Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, what bollocks! It's just garbage. Let's wrap a bit of context around this, because it's not just about Macquarie Harbour and it's not just about the maugean skate. At the moment, Tasmania is confronting the largest mass farmed fish die-off in the state's history. I'm sure by now many honourable members would have seen photos or footage on the telly perhaps of, literally, tip-truck loads of dead fish being taken somewhere to be buried on someone's farm or at a toxic waste dump or something. What we're also seeing from video footage that has been obtained and what I'm also hearing from whistleblowers is exactly what's in these industry documents. Let me tell you something about the character of the industry. This document is noted from 2014, but it was actually in use as recently as 2018. The relevant company claims there's a newer version of this document but refuses to release it to the ABC when pushed. It's titled Mass mortality. That sounds very relevant, doesn't it? Mass mortality—as Tasmania goes through the largest mass mortality in the industry's history. It says:

In any large mortality event, as many fish as possible should be recovered for harvest and processing. Any fish—this is any dead fish that has died in a mass mortality event, which at the moment is called the Rickettsia bacteria—in which the gills can still bleed is potentially recoverable …

Gross! By the way, this document, Emergency procedure in the event of significant risk to fish health, says:

WHENEVER AFFECTED FISH ARE > 3KG, ROLLOVERS SHOULD BE BLED AND PLACED INTO ICE SLURRIES SO THAT THEY CAN BE PROCESSED IF APPROPRIATE

In other words, at the moment, in Tasmania, fish that have died from Rickettsia bacteria in this appalling fish die-off, so long as their gills are still pink, with a bit of blood in the gills, and so long as the fish aren't already rotting on a beach somewhere, are being put in an ice slurry, taken away and processed for human consumption. Even the fish that are apparently not infected by Rickettsia and are being harvested and processed are not being tested for Rickettsia. Given that it can take up to two weeks for the symptoms of Rickettsia to present themselves and given that we know as a fact that all of the farms and all of the farm sites and all of the pens now are infected with Rickettsia, you can draw no other conclusion than the fish companies in Tasmania are selling and consumers are purchasing and eating infected fish.

How on earth does that help maintain the reputation of Tasmania or the reputation of this industry? It doesn't. I make the point again—I want to labour this point—that the people that are running a protection racket for the salmon industry in Tasmania are actually going to be part of its demise. What we should be doing is coming in here and making sure we have the very best environmental safeguards possible at a federal level and pressuring the state and territory governments to make sure they have the very best environmental safeguards and that they have the very best environment protection agencies so that we can have absolute confidence we're not eating fish that died in a bacterial outbreak and looked good enough with their gills pink enough to be processed and sold at Coles or Woolies.

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