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It’s been one year since dead fish began washing up on South Australian beaches, as the largest algal bloom in Australia’s history spread along the coast.
Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett was part of the team that first surveyed the bloom – coming face to face with the algae’s devastating impact.
Twelve months on, the bloom is still there, the damage has spread, and many of the warnings scientists made in those early days have proved well founded – particularly the damage to marine life.
Today, we’re bringing you an episode from 2025 with marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett, on what caused the bloom, what he saw beneath the surface, and what it means for the fate of the ocean.

This episode first aired in August 2025.

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Guest: Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett
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South Australia does not usually wake up on election day at the centre of the national mood. But this morning, a contest that looks settled on paper is carrying a much stranger energy.
Peter Malinauskas is expected to win comfortably. The real movement is happening elsewhere; in the noise around One Nation, the protest vote in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis gathering around the once marginal party, and the possibility that a state election could end up telling us something bigger about where Australian politics is heading.
Today, Editor of InDaily SA, Belinda Willis, on the state election that may be a whitewash for Labor, but a warning for everyone else.

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Guest: InDaily SA Editor Belinda Willis
Photo: AAP Image/David Mariuz
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While the world focuses on the war underway in Iran, Israel and the Gulf, there is another war front developing – Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shia group, Hezbollah dragged the country into the war, attacking Israel after a joint US-Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel then hit back, bombing Beirut and amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border.
Meanwhile, more than a million Lebanese people are now displaced, forced to flee their homes as the attacks continue and Israel demands evacuations.
Today, Michael Young, editor of Carnegie’s Middle East Center blog on whether Lebanon could see a ground invasion and what Israel’s plan is to reshape the region.

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Guest: Michael Young, editor of Carnegie’s Middle East Center blog
Photo: EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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Brett Hosking is a fifth-generation grain and livestock farmer, and has seen his fair share of heartache and hard times.
But this time, it’s not a natural disaster or a foreign war that’s threatening to tip farmers over the edge, but a decision from the Victorian government.
The state has passed new compulsory acquisition laws which make it easier for energy companies to acquire farmers’ land and build transmission lines and renewable energy projects on it.
Today, Victorian Farmers Federation President, Brett Hosking, on why the government’s push to roll out renewables and transition lines in rural Australia has left farmers feeling devastated and disrespected.

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Guest: Brett Hosking, Victorian Farmers Federation President
Photo: AAP Image/Joel Carrett
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Australians are in for a world of pain, with mortgages and rents set to rise after our second interest rate hike in as many months.
It was a line-ball decision from the Reserve Bank – with five members voting for a quarter of a percent jump and four against – putting our official cash rate at 4.1 per cent.
RBA Governor Michelle Bullock says high inflation left them with no choice, but others have slammed the call.
Today, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute, Greg Jericho, on why he thinks the RBA has got it horribly wrong.

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Guest: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
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