Media release – Janie Finlay MP, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries and Water, 2 November 2023

Backing in Tassie’s salmon industry

Tasmania’s salmon industry is one of our greatest success stories filled with passionate, hard-working people who are the driving force behind many of our regional jobs and our state’s economy.

Tasmanians have been farming salmon in the state, and in particular on the west coast, for around 40 years.

These jobs support workers, their families and the communities they live in.

The reduction or removal of salmon farming from Macquarie Harbour would have a massive impact on the west coast community and the salmon industry right across Tasmania.

This impact would be felt by industry and their supporters and the many others who have passionately invested in a shared future, including suppliers, processors and transporters.

Tasmania’s salmon industry can’t be taken for granted.

The Rockliff Government must do everything it can to maintain salmon operations on the West Coast and support the great people living and working in this region.

Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 2 November 2023

Federal Environment Minister must keep her promise of no new extinctions 

Last night, the Tasmanian Labor and Liberal parties passed a bipartisan motion calling for support of aquaculture in Macquarie Harbour. The motion, however, did nothing to acknowledge the plight of the endangered Maugean skate, found only in Macquarie Harbour.

The science is abundantly clear that fish farms are pushing this rare, endemic animal towards extinction. The Tasmanian Liberal and Labor parties should not be willing to consign an animal to extinction, by allowing foreign multinationals to continue destroying one of Tasmania’s most beautiful bodies of water that connects to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Bob Brown Foundation has written to the Federal Environment Minister urging her to review the 2012 decision to allow aquaculture in Macquarie Harbour under the EPBC Act.

“The federal conservation advice regarding fish farms in Macquarie Harbour is unequivocal; fish farms have a catastrophic impact on the Maugean skate,” said Alistair Allan, Bob Brown Foundation’s Antarctic and Marine Campaigner.

“It is not just activist groups that want to see the Maugean skate survive – no one wants an animal to disappear from the planet forever. Tasmanian Liberal and Labor can collude all they want to support these environmentally destructive fish farms but the reality is that they must be removed to give this rare and unique animal any chance of survival.”

“It has been known for decades that Macquarie Harbour is a terrible place to farm fish. There have been multiple mass fish deaths and, with ever-warming waters due to climate change, both Labor and Liberal are offering false promises of ongoing operations to the west coast community.”

“If Labor or Liberal really cared about the workers of the west coast, they would be passing a bipartisan motion calling for the fair and just transition for workers out of Macquarie Harbour and onto land. Instead, they are stepping over each other to appease the foreign multinational companies that own the salmon farms.”

“The Federal Environment Minister made a promise to the entire Australian public that there would be no new extinctions under her watch. This is a promise that she must keep and The Australian public expects that she will. If fish farms are not removed from Macquarie Harbour then it’s a certainty that her promise will be broken,” said Alistair Allan, Bob Brown Foundation’s Antarctic and Marine Campaigner.

Media release – Peter George, President, Neighbours of Fish Farming, 2 November 2023

HOW A GOVERNMENT WAS BOUGHT BY INDUSTRY

Salmon barons buy politicians lock, stock and barrel

Tasmania’s politicians have once more demonstrated they’ll sell-out the state’s natural heritage to cashed-up multinationals whenever asked to do so.

Passing a motion that would be extraordinary in any jurisdiction but Tasmania, Liberal and Labor politicians regurgitated the salmon industry’s exaggerated claims of jobs and economic contribution at the urging of lobby group, Salmon Tasmania.

The salmon industry disgracefully raises fears of jobs losses and economic hardship on the west coast, ignoring the fact that sustainable jobs can only come with sustainable industry – and current practices are anything but sustainable.

As Salmon Tasmania and its tame politicians fight a rearguard action to protect the interests and profits of the industry’s new foreign owners, they ignore the obvious: that industrial feedlots in Macquarie Harbour are destroying the very waterway they depend upon along with the Maugean skate.

Campaigners who actually care about investing in Tasmania’s future are urging government and industry to transition to land-based production – something the multinational owners won’t do because they get cheap access to public waterways which they can pollute, destroy and move on.

With few exceptions, this industry has bought Tasmania’s politicians lock, stock and barrel who go on spouting fictitious job numbers and raising fears whenever Salmon Tasmania tells them to do so.

Tasmania’s venal politics have sold out the state to billion-dollar enterprises that care nothing for the state’s natural heritage nor for its people.

Maugean Skate Captive Breeding: Yet another subsidy for the Cashed-up foreign owners of The salmon industry

The State government today gifted a new subsidy to the billion-dollar multinationals that run the salmon industry in Tasmania.

The premier has promised $2.1 million dollars towards the survival of the Maugean skate which is being driven towards extinction by those same companies’ operations.

It’s the multinationals who should be paying for the damage they have wrought on the harbour and the skate.

The Premier, Jeremy Rockliff says he’s working closely with Salmon Tasmania and the Maugean Skate Recovery Team.

Yet Salmon Tasmania’s Luke Martin has already made the industry’s arrogant attitude clear – not a single salmon will be lost to the protection of a 60-million-year-old relic of the dinosaurs.

And why spend millions to preserve an animal that has nowhere to live and breed naturally.

Unless industrial salmon feedlots are removed from Macquarie Harbour, the skate will not survive in its natural habitat at the bottom of the waterway.


Media release – Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Leader, 2 November 2023

Maugean Skate Consigned to History Under Captured Liberals, Labor

“Minister for the Environment Roger Jaensch confirmed today his government appears willing to monitor a species to extinction in the wild, rather than follow the clear scientific evidence and take genuine action to save the Maugean skate.

“The Maugean skate, now critically endangered because of salmon farming, is Tasmania’s largest endemic fish and lives only in Macquarie Harbour. The Maugean skate survives on the floor of Macquarie Harbour, waters that are now seriously compromised due to the low oxygen levels caused by excessive fish waste nitrogen.

“The science is abundantly clear on how to fix this problem, remove the salmon farming problem – not the native species from the wild.

“The Tasmanian Greens call for aquaculture in Macquarie Harbour to be removed and a local on-land industry investigated. This is the only chance to ensure the water quality in the harbour can recover and the skate can survive. The government’s proposal for a $2.4 million facility to breed skate in captivity should also be located in Strahan, co-located with on-land aquaculture infrastructure. This will contribute to local jobs and demonstrates a genuine commitment to the future of the skate.

“Minister Jaensch’s pitiful response to this environmental crisis has been an attempt to catch a few skate, put them into tanks, and hope they breed. Given the desperate situation for the skate, unless there is action to remove the key threat – salmon farming – from their wild environment, this species will be confined to a ‘skate zoo’ Tasmania will have another extinction black mark on our name.

“Financial investment in the future of the skate is welcome and needs to be spent wisely. Spending taxpayer dollars to monitor the wild population to extinction, and rely instead on establishing a zoo for the remnant population, is not conservation.”

Peter Whish-Wilson | Senator for Tasmania

“Successive federal environment ministers have watched on as salmon industry regulators and the Tasmanian Government fail spectacularly to protect and prioritise the environment, including matters of national environmental significance like the sad decline of the Maugean skate.

“If the Albanese Government is serious about its Zero Extinction pledge it must urgently review the Federal Government’s 2012 decision to permit an expansion of fish farming operations in Macquarie Harbour.

“Minister Plibersek has a critical mandate and the legal powers to compel action to protect the Maugean skate. With marine heatwaves forecast this summer the Minister must be prepared to intervene and do absolutely everything possible on behalf of the Federal Government to stop this ancient species from a preventable extinction.”