- 5 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:22South Australia's coastline isn't meant to look like this.
00:28Once pristine waters are murky and streaked with foam.
00:33It moves, it changes, it is dynamic and it is impossible to predict.
00:38In the worst hit areas, vast populations of marine life have been lost in this algal bloom.
00:46There is nothing under the surface of the water and that should be a huge wake up call
00:53for everybody.
00:54It is an environmental disaster and a warning for the nation.
00:59So what have you seen here in the last couple of weeks?
01:02Complete carnage, we have just seen the whole ecosystem wash up on the beach.
01:07Desperate coastal communities can see their future.
01:10If there's no fish, if there's no crabs, there's no customers for us.
01:16Let's not scare 1.7 million South Australians from visiting the beach this summer.
01:20With a state election this weekend, the South Australian government has been accused of
01:25playing down the health effects.
01:28It's not toxic.
01:30Do you still believe that?
01:31Well, it's all about the context of which those remarks have been made.
01:34There was a real desire to downplay the impact.
01:38We piece together what the SA government knew and what they told the public.
01:43The information that I provided at the time was consistent.
01:47But incorrect.
01:49Well, in retrospect, we live in South Australia, we know this, I know you come from Sydney.
01:53It was like razor blades in my guts.
01:55I was rolling around on the floor in the emergency room.
01:58Poor bugger.
02:00It's alright, it's okay.
02:01We as the public deserve to know these things.
02:04The South Australian government insists this isn't toxic.
02:08But I've been here for just 10 minutes and already my eyes are watering.
02:12I can feel it in the back of my throat and my skin is itchy.
02:16This was meant to be over in a couple of weeks.
02:19But a year on, locals are still dealing with the algal bloom.
02:40In March last year, a South Australian surfer noticed something odd at his local break.
02:50I got out of the car and I just had a bit of a taste in my mouth.
02:53Like, you know, the day before you're getting a flu, you taste just a bit off.
03:01Water was beautiful coloured.
03:03I started just randomly doing a little dry cough here and there.
03:08Anthony Rowland soon realised he wasn't the only one coughing.
03:14I said, are you guys sick? Have you got a cough?
03:16And they're like, no, I've just started coughing out here today.
03:19And I'm like, that's really weird, me too.
03:23So that's when the alarm bells started sounding and I knew something wasn't right here.
03:30He started posting about the symptoms surfers were experiencing.
03:36We'd had almost 100 responses from the public of people that had been here or been to the car park.
03:41And what were they saying? What were the responses?
03:43They were all saying the same thing. They just rocked up and they felt a dry cough.
03:48Definitely argy.
03:49This is quite concerning.
03:52I was in panic mode. I knew it was sick and I was freaking out.
04:01I got out of the car and I instantly noticed something on the air.
04:06Within days, local tradie Dale Madden says he ended up in hospital after swimming at a Victor Harbour beach.
04:15By the time I got to the cliffs, it was quite a horrific smell and nothing I could really relate
04:20to.
04:23I then deteriorated quite quickly to the point of excruciating stomach pain where I was rushed to the emergency at
04:30Victor Harbour.
04:31They thought I had appendicitis. We then ran some tests and found out that I had an infection.
04:37How painful was that?
04:39Like 10 out of 10 painful. It was like razor blades in my guts.
04:43I was rolling around on the floor in the emergency room, coughing and spewing blood.
04:50And diarrhea as well?
04:52Oh yeah, horrific diarrhea. That was definitely the worst I've ever had to the point of really scaring me.
04:58I said to the doctor, it's the water. I reckon it's the water.
05:02While Dale's infection can't be definitively linked to the algae,
05:07an international expert told us the bloom could bring on an illness like this.
05:12Dale says when he called the state health department to report his experience,
05:17they showed little interest.
05:19When I further asked questions, yeah, I was basically treated as if, you know,
05:24I was just some crazy person whinging about something.
05:27All I can do is document and send the images through.
05:37In the days that followed, Anthony Rowland was stunned by what he was seeing on the beach.
05:44Not a leafy, but I haven't seen one of these guys for a while.
