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

It's not easy to see underneath the waters of Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they're stained by the tannins that flow into Macquarie Harbour. In the main, those tannins come from the beautiful button grass plains inside the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Tannin stained waters are a feature of many freshwater ecosystems in the west and the south-west of Tasmania and also many coastal and estuarine ecosystems in those areas, including Macquarie Harbour and Bathurst Harbour. The other reason it's pretty hard to see when you get underwater in Macquarie Harbour is the effect that salmon farming has on the marine environment. We see this effect right around Tasmania where industrial salmon farming is in operation.

I know very well the effect in a stretch of water that I grew up on, the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, between the mainland of Tasmania and Bruny Island in south-eastern Tasmania. I've dived in those waters repeatedly, and I've watched as marine ecosystems in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel have been absolutely devastated by industrial salmon farms. What were thriving marine ecosystems have turned into aquatic wastelands.

In Macquarie Harbour, if you could see well enough in those tannin stained waters and you could dive in the right places, you would find the maugean skate. That is a Gondwanan species of skate closely related to species of skate that are found only in New Zealand and South America. The maugean skate is now only found in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania. It used to be in Bathurst Harbour. We believe that that population is now extinct. The one remaining place where this skate can be found is Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, and the population of adult skates, according to the latest scientific estimates, could be as low as 40 or as high as 120. There are likely to be fewer than 100 adult skates left anywhere on the planet.

The federal environment department has advised the minister to remove fish farms, those toxic industrial salmon farms owned by multinational salmon farming corporations, from Macquarie Harbour. The environment department has advised the minister to do that because those massive, polluting, toxic salmon farms are savagely depleting the oxygen levels in Macquarie Harbour, and that is the main threatening process driving the maugean skate into extinction.

What would you expect a so-called environment minister in Australia to do if the environment department advised them that, in order to save a species from extinction, industrial salmon farms should be removed from Macquarie Harbour? I think any reasonable Australian would say, 'I expect the environment minister to protect our environment; I expect the environment minister to remove those salmon farms and give the maugean skate'—which has survived, by the way, through countless millennia—'a fighting chance of survival.'

But what does Labor do? Are they going to do what's right for the environment, or are they going to do what's right for the profits of foreign salmon farming corporations? You don't really have to ask yourself the question, folks, do you? We all know the answer. When it comes to a choice between, on one hand, giving an ancient species which is being driven into extinction a fighting chance of survival, and, on the other hand, backing in the profits of multinational corporations, Labor, of course, is going to side with the bottom lines of foreign salmon farming corporations. In doing so, they're going to death ride the maugean skate into extinction. That is the choice that Labor has. Faced with that choice, Labor is effectively kicking the can down the road, and Labor is hoping to get through to the next election by just kicking the can down the road. The problem with Labor's approach is the maugean skate quite possibly does not have until after the next election. Any delay in getting salmon farms out of Macquarie Harbour—remember the advice that the environment department has given to the environment minister—is just hammering further nails into the extinction coffin of this Gondwanan species.

The toxic corporate salmon-farming industry in Tasmania is not just driving the maugean skate into extinction in Macquarie Harbour. It has planned a massive expansion of toxic salmon farms right around the Tasmanian coastline, and, in doing so, it is riding roughshod not just over the marine environment but over community after community after community that does not want to see a massive expansion of toxic industrial salmon farms that are polluting Tasmania's waterways, disfiguring our beautiful coastline and poisoning marine ecosystems. They do not want to see a massive expansion of toxic industrial fish farms that are privatising public waters in Tasmania. They do not want to see a massive expansion of corporate, industrial salmon farms in Tasmania, in part because none of those big, foreign corporations that own these salmon farms have paid any tax in the last five years.

Let's be clear about this, Labor and Liberal governments at state and federal levels have written a blank cheque for these foreign multinational salmon-farming corporations and have effectively said to them: 'You pay no tax. That's fine by us. You poison our waterways. That's fine by us. You privatise our waterways. That that's fine by us. You send an ancient species of fish into extinction. That's fine by us. You disfigure our beautiful coastlines. That's fine by us.' The Labor and Liberal parties might say that's fine by them, and they are saying that's fine by them, but the Greens are here to say that is not fine by us. We will stand with local communities right around Tasmania who are fighting against the massive expansion of industrial, toxic salmon farms right around Tasmania that the Labor and Liberal parties back. We will stand for the maugean skate. We will fight to protect our marine ecosystems from being polluted and poisoned. We will fight against the privatisation of coastal waterways. We are shoulder to shoulder with community after community after community.

I've recently been to two really special, massive displays of opposition to the planned expansion of salmon farming—and there are more to come, mark my words. The Labor and Liberal parties ignore this at their peril. I say to the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Ms Collins, whose beautiful electorate of Franklin I used to represent in the Tasmanian parliament and whose beautiful electorate of Franklin has a massive stretch of coastline that either is already being poisoned by industrial salmon farming or is under threat of massive expansion of industrial salmon farming—I say to Ms Collins: I challenge you to a debate. She is not only overseeing the logging of the swift parrot into extinction as federal forestry minister but overseeing the salmon farming of the maugean skate into extinction. She is backing in, against the wishes of the Franklin electorate, a massive expansion of fish farms right around not just the coastline of Franklin but the coastlines of Lyons, Bass and Braddon. That's not to mention that the hatcheries upstream in the catchment are impacting on drinking water quality in the city of Nipaluna/Hobart, which is, of course, the electorate of Clark.

So all five Tasmanian electorates are facing massive negative impacts driven by the toxic corporate salmon farming sector, and Ms Collins is overseeing this. So I say to Ms Collins: I'll challenge you to a debate anytime, anywhere. You name the place and the time before the upcoming election, and the Greens will be there. Ms Collins needs to be held to account, not just for backing in the forest industry—the mendicant, carbon-bomb-releasing forest industry that is destroying threatened species' habitat and logging the beautiful swift parrot into extinction—but for her support for a toxic salmon farming industry that is driving the maugean skate into extinction in Macquarie Harbour, and she is backing in massive expansions of fish farms right around the Tasmanian coastline.

These multinational salmon farming corporations have been getting away with it for far too long. They've been getting away with not paying tax. They've been getting away with polluting our waterways. They've been getting away with poisoning marine ecosystems. They've been getting away with privatising large stretches of the Tasmanian coastline. They've been getting away with driving the maugean skate into extinction. But enough is enough.

The Greens are here to say enough is enough. We are here to fight against those foreign salmon farming corporations. We are here to fight with local communities who are fighting to protect their stretch of coastline from privatisation and fighting to protect their marine ecosystems from being polluted and poisoned. I say to people who don't want to see this mass expansion of toxic industrial salmon farms in Tasmanian waters: change is possible. Your votes are powerful. We can stop this, but you cannot keep voting for the two major parties and expect things to change. You have to vote to stop this massive expansion of toxic salmon farms. You have to vote to save the maugean skate from extinction. Vote for the Greens to do those things. Change is absolutely possible, but change has to be voted for. If people want change, they should vote for a party that is here to deliver change. Put the Greens into the balance of power, and we will do everything we can to fight to protect Tasmanian waters from toxic industrial salmon farms and to save the maugean skate. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Kovacic be agreed to.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am now putting the motion. The question is that the motion be agreed to.