Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tasmanians could be forgiven for having a moment of deja vu, given what they're seeing from the Labor government at this point in time with the threats that are being made to the salmon industry in our state, particularly the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour. We've seen it before. We saw it with Mark Latham when Dick Adams, the then member for Lyons, had the courage to say: 'New policy or new leader.' We saw it with Mr Tony Burke, the then minister for the environment, when he said to a Legislative Council committee in Tasmania, 'I don't know whether I'm going to declare this area a World Heritage site,' and walked out to a press conference and did just that. We're now seeing it with the indecision of the Minister for the Environment and Water in relation to Macquarie Harbour.

We were told yesterday by Minister Watt that the government has a process to go through, and that's correct. But what the minister can do—and what the minister should do—is reaffirm the previous decision with respect to salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour and let the industry get on with saving the Maugean skate and continue to run itself sustainably in Tasmania, allowing that industry to continue to make a contribution to the local economy. It is not acceptable that threats are made effectively pre-empting the decision that the minister has to make, which is not within the provisions of the EPBC Act—that we might pause the industry. The pre-emption is in fact outrageous. The minister should get on with the job and stop doing what Mayor Shane Pitt said she is doing:

Minister Plibersek is playing political games with the lives of people in our community, and it's a bloody disgrace.

She should get on and make the right decision.