Media release – Tasmanian Conservation Trust, Bob Brown Foundation, Neighbours of Fish Farming, Tasman Peninsula Marine Protection, Killora Association (Bruny Island), Marine Protection Tasmania, Surfrider Foundation Tasmania, 19 January 2023
Demand for meeting as salmon submissions close
Environment and community groups opposing industry and government plans to expand the salmon industry around Tasmania’s coast will meet outside the Premier’s office at 11am on Thursday, January 19, 2023.
They will seek a face-to-face meeting with Jeremy Rockliff to convey the widespread concern of Tasmanians about the expansion and the lack of any serious community consultation.
The groups will ask for the same consideration that Mr Rockliff gave salmon industry executives at the end of last year when he hosted a private Liberal Party fundraiser at which the executives each paid at least $4,500 for the right to personally address him.
This Friday, January 20, marks the closing day for submissions to the government’s draft ten-year salmon plan to double the size of the salmon industry.
The deadline has been imposed despite undertakings by the Environment Minister Roger Jaensch who promised community representatives that the period for submissions would not be held or concluded during the holiday period – traditionally the time when government’s try to bury unpopular policy announcements.
The government’s refusal to heed the concern of hundreds of submissions to last year’s draft salmon industry expansion plan led to the groups below boycotting the next round of submissions that close on Friday (Jan 20, 2023).
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 19 January 2023
Community and environmental groups boycott sham Tasmanian salmon expansion plan
The salmon industry expansion plan, as put forward by the Tasmanian government, is an empty document that ignores the plethora of submissions and concerns that community and environmental groups hold.
“The immense environmental damage and destruction caused by industrial salmon farms in Tasmania, is being wilfully permitted to continue by Premier Rockliff,” said Alistair Allan, Fish Farm campaigner at the Bob Brown Foundation.
In a combined show of displeasure, multiple environmental groups and concerned communities will no longer take part in what has become an endless tactic by the government to bog down citizens, community groups, and non-government organisations in an endless box-ticking exercise, in which concerns and suggestions fall on deaf ears.
“We all attended the government’s presentation of their industry growth plan, previously titled a 10-year salmon plan, and no matter what question or concern was raised, we were told if we would like to see it implemented then please make a submission to the plan. However, every question raised was commented on in submissions time and time again PRIOR to the release of the 10-year plan,” Alistair Allan said.
“It is like talking to a brick wall, and we have had enough. There is no point of spending countless hours writing detailed submissions when not even one small thing that we raise is addressed,” Alistair Allan said.
“It’s very clear that communities all around Tasmania, have had enough of these industrial salmon companies ruining our beautiful rivers, bays, and oceans. We will no longer be making submissions. Instead, we demand that Premier Rockliff meets with environmental and community groups to hear the concerns of his constituents,” Alistair Allan said.