05:47And that just washed up in front of my eyes. You can see the bubbles are still like fucking.
05:51It was pretty shocking. The scenes that I was seeing was something I hadn't seen in 40 years.
05:59I haven't seen one of these guys.
06:02I haven't seen one of these guys.
06:02An algal bloom causing marine life to die and allergic reactions in swimmers.
06:08Health authorities insist their allergic reactions won't trigger lasting health issues.
06:13Hey, buddy. Hello.
06:1512 days after he began documenting the bloom, Anthony Rowland made a grim discovery.
06:23Four bodies. What's going on?
06:31From 10 years old as a kid, from going down there to surf, there's always hundreds of roosts, like always.
06:37And whenever you get to the bottom, they all see you and pick up and they just divide and get
06:41away.
06:42Yeah, so they're definitely not well, are they?
06:46That there was some kind of poisoning or something was going on, they looked half paralysed.
06:51OK, mate.
06:53Oh, you've been there for a while, judging by your droppings.
06:57He was so distressed by what he saw, he called the South Australian Department of Primary Industries.
07:04Little fingers on these glass legs, aren't you, mate?
07:07It's OK.
07:09In fact, a government biosecurity team had already euthanised 45 kangaroos from this mob a few days earlier.
07:17They later reported the animals had shown mild to severe neurological signs.
07:23All up, 112 kangaroos would be put down.
07:27And that night, I just remember sitting in bed and looking through my footage and I actually started
07:32feeling a bit sick and then I couldn't sleep. I woke up the next morning and all I wanted to
07:35do was get
07:36back out there to see if they'd put them all down. But it was one of the most distressing scenes
07:40I've
07:40ever seen, for sure. Just so many of them suffering.
07:44Yeah, this whole frickin' population here is in jeopardy, I'd say.
07:47So Anthony Rowland sent me the footage and we're looking at tens, potentially a couple of hundred
07:54kangaroos that are showing really major neurological issues and all at once.
08:00Faith Coleman is an ecologist who's been training volunteers to collect water samples and document
08:06the algae's impact. Last month, she announced she's running as an independent at the state election.
08:14The kangaroos, the footage was so distressing that a large number of both public and politicians were
08:22keen to get answers. The public would never get a definitive answer on what made the kangaroos
08:29so sick. But there was one significant finding. Further testing three months later found a rare
08:36compound in the organs of two of the animals. It's called brevatoxin. While the results didn't
08:44attribute the deaths to brevatoxin, experts say the discovery deserved further investigation.
08:53The presence of brevatoxins in those kangaroos, how significant was that?
08:59So we've never had brevatoxins. It's also extremely rare anywhere in the world. So just our detection
09:06of brevatoxins is a trigger for full investigation for what the producing organism was, where it's
09:15distributed, how much of it is there. We need to know everything, yeah.
09:20And should the public be informed about that, do you think?
09:23Brevatoxins are certainly a problem for public health. And as a member of the public,
09:27I'd like to know if brevatoxins are present. The first algal species to be identified in South
09:34Australia was Karenia mikimotoi. But it was the discovery several months later of another species,
09:41Karenia cristata, that alarmed some scientists. It produces brevatoxins that are released into the air
09:48and water. Fish absorbed them and we breathed them in.
09:56So we have some incubators down here.
09:58Professor Shauna Murray is a globally renowned expert on harmful algal blooms.
10:03So we'll take some of these to have a look. Should we have a look under the microscope?
10:08Let's do that. Her team was the first to show the algae in South Australia produced a brevatoxin.
10:18So it can cause a number of different human impacts. It can cause respiratory difficulties,
10:26including asthma, pneumonia, breathing difficulties potentially. So potentially serious human health impact.
10:37Despite regular press conferences, the South Australian government didn't immediately tell
10:43the public that brevatoxins had been found in the kangaroos. It took two months for details of the
10:50pathology report to appear on a government website. They didn't want to scare the public because
10:56they knew that tourism and local small towns were going to suffer. I understand their motivation,
11:02but we as the public deserve to know the risk we are putting ourselves in. The SA government told us
11:08trace amounts of brevatoxin were found in the kangaroos and their presence was incidental.
