Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 21 August 2024
Prime Minister Albanese must meet with conservationists, not just big industry.
Salmon Tasmania, the lobbyists for the foreign owned salmon industry giants, have announced they are having a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra regarding the looming extinction of the Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour.
Bob Brown Foundation has written to request meetings with both PM Albanese and Tanya Plibersek, who met with Salmon Tasmania last week.
“The Prime Minister must show that he listens to science and evidence not just the snake oil sellers of vested interests. That’s why I have written to him and requested a meeting, now that we know his door is open to stakeholders regarding Macquarie Harbour,” said Alistair Allan, Antarctic and Marine Campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation.
“I am certain that the request will be granted, given that there is no way that the Labor government would ever be completely anti-science and not listen to the scientific evidence regarding the survival of the Maugean skate”.
“It would be unthinkable that both the Prime Minister and the environment minister would only meet with industry at a time when there is an open reconsideration into salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour. They owe it to Australians and the Maugean skate to listen to both sides.
“Anthony Albanese’s government made a promise of no new extinctions on their watch, and with the government’s own federal conservation advice listing fish farms as the biggest threat to the Maugean skate, I know that they will keep their word and remove this catastrophic impact and prevent the Maugean skate’s extinction.”
“I look forward to meeting both the Prime Minister and the environment minister in Canberra, to tell the story of the Maugean skate, an animal that has been on the Earth since the dinosaurs and how all Australians expect it to be protected into the future.”
