March period the discoloured water and the foam and the dead fish and the fact that he was not getting any catch. He has been told that he does not qualify because the data that the government has released and put forward does not see him as affected. Yet, what has happened there? You have to ask that question.

Ecologist Faith Coleman, in her submission to the Senate inquiry, has commended the actions of the public. Indeed, she has worked and trained up many citizen scientists through platforms such as iNaturalist, a whole range of them. Our local community has really stepped up here. They have understood that, watching this devastating impact, they are perfectly capable of collecting their own data, forming their own networks of knowledge with independent scientists and collectively deciding the most appropriate ways forward for themselves. Why? Because there was a dearth of data being released by the government. Ms Coleman stated:

Once they have felt held or supported from others within their community, individual and community concern regarding the impacts on socioeconomic factors and marine ecosystems, the sky seems to be the limit to what can be done outside of government and academia.

Ms Coleman commends the community's willingness to learn and change in an attempt to protect this key aspect of South Australia's identity and sense of self, and it gives hope. What does not give hope, as Faith Coleman outlines in her Senate submission, is the opposite, the coordination of state government responses, including agency responsibility, industry engagement, scientific advice and public communications. She writes to that committee:

The South Australian government was slow to respond. I think that one is accepted even among agencies, but it is easy to have 20/20 vision when looking backwards in time. It was clearly a case of being caught off-guard and unprepared. This situation was not a matter of not being warned, but in some ways a matter of our decision-makers having been warned too much. As an elderly academic mentor said, who rang me when he heard of this bloom in the interstate media, 'It is funny, Faith—it is that we [as scientists] have so long been saying that these events will happen, that decision-makers completely missed it, when we started saying 'it's here.'

Ms Coleman goes on to also reflect on the adequacy or indeed the inadequacy of long-term monitoring forecasting and prevention strategies, noting that:

The seafood safety program undertakes a wide range of phytoplankton counts and related monitoring, however the industry sponsorship of this program means that the data is presented in a way that is of very little use to an ecologist and generally not available for wider access and analysis. Taking this program out of industry hands, sharing the data fully and making it a government run program that looks at the broader phytoplankton ecology in these areas would be beneficial for all. Not only is it likely that the aquaculture industry would benefit from a better understanding of what their animals are eating, but as a state, we would have a better appreciation of what drives healthier aquaculture, the loading capacity that is appropriate in each area, suitable complementary uses of our aquatic estate and the number of troublesome bloom events we are currently dealing with.

Ms Coleman reflects that it has been deeply disappointing and deeply disturbing that we have had to push so hard to get the little information we currently have, and in her recommendations to that Senate committee she states at recommendation 4:

We need to collectively monitor and publicise the impacts of marine heatwaves on phytoplankton health enabling us to provide rapid responses to community concerns regarding our marine zones separate from aquaculture and aquacultural specialists.

I could not agree more. What we do need here is more transparency, not less, in a house that is certainly meant to be a house of review that is not obsequious to claims that apparently the department cannot handle the provision of information, when this is the department that we expect to handle the harmful algal bloom. If they cannot actually provide the information about it, how on earth are they even going to tackle the problems that are besetting us?

We are not here as members of parliament to simply wave things through for the government of the day; we are here to hold them to account, and this motion is quite a reasonable way of doing so. Indeed, it gives seven sitting days for the government to provide this information—not just to the council in this chamber but for the public, for the scientists, for the community and for those whose industries are affected—in a way that, perhaps like the last release of data, when it is viewed by those with expertise, issues such as those that happened with the last release of algal bloom data can be identified by the experts in the field and perhaps corrected by the government again. Perhaps we will see more documents tabled as errata, addenda or corrections when these observations are able to be made by those outside of government.

Seven sitting days is not seven calendar days; it is not even seven business days. It is in fact the end of November this year, the final official sitting week of this year and indeed possibly of this parliament. It is the last possible week that we could reasonably expect this data to be provided in a way that is actually respectful of democracy and actually going to inform proper democratic debate. We have an optional sitting week the following week, but that is not guaranteed.

We know that what is guaranteed, however, are the numbers in this place. That is, the government has not held the numbers in this place for many decades, and indeed we do control our own destiny. I would say that if the government cannot comply with this motion in a timely way then perhaps the parliament needs to sit next year. Perhaps this chamber needs to come back in late January or early February to ensure that this is able to be complied with in terms of the very simple, very practical and very reasonable request that this harmful algal bloom data be provided—as I say, not just for this institution of the parliament but for the people of South Australia.

This situation comes about through distrust in the current government's handling of this matter; that is, they have been slow to act and then they have obfuscated. I am still waiting for the Minister for Primary Industries to respond to a question, many months ago now, about when brevetoxins were first detected in this state. When I raised it as a supplementary follow-up question, many months later, she said that we had not hit the official time for that question to have been responded to yet. The government is playing games with the data on the algal bloom. The government is playing games with the data on brevetoxins, which had never been detected in our state before. They are willing to use sophistry and every trick in the political book that it takes to try to keep this out of an election agenda.

The reality is that there will be an election in March 2026. The government should actually be demonstrating the leadership that the people of South Australia want right now in providing this sort of information, so that the public can have restored trust in this government—because, my goodness, it has taken a hit in the last few months. Certainly in this chamber I would hope that we will be taking our responsibility to hold this government to account seriously and ensuring that we have the full information that should be provided—in a way that, should there be errors in it, they can be addressed, questioned and called out, and in a way that, if there are areas of concern in it, they can be debated in this place. But for the government to claim that they cannot even provide the information about the harmful algal bloom within a timely way and that we need to give them a deadline into the never-never, really, at this point, is a bit rich. It really, really is.