11:27How are we doing this? One, two, three. Here's two.
11:32While the government was slow to reveal the brevatoxins in kangaroos,
11:37they were eager to identify what caused the algal bloom.
11:43Hi, I'm Professor Mike Steer. They released this explainer on TikTok.
11:48The algal bloom occurring in South Australia is without precedent and has resulted from the
11:53convergence of three extraordinary factors. The scientist leading the response blamed three
12:00events. A Murray River flood two years earlier, a marine heat wave and an upwelling of cold water
12:08from the depths of the ocean. These are the three elements that are fundamental to the growth and
12:13production of algae. Professor Shauna Murray, who sits on the South Australian scientific advisory panel,
12:26questions the government's explanation. What about the idea there was a flood in the River Murray?
12:31It happened at least a year before. So you wouldn't expect that something that happened a year prior
12:39would have a very strong impact. So you discount that theory?
12:44I think it's probably unlikely. Yeah. We know so little about it that it's all just theories and it
12:54all needs to be investigated. On what caused the balloon, would you caution people who are definitive
13:01saying it's these three factors? Absolutely. There's no way of knowing at this very early
13:08stage of the investigation as to what's caused it. It usually takes quite some research to be able to
13:14establish those kinds of things. As the government sought to reassure the public, the bloom was spreading
13:22along the coast. After the first wave hit the beaches of Victor Harbour, the bloom spread to Kangaroo Island,
13:30up Gulf St Vincent and along the west side of Spencer Gulf. By July, almost a third of the state's
13:38coastline
13:39had been affected. Of course it is devastating but it's important to remember that over two-thirds
13:47of our coastline remains completely unaffected by the aqua blue.
13:52One place undoubtedly affected was Adelaide. For months, dead fish and other marine life
13:59littered its beaches.
14:01A shark measuring almost three metres long has washed up at Henley Beach. A crowd quickly gathering to see
14:08the apex predator close up. Authorities attended and removed the dead shark, taking it away for testing.
14:15An investigation was promised into the shark's death. Some experts concerned it could be connected to the algae
14:22bloom along parts of SA's coast. But it took almost four months for the findings to be released,
14:29after a Freedom of Information request. The pathology report revealed the same toxic compound
14:37found in the kangaroos. Brevatoxin was detected on the shark's gills.
14:43At 6pm on a Friday, the pathologist delivered a clear warning.
14:49This is an uncommon and significant finding, the pathologist wrote in an email later released
14:56by the Department of Primary Industries. It suggested brevatoxins in the algae may have contributed
15:03to the shark's death. What would have been the best scientific response on the discovery of brevatoxins?
15:09I would have liked to see more testing and I would have liked that testing to be public immediately.
15:16Did that happen?
15:17No.
15:21The SA government says it tests deceased wildlife when necessary.
15:27But the discovery of brevatoxins raises questions that go beyond the impact on marine life.
15:35The toxin is known to affect human health, yet the state's health advice remained unchanged.
15:43I was slow about changing the advice about whether it was a toxic bloom or not. I think most people,
15:50if they had been told that there was a nerve toxin in there, would have looked at that advice and
15:56made a
15:56judgment call themselves. After discovering brevatoxins in the shark, it would take the state government
16:04almost four months to change its official health advice. Were you slow to change the health advice?
16:11No, actually, I think I was very quick. Going out and frightening people and saying,
16:16look, we found a little bit of this in a shark, when actually there is other reasons why that shark
16:22may have died.
16:23On July...
16:23Professor Nicola Spurrier is South Australia's Chief Public Health Officer.
16:28This has been awful for South Australia. This is one of the largest harmful algal blooms
16:34internationally. But in the vast majority, these symptoms are very mild, minor, nonspecific,
16:41and they disappear fairly quickly once the exposure goes away.
16:54When a winter storm whipped up a powerful swell in August, the algal bloom crashed into Adelaide's beaches.
17:06Oh, it came in the window.
