Transcript – FIVEAA Breakfast with David Penberthy and Will Goodings

Angie Bell MP

Shadow Minister for the Environment

Shadow Minister for Youth

Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

FIVEAA – Breakfast with David Penberthy and Will Goodings

26 August 2025

Subjects: PM’s $600 million soft diplomacy for PNG but nothing of substance for South Australians suffering through an environmental crisis.

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

WILL GOODINGS:

We’ll revisit that shortly. But before we do, at four to seven, let’s talk Algal Bloom. Angie Bell’s the Federal Shadow Environment Minister and joins us on FIVEAA Breakfast. Angie Bell, good morning to you. You’ve been critical of the federal government’s response to the algal bloom. Everyone in South Australia has been critical of the federal government’s response to the algal bloom. What should they be doing and what would you be doing different?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, I have to say, great to be with you, David, and Will again in South Australia on the radio. I’d ask you, how do you think Croweaters feel about their governments at the moment? And I say that fondly as a former Crowie, now a banana bender. But, you know, I think South Australians have the right to feel completely and utterly neglected by the Prime Minister and by the Environment Minister. It’s not good enough. They were very flat-footed. And, you know, boys, when you think about it, the PM can fork out about $600 million for a rugby league team in PNG but he could only scrape together, oh, what was it, $6.25 million on KI the other day when he was down there for a fleeting visit. I think it’s a slap in the face for communities living through this environmental crisis.

It’s devastating. The people that I met with on the Yorke Peninsula and in Adelaide are absolutely devastated for their ecosystems and for their livelihoods and the government really have not done enough to help.

DAVID PENBERTHY:

The thing we have struggled with apart from some of the semantics from the Minister about whether it’s in state waters or Commonwealth waters and the fact that it took him so long to come here and he initially wasn’t even going to come at all. But the thing we don’t get, and it seems to be the key point of difference between Labor on this and the Coalition on this federally, is you guys would declare this a natural disaster, would you not?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, we’ve said it’s a national disaster, it’s a natural disaster. You know, it’s an underwater nightmare for a large part of the South Australian coast. And that in itself is semantics, whether it’s a natural disaster or not. But I mean, you know, fork up with a bit more support because, you know, the fishers on Yorke Peninsula were telling us it’s way too hard to apply for this funding. It’s not enough. It’s too little and it’s too late.

And so, the government could have done something about this earlier had they listened to those scientists 18 months ago who were asking for funding to monitor the bloom, to know how big it was going to get, to know where it was going to go. Because now, it’s just simply too big. You can see this thing from space, which I’m sure South Australians understand. It’s twice the size of the ACT and it’s growing. What we need down there is a big weather event to break it up, for the ocean temperature to drop so that the ecosystem can start coming back. Yes, we would have listened much earlier, and we would have acted much, much earlier.

WILL GOODINGS:

Yeah, fingers crossed. Angie Bell, the Federal Shadow Environment Minister.

ENDS.