Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We hear a lot about unity tickets in this place—unity tickets between the Australian Labor Party and the LNP opposition. I'll tell you what the only unity ticket running today is: the unity ticket to drive the maugean skate into extinction. That is the unity ticket that this chamber is hearing about today. The toxic salmon-farming industry in Tasmania has wreaked havoc on our natural environment in the Macquarie Harbour, in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and in multiple other coastlines and waterways in Tasmania. It has poisoned our waterways. It has slaughtered native marine life. It has tarnished Tasmania's brand, and it is driving the maugean skate to extinction.

But according to the Labor and Liberal parties this is all terrific stuff. This is all terrific stuff according to Senator Duniam and Senator Polley, because they're going to rock down to Macquarie Harbour, put on a safety helmet and a hi-vis vest and pretend to be standing up for workers. But what do they do when this industry, which is owned by massive multinational corporations, engages in automation and lays workers off? Absolutely nothing. Their mouths are closed. There is absolute silence from these so-called friends of the workers.

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has promised no extinctions on her watch—zero extinctions. What she's relying on, as she signs off on the logging of swift parrot habitat—driving into extinction the swifties, the fastest parrot on the planet—and as she drives the maugean skate into extinction by allowing the toxic salmon industry to keep poisoning Macquarie Harbour, is the fact that we will put a few maugean skates into some aquariums somewhere and hope they survive and put a couple of breeding pairs of swifties into an aviary somewhere and hope they survive. That is Environment Minister Plibersek's version of no extinctions. She is happy to drive these amazing, complicated, so-special creatures into extinction in the wild, because she is a lackey to the corporate interests, whether it be the native forest logging sector in Tasmania or the toxic fish farming corporates.