17:15As yellow foam blanketed the city's coastline, the government's health advice came under scrutiny
17:21at a seven-network forum. My eldest, who is a non-asthmatic but never been in hospital,
17:27ended up in hospital for three days with respiratory issues, and I know she's not alone.
17:32It is a question we've been hearing a lot, Professor Spurrier. What is your advice on this one?
17:36You attended a community forum with the Premier. It was televised on Channel 7.
17:41It's not toxic, but when you get it in your eyes, it's irritating, and that can cause those symptoms.
17:46That's healthy people. What about people with underlying health concerns like asthma or pre-existing
17:50respiratory issues? We don't believe that those people are at any higher risk. In Florida,
17:55where there's a brevi toxin, they think that the toxin is more of a trigger for people with asthma,
18:00but we don't have that as a problem here in South Australia.
18:03You said, we don't have that problem in South Australia. That was incorrect, wasn't it?
18:09So, at the time, and of course, it's lovely to think back in time, but at the time,
18:16we had a problem with Karenia mikimotoi. That was the cause of our algal bloom. At the beginning,
18:23we had no brevi toxin. That's not what a key advisor to Nicholas Spurrier was told in June.
18:32Two months before the televised forum, he and two dozen other government officials were told that
18:38while the dominant species was thought to be Karenia mikimotoi, brevi toxins had been identified
18:45for the first time in Australian waters. A summary of that briefing noted,
18:51the impacts from the harmful algal bloom have potentially devastating implications for industries
18:58and human health. SA Health didn't say whether Nicholas Spurrier was briefed about this,
19:04but the department insists it wasn't known at that point that a brevi toxin producing species
19:10was dominating the bloom or that those toxins were in the air.
19:17You basically said, we don't have that problem in South Australia. You said,
19:21there are no brevi toxins here.
19:23Yeah, so I said exactly that because that was the case at the time. That was the understanding,
19:29the knowledge from the information that we had. Of course, now we can look back because we've
19:34collected all of that information. We've been able to check this information.
19:37As a doctor, how can you make such a broad statement to totally dismiss that the brevi toxins caused that
19:45asthma? So I'd suggest, Angus, that wasn't totally dismissed because we continued to follow up. Our
19:51team were in constant communication with them and we followed up with them and have had subsequent
19:56conversations with them. So the information that I provided at the time was consistent.
20:01But incorrect.
20:03Well, in retrospect, of course, we've now know, you know, it's great now that we know,
20:08and I'm so pleased Sean has been able to quantify it. And we know it's from the
20:12Karenia Christata. And as soon as I had that information from that foaming event at Henley
20:18Beach, I used the precautionary principle and told the South Australian public about that.
20:23Good. Okay. We're more than happy to answer any questions if you've got questions of Chris.
20:27But it wasn't Nicholas Spurrier who told the public when the health advice eventually changed.
20:34We have early unvalidated results from the foam to indicate that there was a brevitoxin-like
20:42substance present. The catalyst for changing the health advice was the discovery of brevitoxins in
20:49foam at Adelaide's Henley Beach. But the health advice that we're receiving at the moment is that
20:57those people who are asthmatic, who suffer from asthma, would be suggested to responsibly take
21:05their Ventolin with them if they go down to the beach. This was a significant change in the public
21:12health advice that went unnoticed for four days. You have a role to play here. Of course. In
21:19communicating to the public. Exactly. And South Australian Premier Peter Malinowskis insists he's
21:26not responsible for the health advice. Why was the health advice changed in September? Because our public
21:31health officials determined that it would be appropriate to change it. What was the reason it
21:35was changed? You would have to ask the doctors who crafted the health advice. I find it a little
21:40extraordinary that the Premier of South Australia can't tell me why the health advice, a significant
21:45change in the health advice, was made in September. Because public health officials made it an informed
21:51judgement about the need to update health advice and as soon as they make that judgement, I trust them
21:57in making that judgement. I share with the public as soon as I can. Sounds as though you're not really
22:01across the detail here. Well, because I have never suggested or would seek to suggest that I'm a
22:10public health expert.
22:20In this fishing town on York Peninsula, it's peak tourism season. But at the Stansbury boat ramp,
22:27we're the only ones heading out. We've suspended our tours. We used to do the decky for a day tour.
