Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens' business model is one of division and fear. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is; they will find something to create fear about. Senator Polley quite rightly talked about fearmongering. That's exactly what we have from the Australian Greens when it comes to this serious issue.

I was delighted to hear Senator Polley's sparkling repartee about the salmon industry in Tasmania. This party that used to be the friend of the worker is no longer, because it is this party that is hanging the axe over the heads of 400-plus workers on the West Coast of Tasmania and preparing to drive a stake through the heart of the community of Strahan. It's a disgrace. They come and stand here and say, 'Oh, we support workers and we're improving the cost of living.' Not in Strahan, they're not, when they're going to take away the jobs of hundreds of workers, shut the school down and rip the guts out of the community.

Part of Senator Polley's defence of this insipid government was the fact that, by law, the government is required to act on requests for review of permits. This permit, I might add, was put in place under the last Labor government, by environment minister Tony Burke, in 2012. Apparently he got it wrong, can I tell you, so now they're reviewing it. The people and entities that made the request are what was missing from Senator Polley's defence of this insipid government's approach. The fact is that the application for review was put in place by the Australia Institute, which we know is an entity very, very closely aligned to the Australian Labor Party; by the Bob Brown Foundation, an entity closely aligned to the Australian Greens—we should know that by its very name—and of course the Environmental Defenders Office. Who funds the Environmental Defenders Office? It's the Labor government. So they're paying an organisation to lodge applications to unpick permits for industries that support hundreds if not thousands of jobs. Yet they can't make a decision on this.

The Premier of Tasmania, quite rightly, along with the Leader of the Labor Party in Tasmania, has asked for certainty for the industry. Those requests have fallen on deaf ears. The minister refuses to act because of exactly what Senator Polley said. I think it bells the cat on exactly where we're headed. This government are preparing to shut the sustainable, science based salmon industry on the West Coast of Tasmania, and they don't want to do it before the Tasmanian election this Saturday.

I will be interested to see how the Australian Labor Party vote on this urgency motion today, including my very good, outstanding Tasmanian Labor Senate colleagues. I'll be very interested to see where they go, particularly when you consider the remarks of respected individuals of the Tasmanian community, including Kade Wakefield, the assistant national secretary of the AWU, who made a good point about the decision that Ms Plibersek, the Minister for the Environment and Water, has before her. He said:

The government has been dragging its heels on this review …

I might add that we, and all Tasmanians who actually care about the workers on the West Coast, did ask for this review to be completed by the end of March—fail. We're getting there, and there will be no decision.

The government has been dragging its heels on this review but at the end of the day Tanya Plibersek will have to decide what she thinks is more important: the livelihoods of blue collar regional Tasmanian families or the overblown concerns of inner-city activists about a fish they've decided to make famous.

That is one of their crew, a union representative, asking this Labor government to do what they claim to do—that is, to stand up for workers—but they're not doing it; there's silence. They are working through a process which was activated because of a taxpayer funded organisation by this Labor government, the EDO—those around the countryside destroying jobs. There are people who cheer this on. I hope everyone knows in Tasmania exactly who is standing up for this industry and these workers.

It's not just union officials. It's not just the Tasmanian Premier. It's not just the Tasmanian Liberal Senate team. It's also people like the Mayor of the West Coast Council, Shane Pitt, who said:

I urge Minister Plibersek and the Prime Minister …

The Prime Minister who, of course, flew into Hobart, couldn't get out of Hobart, didn't go and see the workers on the West Coast.

… to think about the people here on the West Coast. It's cruel to let the kids and the families start the school year with this hanging over their heads.

The mayor's right. The government don't care. They're not going to do a thing to support the workers of the West Coast in the salmon industry. You know what? Today it's the West Coast. Mark my words, if this industry fails on the west, it'll be the rest of Tasmania. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.