Transcript – Sky News Regional Breakfast with Jaynie Seal

Angie Bell MP

Shadow Minister for the Environment

Shadow Minister for Youth

Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

Sky News Regional Breakfast with Jaynie Seal

25 August 2025

Subjects: South Australian algal bloom and the lack of Labor leadership on environment.

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

JAYNIE SEAL:

In a bid to revive South Australia’s algae-hit coastal towns, the state government is rolling out 20,000 Coast is Calling travel vouchers. They are worth up to $500 each and are aimed at luring visitors back to holiday hotspots along the coast. The voucher can be used for discounts on accommodation, tours and experiences.

The ballot opens ahead of the September school holidays and joining us live is Shadow Minister for the Environment, Angie Bell. Good morning to you, Angie. What do you make of these vouchers? Will these make a significant difference or not?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, good morning, Jaynie, and to your regional viewers. Great to be with you this morning. Look, I’ve just heard about these vouchers just now. And of course, they’ll be welcome on the holiday spots around the South Australian coastline, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s taken 150 days for the Prime Minister to turn up to South Australia when South Australians have been calling for help on this algal bloom. When I was there with the Leader of the Opposition, and the week before on two separate trips, I sat and listened and heard the stories of local South Australians who have been decimated by this and also their grief, can I say, for their ecosystems that have been smashed through this algal bloom.

It is very difficult for South Australians at the moment and the Prime Minister and Murray Watt have let down South Australians. You know, the Prime Minister announced $600 million for a PNG rugby stadium or rugby team and only $6 million during his visit of extra funding for South Australians who have been impacted by this.

So, look, these vouchers, to your question, will be welcome, but you still can’t go in the water and swim in South Australia and it’s very difficult for those tourism operators. In particular, those fishers who have lost their livelihoods and the government has been absent and not helped them as much as they need.

JAYNIE SEAL:

We spoke about this a week or so ago, Angie, and we’re looking at weather patterns and how it can impact the algal bloom. Our meteorologist has been showing us a couple of fronts, certainly moving across the southern areas this week. Is there any indication, as far as you’re aware, if these will have an impact at all on the algal bloom?

ANGIE BELL:

Can we cross our fingers for regional South Australians? Because we need the weather to break up the algal bloom. This is massive. It’s twice the size of Canberra at the moment. It can be seen from space and it’s getting bigger. And so, what South Australians desperately need is a really big storm and they need the water temperature to drop in order for this algal bloom to dissipate. And that’s exactly what we need. So, thoughts and prayers are with South Australians, particularly there on the Yorke Peninsula who have been suffering so much under this harmful algal bloom and its impacts and its effects. We would like to see more leadership on this from the Prime Minister and from Murray Watt as well. And we just haven’t seen the required leadership for this absolute disaster that South Australians are having to put up with.

JAYNIE SEAL:

And if we see the weather change, that’s an immediate effect. But as we look long term, potentially more algal bloom in the future as a Shadow Environment Minister, what are your concerns and how much of an impact is climate change playing on this? And would you like to see moving forward for, not just the government, but for environmentalists and anybody who can perhaps change this situation?

ANGIE BELL:

Well of course we have to protect our environment for now but also for future generations and scientists are telling us that this is a combination of factors that has created this harmful algal bloom. And remember, there are a number of them. There’s also one just outside the Murray mouth there in Goolwa, in South Australia that I visited as well. They are popping up also around the world. This is something that I think we’ll see more of as ocean temperatures increase, as you said, in part to climate change.

Now, the algal bloom, also, how can we actually intervene? Now, there was an eminent American scientist who was here last week in South Australia talking to the state government about putting clay deposits in the ocean. You know, on the Yorke Peninsula there is a lot of clay in the soil there. And to pop the clay in the ocean and then the algal bloom would sink to the bottom onto the clay and that would help to dissipate but the fact is that the government at both levels have has left this for too long. This algal bloom now is way too big for that to have an impact. So had the government listened earlier and not waited so long to hear South Australians and their pleas and also, remember those scientists 18 months ago who asked for the funding to monitor this and were denied under two successive Labor Environment Ministers. Had they listened, maybe they could have done something.

JAYNIE SEAL:

So just finally, we’ve got about 15 seconds, Angie, but what would your government like to see more of and what perhaps you are putting forward to the government in terms of preventing this?

ANGIE BELL:

Well let’s have some listening workshops from the government and let’s have some leadership when it comes to the environment because this government has had also, Jaynie, three and a half years to reform the EPBC Act and they’ve done nothing.

JAYNIE SEAL:

Angie Bell, thank you so much.

ANGIE BELL:

Thank you.

ENDS.