22:37Steve Boley is a local oyster grower with a side hustle in tourism.
22:43We used to bring visitors out, stand around and eat oysters. I just can't bring myself to do it because
22:50there's nothing here to show them. There's nothing to look at.
22:53Stansbury was one of three oyster growing regions forced to close in May last year.
23:00The decision was made after brevatoxins were detected in the oysters.
23:05It would have been super devastating if we found out about this brevatoxin because we were making
23:12people sick. There is no upside to selling a product in a market that makes people sick. And that the
23:19cost
23:20to industry of having done that would be enormous.
23:24So these are diploids.
23:27This oyster growing region reopened in January after brevatoxin levels fell.
23:34Peter, come on. It's not going to kill you.
23:37Yeah.
23:41Most oyster farms have reopened, but the environment is yet to recover.
23:47It is extremely depressing. I don't like coming out here.
23:52When you look around here, what do you notice that's different from before the bloom?
23:58There's no wildlife. There's no birds. There's no fish. At this time of the year, we would be
24:04dancing around avoiding the crabs. There's not a crab to be seen. There is nothing under the surface
24:12of the water. And that should be a huge wake-up call for everybody, that the environment here is broken.
24:25As the bloom flares on the other side of this peninsula,
24:29Steve boldly fears the algae will return to these waters.
24:35We're just hanging on with the thread and, yeah, don't ask me what's going to happen if we close again.
24:42What does that mean to your business?
24:44Well, it means I really don't have a business.
24:50The multiplier effect of something like this is just astronomical on the town.
24:57What about if the bloom came here again? What would that mean?
25:00It would be pretty bleak because we could see then that there's no end to this and no-one's got
25:07any answers.
25:08Local publican Rob Rankin worries about the town's future if the bloom drags on.
25:15People are feeling affected by this. Stairsbury's a beautiful regional fishing town. Families come here
25:22for holidays and most of the holiday making is based around fishing. If there's no fish,
25:27if there's no crabs, there's no customers for us.
25:37How's your bloom? Look at that.
25:40That's what happens. That's what happens.
25:45Animals are dying.
25:47Commercial fishing in this Gulf was shut down in November.
25:52It's a crippling blow for fourth-generation fisherman Andrew Pisani.
26:00A year ago, he was one of the biggest operators in this region.
26:04So if we threw a line over now, what would we catch?
26:09Today here, we catch nothing. No fish here at all. Yeah, the fish, it's over. There's no commercial
26:17effort here at all anymore. What do you think the future looks like for fishing in South Australia?
26:24The ecosystem has fully collapsed and to rebuild that ecosystem, it's unknown. It could take 10 to 15 years.
26:32So I don't think for me and some of my fellow fishermen that in the next 10 to 15 years,
26:38we just won't be here.
26:40Look, I might find a couple of fish. It's not enough to make a living from.
26:44Ashley Perkins not only lost his livelihood, he became so sick fishing in Spencer Gulf,
26:51he now plans to leave the state.
26:55It started out feeling like I had a weak cold or a weak flu. It deteriorated beyond that.
27:00Ultimately, you ended up with gastro and bad gastro. And when it got really bad, it was very nasty cramps.
27:06You couldn't get too far away from the toilet.
27:09How long did this persist for?
27:11It continued through September and October. And by the time we got to November, I'd started to work out
27:17what was going on. I'd started stepping away from the fishing. I was trying to limit my exposure
27:22by reducing my hours on the water. What happened when you left the area?
27:26I headed over to Western Australia. Within 10 days, I felt normal, which I hadn't felt for three or four
27:32months. Breathing's good. Chest was good. Gastro issues had gone away completely.
27:43In September, Ashley Perkins contacted a senior official in the SA Health Department.
27:50Ashley told the official he was suffering some health issues that come on within hours of fishing.
27:58Two days later, he got a response. While he understood Ashley's concerns, the official said the
28:05only way he'd get those symptoms would be from ingesting toxins in shellfish.
28:12They were not prepared to even entertain the concept that this could be making you sick
28:19by breathing in what we now understand is aerosolised toxins.
