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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-13 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:36): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport a question about the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Some two months ago now, the death by boat strike of the much loved dolphin Rocket saw not just a community outpouring but indeed saw local man Shane Hryhorec start a petition. That petition has now reached 9,682 signatures. At the time, I raised with the minister questions about what would be done to protect the dolphins in what is the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary in a very unique environment where we have a capital city with a dolphin pod in a working harbour.

The minister was gracious enough to meet with myself, the proponent of the petition, Shane Hryhorec, as well as Dr Mike Bossley and Marianna Boorman earlier this week to discuss not just the petition but what other measures could be put in place, including, as the petition calls for, boat propeller guards to be installed where appropriate. I seek leave to table the document that contains the petition signatures of some 9,500-plus people who have called for better protections, particularly boat propeller guards, to be installed in the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: With that, I thank the minister for her meeting earlier this week, but I ask her now, in the council, if she could put on record what the Malinauskas government will do in response to the threats upon dolphin life in the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, to keep them safe and to protect this precious place.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Autism) (14:38): I thank the Hon. Tammy Franks for her advocacy in this space and for bringing Shane, Mike and Marianna into my office to have a conversation and to hear directly from them. It was clear that there was a lot of passion in the room, particularly from Mike, who was able to also share, with his experience, his love of being on the water. I do thank you for tabling the petition today and I look forward to looking at it closely.

As was discussed during our meeting, you raised this originally on 7 October, I believe. Following your feedback we were able to update the DIT website in regard to the importance of using propeller guards when people are using this sanctuary space. It is a unique space to have so close to our CBD in metropolitan Adelaide. Now, that education campaign can be reinforced.

I know that particularly Mike may want it to go a bit further but this is a starting point, as we discussed in that meeting. There are many alternative shapes to props, and what that looks like in enabling more guards to be available and where we can get them from. I am happy to continue those conversations as well.

In collaboration with the Department for Environment and Water, who were also present at the meeting on that day, we are happy to work across those two agencies to figure out how we can have more of a 'blitz', as we referred to it on the day. Obviously, I don't want to say what day that blitz will be, because that would be counterproductive to having a blitz, but that is something we are working towards having more commitment to. We want people to be slowing down and going to the speed limits in that sanctuary zone. That has come about because of the advocacy of both yourself and the members who you brought in, so thank you for doing that.

A key piece of our conversation was about having more signage available. Sometimes there are too many signs talking about too many different things and it becomes sign noise pollution. We are looking at consolidating some of that existing multiagency static signage that is already available there and having a more concise, to-the-point message on one sign. They are the things we are working through as an immediate action.

We will also now be looking at what speed signage we could be doing and it has us thinking about how we could use some of our more advanced technology and what we can do in this space as well. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. We look forward to working with yourself and the community.

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