Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk of the devastation of the health of the Coorong in my home state of South Australia. Over the last two months there have been two massive fish kills in the southern lagoon of the Coorong. Two hundred tonnes of fish have washed up along the Coorong shore. This is because the water quality in the southern lagoon is deteriorating at a rapid rate. It is hypersaline and losing oxygen, and, as a result, we are seeing fish killed. Local fishermen are describing these latest fish kills as 'the largest in 40 years'. Losing 200 tonnes of fish is the equivalent of one year's entire commercial offering of mullet in the area. This is devastating—it's devastating for the local businesses and to the local environment.

I've written to the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, and urged her to act quickly. I've urged her to immediately release the $27 million of funding for phase 2 of the Healthy Coorong, Healthy Basin Action Plan. I've urged her to urgently implement monitoring of the salinity levels and water quality levels in the Coorong. We need to be ensuring that we're listening to expert advice and local knowledge, and I urge the minister to get on with this. We know that rivers die from the mouth up, and the southern lagoon in the Coorong is very, very sick. We need the minister to put her money where the river's mouth is.