28:24One study from Florida, where scientists have been researching toxic algal blooms for decades,
28:30found hospitalisations for gastro increased 40% during one particular bloom.
28:38SA Health dismissed that study as flawed and said further evidence was required to draw meaningful conclusions.
28:46They really didn't believe what I was telling them and they ultimately said to me,
28:52look, the only way you can be getting sick like you are is you are eating infected shellfish.
28:57Had you been eating that? Not at all. I'm not a shellfish eater. Never have been.
29:01We've talked to the people in Florida, actually, and we know what their research is.
29:05We've been extremely curious. We've been looking at all of the literature. I've been reading it.
29:10We've been collating it. Do you acknowledge that for a small number of people, the symptoms are very serious?
29:16These are non-specific symptoms. So there could be, in certain circumstances, another reason for that.
29:22OK? We have not had large numbers or even individual cases that I've been told about
29:28of people that have definitively only had the algae bloom bringing them into hospital with these symptoms.
29:36A month after the health advice changed, the Premier had this to say on ABC Radio.
29:45A lot of people don't refer to the algal bloom as the toxic algal bloom. It's not toxic.
29:50If you went into the water and you encountered the algal bloom,
29:54you're not going to have any sort of severe lasting health impacts. At worst, you'll have an irritation.
30:03You said the algal bloom is not toxic. Do you still believe that?
30:08Well, it's all about the context in which those remarks have been made and context matters when you're
30:13communicating to the people of South Australia. So is it toxic?
30:17Well, the harmful algal bloom produced in this place, with the Kerenia cristata in particular,
30:24that it does produce a brevi toxin. And of course, by its nature, a brevi toxin has toxicity and
30:29therefore is toxic. But it's also true that the algae itself, or elements of the algae,
30:34aren't toxic. You want to make sure you get the balance right by informing people without unnecessarily
30:43frightening them. I would say to the South Australian Premier that this algal bloom is toxic
30:51and it's been well documented that it's toxic. Dr. Barbara Kirkpatrick has studied Florida's so-called
30:59red tides for almost three decades. Like the algae in South Australia, the Florida bloom
31:06produces brevi toxins. These harmful algal blooms cause massive fish kills.
31:13They cause dolphin and manatees, mammals like ourselves, to either get ill or die from the bloom.
31:23So I think it's not a stretch that this is harmful to us as well.
31:30SA health officials like to cite the experience of Florida, but it took them almost a year to contact
31:36Dr. Kirkpatrick. We were able to document that emergency room visits go up during a red tide for respiratory
31:45illnesses, but also for gastrointestinal illnesses and for neurological illnesses such as migraines.
31:54We've had people who work on the water have reported over the years, whether it's fishermen,
32:00surfers, which I understand the South Australia is a big surfing area, having significant health impacts
32:10after repeated exposures. Dr. Kirkpatrick's main area of research has been the algae's impact on asthmatics.
32:20We studied about a hundred people with asthma from the Sarasota area for 10 years,
32:27just after a one hour walk on the beach. We could measure changes in their pulmonary function, their breathing,
32:35and they reported more symptoms, especially lower airway symptoms, such as coughing, wheezing,
32:46shortness of breath. And again, that was just after a one hour exposure.
32:53The South Australian Government Health Advice says if you experience symptoms while at the beach,
32:58move away from the area and these will resolve within a few hours. But what about those who can't
33:05leave the area and have underlying health conditions? We're going to see one woman who struggles to breathe
33:11every time she leaves the house.
33:18Every sunset, no two are the same. So it's like a picture postcard every night.
33:26Kerry Sutton has lived above the beach in Adelaide South for 25 years.
33:31Now, would you want to move away from this?
33:33She has a chronic lung condition and says she was successfully managing it before the algal bloom.
33:42Living by the ocean was actually good for my lungs and good for everything that goes on with me.
33:49And you used to be able to smell that beautiful sea salt that has always previously had a
33:59like a cleansing effect. That smell's gone.
34:04Yeah, tell us what it's like to live here now.