If you want the public not to believe in misinformation you actually need to provide the information and do so in a timely manner. Otherwise, how on earth can we trust this government?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (16:25): I will speak very, very briefly in support of the amendment put forward by the Hon. Justin Hanson. The government's position is that if this motion is passed unamended it is highly unlikely to be able to be complied with. There will be many, many people who are involved in doing work for the government in relation to the algal bloom—providing that industry support, providing that business support, doing the work to understand how the algal bloom works, where it is going, what might happen and what might happen in the future—who will be diverted to what may be many, many documents.

As the motion reads, it is, for example, 'all budget proposals'. Many of those documents will be proposals that are created for cabinet purposes that will be cabinet-in-confidence. It will not just be the volume of documents that will need to be searched for; it will be going through those to see what is able to be provided that does not breach cabinet-in-confidence. So if the amendment fails I do not want this chamber to be under any illusion. I expect it will be extraordinarily difficult for the government to comply with what the council has set down.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:26): I was not listed to speak, but given all the discussions around the chamber I am speaking. On the face of it the discussions I have had with the government in relation to this motion are: is this an achievable end in the sitting days? The answer we have just heard from the Attorney and I have heard from the minister responsible is that it is simply not achievable within the timeframe. I know we are talking about sitting days and four to six weeks. The government's response to that is, obviously, 'We have to go through cabinet processes and the rest of it in terms of sifting through those papers.'

I am reiterating the advice that has been given, and the advice given just now by the Deputy Premier on the record is that they are unlikely to meet that timeframe. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, in terms of trying to find a compromise that ensures this place gets the documents and meets the objectives of the motion. The advice to me from the minister responsible is that they do not have an issue with the requests that are being made; they have an issue with the timeframe that has been made. That is one position. The other is providing that within a reasonable timeframe or something else. This is only critical now given the number of sitting days left.

Obviously, there have been lots of discussions around the chamber, and I take the point that was just made by the Hon. Tammy Franks in relation to previous documents that have been requested and have not been provided to this place in good faith in those timeframes that were negotiated much earlier on in the piece around the algal bloom.

We are now at the tail end of that and at the tail end of the sitting year. So I could flip a coin and say, 'Well, say, within seven sitting days' and the government will say, 'We can't get it to you'; make it 'as soon as reasonably practicable' and the government does not deliver those documents in any event. So I really do not think it matters what we do, because we are all going to be in the same position.

I am not going to put myself in that position, and I do not think any member of the crossbench is going to put themselves in that position given where we are today. The discussions I had with the minister responsible were not unreasonable; they were very reasonable and they were fulsome. She provided lots of advice to me about what sort of timeframe they would need to get these documents.

I understand, of course, from the transparency perspective, the concerns that we all share around those timeframes and the ability to meet them, but none of us are going to put ourselves in that position, given where we are in the calendar year. Whether or not we receive the documents is yet to be seen, but I strongly urge all of us in this place between now and the next sitting week, should this amendment pass in its original form, to perhaps revisit this issue and see what would be a relevant timeframe.

From my perspective, and I think from the crossbenchers' perspective, generally speaking, we do not get another bite of the cherry. We do not get another crack at this. The calendar year is going to be over and, if they are not produced, they are not produced. That may very well be, in fact is likely to be, the outcome anyway. We are really stuck between a rock and a hard place, so it is on that basis that I strongly urge the government between now and the next sitting week to try to find a solution to this problem and provide some sort of timeframe that would ensure that documents are released.

I do take on board the feedback of the Attorney in terms of diverting resources away from algal bloom and the processes, the vetting and the cabinet processes they have to go through, but we are in a position where, regardless of whether or not we have the amendment, we do not know whether we are going to get the documents. It is on that basis that it is impossible, in effect, to support the amendment that has been proposed, because we simply do not know where we will stand. I strongly urge the government, if they are listening, to do something between now and the next sitting week to perhaps address this issue and come back with a more appropriate solution.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (16:31): I rise to close the debate on this motion and I thank the Hon. Robert Simms, the Hon. Justin Hanson, the Hon. Nicola Centofanti, the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Hon. Connie Bonaros and the Deputy Premier for their contributions. At the end of the day, transparency from the government really should not be too much to ask. Even our South Australian Auditor-General reported previously that this government is not transparent enough with even his department.

I just make clear that this is not seven days. This is seven sitting days for these documents to be provided, so that takes us to 25 November. As the Hon. Nicola Centofanti and the Hon. Tammy Franks pointed out, that is seven sitting days in which to get this done, which ultimately takes us to five weeks and with only two days remaining in the sitting calendar, because I doubt that we will get to the optional sitting week.

I would also make the point to the honourable members, most especially the crossbench, as the Hon. Tammy Franks has said, that this is a unique aspect of the Legislative Council in that we can compel the government to produce documents. I would hate to see that this will be set as some kind of precedent in which, when we do ask for things in a timely manner, the government comes back and says, 'Well, you can get them as soon as we determine to be practicable.' No, seven sitting days is contained within the motion. We believe it is right that the people of South Australia have this information. We believe it is right that this chamber has the information that is contained within this motion and I urge this council to support it.

The council divided on the amendment:

Ayes 7

Noes 10

Majority 3

AYES

Hanson, J.E. (teller) Hunter, I.K. Maher, K.J.
Martin, R.B. Ngo, T.T. Scriven, C.M.
Wortley, R.P.

NOES

Bonaros, C. Centofanti, N.J. Franks, T.A.
Girolamo, H.M. Hood, B.R. (teller) Hood, D.G.E.
Lee, J.S. Lensink, J.M.A. Pangallo, F.
Simms, R.A.

PAIRS

Bourke, E.S. Game, S.L.
El Dannawi, M. Henderson, L.A.

Amendment thus negatived; motion carried.

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