Algal bloom still no natural disaster but government announces emergency funding

The federal government has finally acted after tens of thousands of fish, sharks, rays and seahorses washed up dead and dying on the South Australian coastline.

Environment Minister Murray Watt.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

The Albanese government has finally acted to help victims of the South Australian algal bloom amid furious claims it was ignoring an unprecedented natural crisis which has turned the SA coastline into a wasteland.

For five months South Australians have grown increasingly horrified as tens of thousands of fish, sharks, rays and seahorses washed up dead and dying, suffocated by the vast and immovable outbreak of karenia mikimotoi algae.

Their horror turned to anger last week when federal Environment Minister Murray Watt announced he would not be visiting SA but would dispatch one of his senior bureaucrats to investigate and provide him with a report.

In the past 72 hours Senator Watt relented amid private lobbying from the Malinauskas government and federal Labor MPs, and finally visited SA himself on Monday to witness the devastation.

Senator Watt confirmed late on Monday that while the Commonwealth would stop short of declaring the event a natural disaster, it would now provide $14m in emergency funding. The money has yet to be allocated to specific measures but is expected to include coastal clean-ups, business assistance and research.

The SA Emergency Management Cabinet Committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss the best use of the federal funds and to consider further state financial assistance.

Senator Watt had angered South Australians by ducking calls to declare the event a natural disaster, even though scientists have likened the 2.5C increase in water temperatures and the increased nutrients from the Murray River floods to the equivalent of an “underwater bushfire”.

The waters off Edithburgh on the Yorke Peninsula before the algal bloom devastated the region. Picture: Great Southern Reef Foundation / Stefan Andrews

That anger was further fuelled by revelations that the nation’s peak marine scientists approached former environment minister Tanya Plibersek as early as October 2023 warning about the looming algal crisis and requesting $4m a year in funding for 10 years to research the outbreak.

That same plea was repeated in May this year to the Senator Watt, who not only snubbed the funding request but even ignored an invitation for a meeting with the marine scientists.

But as of Monday, having met with SA Environment Minister Susan Close, Senator Watt announced that the Commonwealth would now be helping SA as it deals with the economic effects of the bloom, which include plummeting fish stocks, oyster lease closures and the downturn in visitors to many coastal tourist destinations.

The politics of the bloom have become a headache for Premier Peter Malinauskas, with the father-of-four’s defensible but ill-timed decision to spend the past fortnight on leave for school holidays creating a perception he has been absent amid the worsening crisis.

Returning to work on Monday, Mr Malinauskas insisted that despite being on leave he had been talking to his federal colleagues and pleading for more support.

“I have been on the phone to the federal government in recent days advocating the state government’s position rather assertively,” he said.

He also repeated his view that the Commonwealth should declare the bloom a natural disaster.

“This is a natural disaster,” he said. “It should be treated as a natural disaster and I’ve made my view known very clearly to the federal government this morning, in advance of them having a cabinet meeting.”

To put the bloom in an eastern states context, it has affected around 150km of SA’s coastline – the equivalent of mass fish kills happening everywhere between Brisbane and Byron Bay, Sydney and Nowra, or Melbourne and Lorne.

In the triangle of sea between Yorke Peninsula, Gulf St Vincent and Investigator Strait on the northern side of Kangaroo Island, the bloom literally suffocated sea life, with coastal communities and suburbs counting the daily toll of dead and dying sharks, fish, seahorses and rays.

A long and warm autumn with little wind and hardly any rain created perfect conditions for the outbreak.

In apocalyptic scenes the coastline on the Fleurieu and Yorke peninsulas and the northern shores of Kangaroo Island have been littered with skates and sting rays bleeding from their gills, hundreds of dead leafy sea dragons, mass fish kills of leather jackets, and scores of low-lying Port Jackson and Angel sharks washing up dead as they are unable to find oxygen on the ocean floor.

SA Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young has been leading the charge against the state’s now-vast army of federal Labor MPs, with every coastal metropolitan electorate held by the ALP but no action until Monday from the Albanese government.

“I urge the Prime Minister and Mr Malinauskas to avoid this becoming their ‘I don’t hold a hose’ moment,” she said, likening the lack of action to former prime minister Scott Morrison’s ill-fated Hawaiian holiday during the 2019 bushfires.

The SA Liberals have gone even further, with the usually circumspect Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia last week demanding Senator Watt “get his arse down here” and see the devastation first-hand. SA opposition environment spokesman David Basham said Senator Watt’s “belated” visit was “a slap in the face for the communities and industries who’ve been dealing with the toxic algal bloom for months”.

“I’m deeply concerned and frustrated by the environmental disaster unfolding along our coastline, particularly in my local electorate,” he said. “This isn’t just an eyesore, it’s a serious ecological threat, harming marine life, impacting local tourism, and jeopardising the livelihoods of those who rely on our waters.”

The SA Liberals are calling for a royal commission to examine the potential causes of the bloom and possible solutions, and demanding it be declared a natural disaster.