Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to amplify the concerns of Kooyong constituents about the government's failure to protect our marine environment and endangered species. Yesterday, in the most cynical of ploys, the government slammed through an outrageously bad piece of legislation to protect the Tasmanian salmon farming industry. The industry is an animal welfare nightmare, but it has been given a personal carve-out by the Prime Minister. The only transparency here is the PM's transparent attempt to save Labor seats in Tasmania.

We've known for years about the environmental damage and the animal welfare breaches of the Tasmanian salmon industry. Salmon farms cause harmful algal blooms, which suffocate fish. Antibiotics and other chemicals leach into the surrounding waters and harm other aquatic species. On multiple occasions, including one this year, overstocking or bacterial infections in salmon farms in the Macquarie Harbour have caused the deaths of millions of fish. Tasmanians haven't been able to swim at local beaches without bumping into stinking, rotten fish carcasses and blobs of fish oil. It's disgusting. No salmon company meets RSPCA standards.

Tasmanian waters are home to several critically endangered species including the maugean skate, which has only one home in the wild. That ancient species has outlasted the dinosaurs, but it's not going to outlast Anthony Albanese. Three foreign owned businesses control the Tasmanian salmon industry. The entire industry makes up less than one per cent of Tasmanian jobs; seven in 10 Tasmanians want it gone. The minister for the environment promised zero extinctions under this government. She has been sidelined by a prime minister hell-bent on shoring up his electoral chances in a marginal electorate—a prime minister who has already shelved the EPA and EPBC overhauls to placate the resources sector and the Labor state government in WA. The Labor government has been backed up on this shameful legislation by an opposition which has indicated that it will utterly dismantle environmental protections if it's elected. There's something terribly wrong with our major parties and their increasing blatancy in demonstrating that any lip-service that they pay to environmental protections or climate action is based only on their political calculations.

In 2022, the people of Kooyong voted for climate and for the environment. In 2025, they are seeing that our only hope for effective action on the environment and on climate is through a parliament in which the major parties have to answer to communities like ours on the issues which matter to us.