Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Duniam I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for Environment Minister Plibersek to urgently guarantee that the economic and social importance of, and the hundreds of direct and indirect jobs that depend on, Tasmania's salmon industry are not in any way negatively impacted by any decision taken by the Government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

I want to thank my Tasmanian Liberal colleague Senator Duniam for bringing this urgency motion before the Senate today, because this is an urgent situation which needs to be immediately addressed for the sake of an industry, the hundreds of jobs that it supports and the communities which would be adversely impacted by any decision made by this government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Tasmania's salmon industry is an important contributor to the state's economy and plays a significant role on the West Coast of Tasmania by stimulating economic activity and supporting local jobs. But the industry and the jobs that it supports both directly and indirectly are currently under threat from this Labor government and environmental activists. The Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, has been threatening to pause, or even shut down, that industry—an industry that provides immense economic and social contributions to Strahan, the West Coast and Tasmania as a whole.

The review into the Tasmanian salmon industry's operations in Macquarie Harbour—initiated by the environment minister and three activist groups: the Environmental Defenders Office, the Bob Brown Foundation and the Australia Institute—has created extreme uncertainty not only for those Tasmanians working directly in the salmon industry but for the West Coast community as a whole. We know that Labor and the Greens are joined at the hip, and I'm sure that we will see that on show once again this weekend at the Tasmanian state election—