Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, from rock lobsters to salmon! As the holiday season looms before us, can I just say this to all in the chamber and to the many millions of viewers who are no doubt watching this broadcast: buy Tasmanian salmon for Christmas!

Buy Tasmanian salmon as a gift—appropriately packed and chilled of course. Buy it for breakfast, buy it for lunch, buy it for dinner and then buy it again for Boxing Day, because—smoked or pan fried, barbecued or raw—you will not buy better than Tasmanian salmon.

It is important that Australians show their support for Tasmanian salmon farming, because this fantastic industry was done a great disservice three weeks ago by Four Corners on the ABC. I am a fan of Four Corners; it is a bedrock of journalism in this country. But it is not infallible. The program that went to air has been described as a hatchet job on Tasmania's $700 million aquaculture industry, and I cannot help but agree. In the weeks since the program aired I have spoken with people in my electorate who were interviewed but whose comments were either not put to air or put to air in such a truncated fashion that these people felt they had been taken out of context. The mayor of the Tasman Peninsula, Roseanne Heyward, was interviewed for some time about a salmon farming operation off Nubeena in her municipality, an operation that enjoys broad community support and meets environmental guidelines, but her comments were left on the cutting room floor.

I have no issue with Four Corners exploring issues of community concern related to salmon farming, such as claims of deoxygenation in Macquarie Harbour, or of cases of overstocking. It is the role of a good current affairs program to explore such issues, to get to the bottom of them and to air solutions. But when facts are presented that provide a counterview, when issues are hyped and dramatised to suggest there is a crisis and when there are simply concerns that require considered management then those things need to be called out.

Has there been deoxygenation in Macquarie Harbour? Yes. But it is being managed, and one of the outcomes is the industry's desire to seek alternative sites for the sector's growth, such as in Okehampton Bay, in my electorate. The site being considered at Okehampton Bay has a fishing lease in place. This is not a case of a fish farm moving into a so-called pristine environment. More data is now being collected to ensure what is being proposed can be appropriately managed. Other growers are looking at operations in deeper waters; others still suggest land based fish farming. All are worthy of consideration, subject to environmental and financial constraints and capacities. I should add that I have received an assurance there will be no salmon farming leases sought in Mercury Passage.

The Tasmanian salmonid industry is regulated by more than 70 Commonwealth and state acts and more than 670 separate regulatory or subordinate obligations. It is an incredibly well regulated industry. The keys are to ensure environmental impacts are managed and to deal swiftly with concerns as they arise, and I have every confidence that that is what is occurring. I should note that all salmon farming occurs in state waters. There is no farming in Commonwealth waters. Nevertheless, I am proud to stand here and support a value-adding industry that provides secure, permanent employment in regional communities.

We are said to live in a post-truth world, where facts and figures play second fiddle to decisions based on feelings and prejudices. It is important that today we confront what appears to be a campaign to demonise salmon farming in Tasmania. Tasmanian forestry communities know only too well what happens when good, decent industries that employ thousands of people are allowed to be demonised. We saw what happened to towns like Triabunna and New Norfolk when overseas customers stopped buying our wood products. So I would say: buy as much salmon as you can and support the Tasmanian salmon industry.

On another related topic, I would like briefly to discuss the departure of the Geelong Star freezer factory trawler from Australian waters. Good riddance to bad rubbish! Its departure presciently preceded by just hours the release of a Senate inquiry report into freezer factory trawler operations, the recommendations of which were clear: these vessels should be banned from Australia. I would like to applaud the efforts of the Tasmanian Labor senators Anne Urquhart and Carol Brown for their part in delivering some pretty robust recommendations, but I am deeply disappointed in the efforts of two other Tasmanians, the Liberal senators Jonathon Duniam and David Bushby, who issued a dissenting report.