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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-15 Daily Xml
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Algal Bloom

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:47): The seafood sector is the backbone and lifeblood of our coastal regional communities, contributing more than $800 million to the gross state product and directly employing more than 6,250 South Australians. The recreational fishing sector provides recreational activities for more than 300,000 South Australians and is acknowledged as a critical and vital economic driver for many coastal towns and communities.

The toxic algal bloom crisis is the single biggest challenge the fishing industry has had to deal with in a generation, and it is unprecedented. It has killed more marine animals across all 400 species than we have ever seen before, and we are still unsure of how long it will last.

Naturally, I support the measures taken under the joint state and federal governments' $102 million Algal Bloom Summer Plan, because I have lobbied extensively for many of the measures that are included in that plan, in consultation with the seafood sector. But we do know it is a summer plan. It is not a long-term plan. Investment to date is a long way off from where we will end up, and it is a far cry less than what it would cost us if a natural disaster were to be declared.

For the hardest hit regions like Gulf St Vincent, the north coast of Kangaroo Island, Investigator Strait and northern pockets of the Spencer Gulf, where marine scale fisheries dominate, it will be a long and turbulent road to recovery. For Gulf St Vincent coastal regional towns, which survive off fishing and especially fishing tourism, that road is even more rocky but not insurmountable.

There have been some calls for a ban on fishing in bloom-impacted regions such as Gulf St Vincent. I think it is important to note what a closure would do. Closures serve one purpose—namely, sustainability. They give our waters and our fish stocks the opportunity to repair and to replenish. But you cannot talk about closures in the absence of a buyback scheme. As we know, fishers have sunk a lot of money into fishing in those regions and they have paid some of the most expensive fees in the nation, if not the world, for that privilege over a lifetime.

When you hear about closures, what we are talking about is sustainability of our waters. In order to deal with sustainability you need immediate and long-term planning, and that includes sustainability of our fish stocks and marine environment. A buyback does provide the exit strategy that is needed for people to leave the industry with dignity—people who have spent their entire lives providing seafood for SA—and a way for those same operators who can withstand this crisis to remain, with economies of scale, for SA consumers and employment for coastal regional towns.

I welcome the Premier's comments yesterday in relation to this issue and look forward to further comments and statements from him about how this progresses forward. The reality is that both major parties in this state have tried buybacks in the past, and they have failed. They have not worked. They have thrown money at processes that have been driven by departments that do not know how to do a buyback scheme, plain and simple. There are precedents about how buyback schemes should work and the sort of rigour they need to work, but in order for us to do that those processes need to be stakeholder and industry driven. The departments have to have a seat at the table and an important role to play, but they cannot drive the process.

The current cost-recovery review process that is underway is a perfect example of how a process can work well if there is the political will to make it work. That is the challenge we face, and I look forward to seeing how this issue develops.

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