Media release – Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection, 20 Jun2 2021
Premier Gutwein should sack Industry Minister, Guy Barnett
Tasmania’s Primary Industry minister, Guy Barnett, has to go.
If he won’t resign, Premier Gutwein should sack him.
Mr Barnett’s failure to respond to damning revelations about the state’s industrial salmon industry, his ignorance about appalling injuries inflicted on protected seals and his inaction on strengthening controls make it clear he is not fit for purpose.
The minister is presiding over an Atlantic salmon industry in which corrupted processes, failed regulation and ineffective oversight have allowed Big Salmon licence to expand without proper controls in place.
The minister promised to reveal by March this year where the industry’s would make its next sea grab around the Tasmanian coast. Three months later, Mr Barnett remains silent.
Mr Barnett is unwilling to let Tasmanians know how he is planning to help the industry double in less than ten years and which area of the coastline will become the next unwilling host of floating industrial feedlots.
Instead all journalists’ queries are directed to salmon industry’s new public relations consultant, former politician Dr Julian Amos, begging the question “Who runs Tasmania—the Gutwein government or the salmon barons?”
Some two months after many of the salmon industry’s dirty secrets were revealed in Richard Flanagan’s exposé, Toxic, the minister has not addressed a single one of the issues raised.
He has instead been missing in action.
The Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection calls on Premier Gutwein to sack the minister and install in the Cabinet someone with enough spine to hold the industry to account, to strengthen regulations, to improve transparency and to give regulators the wherewithal to properly control, monitor and enforce sustainability. We need a minister who listens to community, ensures timely responses to concerns, acts on breaches of regulations and actually understands zero tolerance means just that.
We need a minister who will put Tasmania’s future first ahead of industrial greed and destruction of marine life.
We do not need a minister who is missing in action.