34:07Now, if I go outside and there's any, doesn't even have to be much of a breeze,
34:14the eyes start, the lungs are really tight and it's sort of like a massive headache.
34:21And sort of going, okay, what's going on? I need to get my puffers, use the drugs for my eyes,
34:30but they're not helping.
34:32Even on a day like this, when there's no visible algae, she's still affected.
34:38Because I walked outside before, the eyes are stinging and burning and
34:43that's not going to settle down for the rest of the day. It's in the air, you cannot get away
34:47from
34:47the air. When the wind's blowing, you'll see the foam up in the air blowing around. So it's
34:55not something that you can get away.
34:59What's the advice you've got from your doctor?
35:02He has suggested to me is that we get the disinfectant and we actually hose down the whole
35:12house with the disinfectant. And as he directly said that the algal bloom
35:16is making your condition worse. He has, yes. And he's a professor. So, um,
35:23I would tend to think he knows what he's talking about.
35:29Research from Florida shows brevatoxins can travel more than four kilometres through the air.
35:37In Adelaide, that would place around 200,000 people within range of the bloom,
35:42unable to simply follow the advice to leave the area if they have symptoms.
35:48Kerry Sutton now has a difficult choice.
35:53Do you think you're at a point where maybe you do need to sell here and move away?
35:59I'm stubborn. It would break my heart. It would absolutely break my heart if we did something
36:06like that. This is my forever home. And I would like to enjoy my forever home.
36:16What about people that live on the beach who are constantly exposed to, as you say,
36:21the aerosolised toxins? It has been terribly problematic. You're absolutely right. I feel
36:28very, very sorry for people because you can't get away from it. You know, you're living there.
36:38After spending a week in Queensland recently, Kerry Sutton says her symptoms improved.
36:45We told Nicholas Spurrier about her experience.
36:49Every time she steps outside her eyes water, she's tight in the chest, she gets a headache.
36:55That wouldn't be consistent with the published literature. One of the problems with this is
36:59if people just put their symptoms down to the algae bloom, there may be something else that's
37:04not looked at. We can't really shift the whole of Adelaide up to the hills. It's not practical.
37:08You've got to be pragmatic with these things. We can give people information. We can't get rid
37:13of the algae any quicker, believe me. I don't think it was good public health communication.
37:22Telling people to move 300 metres away from the coast doesn't make much sense in Adelaide,
37:27where so many people live on the coast and the bloom was spreading up and down our metropolitan
37:31coast. I was getting really bad respiratory symptoms. Fran Bohm is a professor at Adelaide
37:38University. She lives on Henley Beach. I couldn't breathe at night. I felt really,
37:44really breathless. I've never had that before. I had to get some Ventolin. So eventually we started
37:49wearing masks at home and that was the experience of a lot of neighbours and friends at Henley Beach.
37:56As an expert in public health, she's uniquely placed to assess the government's response to
38:02this crisis. The initial advice was too optimistic. I think overall there was a real desire to downplay
38:12the impact. And I think that's because they were concerned about the impact on tourism would stop
38:17people coming to South Australia, the impact on the fishing industry and so on. It really was to the
38:22detriment of the mental health of residents who were actually very concerned about their health.
38:30You are not going to suffer long-term health consequences. There will be an irritation that
38:35will largely disappear once you've had a shower. And what was the scene on the beach like?
38:41Professor Bohm questions how the state government can say there are no long-term health effects
38:46when the evidence isn't there. The conclusion that scientists come to is we simply don't know the
38:54long-term effects. So you know for a government official to say well it's not going to have a
38:59long-term health impact on anybody is a pretty brave thing to say. They grow relatively quickly and they
39:06might double every day. In the early days of the South Australian algal bloom, Professor
39:12Shauna Murray was sent water samples to examine. So you're looking at some cells of Karenia
39:19cristata that are swimming around, growing. She assembled the team that formally identified
39:26brevitoxin producer Karenia cristata in November. They found it is the dominant species in the South
39:34Australian bloom. We had a group of about 25 scientists from about 10 different institutions.
