Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister of the environment, Tanya Plibersek, recently announced that she will re-examine a two-decade-old decision to grant approval for salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour in Strahan on Tasmania's rugged west coast. This is setting a very dangerous precedent. It's a one-off decision that will basically evolve into a shameless capitulation, backing environmental activists over science. More broadly, Minister Plibersek has willingly pushed open the door and turned on the green light to every activist organisation and their playbook, a playbook that has pages filled with one intent—that is, to shut down Tasmania's world's-best-practice salmon industry.

I was on the west coast on Tuesday, and I want to thank Tom and Linton from Petuna Aquaculture and Huon Aquaculture for taking me out onto the harbour and updating me on what is really happening. Let's have a look at that. These are the facts. Macquarie Harbour is Australia's second-largest harbour—six times larger than Sydney Harbour—at 315 square kilometres, with an average depth of 15 to 20 metres. Salmon farming takes up around 2.13 per cent of that 315 square kilometres. If you haven't been there and you're just gleaning your information from the green-activist handbook, you would assume that fish pens take up the whole harbour. Well, it's not the case. It's not true.

Salmon farming has one of the lowest environmental impacts of any protein production anywhere in the world. It's much less than beef production—and that's coming from me, a beef farmer. Making this decision under the guise of protecting the maugean skate has absolutely no scientific basis. At best, Minister Plibersek is kowtowing to some loose, unsubstantiated correlation. The truth is that there's absolutely no evidence of a causal link between salmon farming and the reduction in skate numbers in Macquarie Harbour. Yes, conservation of the skate must be a priority, and we must look after our environment, but this mustn't be done on a whim and as a knee-jerk reaction. The minister must give appropriate time for the conservation action plan to deliver some meaningful data that we can move forward with.

Unlike Labor, the coalition actively invests in building a stronger and more prosperous west coast because we understand the region and its people. Population doesn't necessarily equate to productivity. The west coast delivers far above its fair share of support, given the wealth it creates for the state. I call on Minister Plibersek to actually visit Macquarie Harbour and to have a look at what's really going on on the ground. She needs to stop blatantly listening to the environmental activists and back the real people on the ground—the ones with a genuine interest and desire to support the west coast and its crucial industry.