39:41Everyone could see that this was a major event and were prepared to volunteer their time to
39:48research it and understand that fundamental information. The South Australian government
39:54didn't fund the research team's work. But officials did ask the scientists to change the wording of their
40:01academic paper and remove a reference to severe human health effects. Professor Murray says the original
40:10wording was similar to other public health advice internationally. Did you feel that was
40:16uncontroversial language? Yes. I haven't had that before in a scientific paper.
40:22Nicola Spurrier was one of the officials who weighed in. She requested changes to how human health impacts
40:30were described. Symptoms generally have been mild, resolving quickly, she wrote.
40:39Severe human health effects was replaced with acute and self-limiting human health effects.
40:56So we were given a draft of it and I provided some feedback about the level of symptoms that we
41:03were
41:04having in South Australia. Why did you have such a problem describing the health impacts of the algae as severe?
41:12Because in the majority of people, Angus, and this is the evidence, this is what we've got from our GPs,
41:18from our hospitals. We live in South Australia, we know this. I know you come from Sydney. I said to
41:22Shona,
41:22in actual fact, if you were in South Australia, you would see the same as I see. It was about
41:29the potential
41:29impact of an algal bloom. So why did you edit that? Because I've read all the literature and looked at
41:35the
41:36research evidence from Florida and it is not severe in terms of the impacts on us as individual humans.
41:43As a community, of course it is because, you know, so many people of us are impacted.
41:54This government is going to put the accelerator to the floor.
41:59A week out from the election, polls suggest Peter Malinowskis is a near certainty to remain in power.
42:06Let's get out there and take it.
42:13He kicked off his unofficial campaign in October with a plan to get South Australians back to the beach.
42:21Today the South Australian government starts to roll out our summer plan.
42:26That summer plan was released without consulting the government's own scientific advisory panel.
42:33Four Corners spoke to eight independent members of the panel who confirmed they never saw details of
42:40the plan before it was announced. Did you consult any members of the South Australian scientific advisory
42:47panel before putting out that summer plan?
42:50Well, my expectation is the professor, Mike Steer, who was a part of that panel would be engaging with him
42:58in
42:58terms of how we invest in additional research going forward, which of course a very significant
43:03proportion of the summer plan was allocated towards.
43:05So a number of those scientists say they weren't asked about that.
43:09Who were they?
43:10The scientists on your panel?
43:11But which ones?
43:12Well, I'm not going to, that's their prerogative to say that. So are you concerned by that though?
43:17Would you be concerned by that?
43:19Well, I'd be concerned if the sky fell in, but I'm not going to comment on hypotheticals.
43:23They're understanding where the brevi toxin comes from.
43:25The SA government told us panel members took part in workshops and provided advice.
43:29A full briefing only happened five days after the summer plan was publicly announced.
43:38The reality of the alkyl bloom sometimes isn't nearly as bad as people's perception of it.
43:44This was the reality three weeks ago on York Peninsula, west of Adelaide.
43:49And the bloom is flaring again on Kangaroo Island.
44:00There was a sense of doom. There was a sense of we've got this ecological crisis right on our doorstep.
44:07Instead of trying to reassure the public that it had all the answers,
44:12Professor Bohm believes the SA government should have been up front about what it didn't know.
44:20We're still not entirely sure why we've had such a devastating,
44:24harmful algal bloom in South Australia, but it's likely to be a mix of climate change,
44:30other ecological factors. We're going to have all sorts of system effects that lead to ecological
44:37disasters. And in South Australia, that's what we've been living. We weren't prepared,
44:42we hadn't done the thinking of what it would mean if an algal bloom of this type hit.
44:48Experts warn that harmful algal blooms are likely to become more frequent and more intense.
44:55They say what's happening in South Australia is a warning for the rest of the country.
45:02We've got an ecosystem collapsing here. Yes, it's sad, but it's much more than sad because
45:07it's actually the kind of life system that we all depend on. It absolutely is a wake-up call for
45:15us.
45:16We'll see you next time.
45:35We'll see you next time.
45:46We'll see you next time.
45:49We'll see you next time.
45:52We'll see you next time.
45:52We'll see you next time.
Comments