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

The Greens welcome this legislation, will be supporting it and regard it as a significant step forward. I want to acknowledge Australia's environment movement and many of the groups that make up Australia's environment movement, who have worked so hard to keep the pressure on the government to make this happen and to promote amendments to this legislation, which, I understand, will pass. I also want to take a brief moment to acknowledge the work of my friend and colleague Senator Whish-Wilson. I acknowledge him not only for his massive and longstanding advocacy for, and love of, oceans and the species and ecosystems that make up the world's oceans, but also for the work he's done to improve this legislation.

I want to reflect on the impact of overfishing in international waters, which is something the Greens hope this legislation will do something about. Our international waters have been rampantly plundered in the name of profit and in the name of international geopolitics, and it is marine ecosystems and marine species that are paying the price. In particular, in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, it is the krill fishery that is paying the price.

Krill are the foundation of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. They are the feedstock for the great whales—the fin whale, the humpback whale, the minke whale and others—who rely on krill for their very survival. Those whales, and the other whales, which were hunted in the name of profit—in many cases to the brink of extinction—need krill to rebuild their populations to what they were before people hunted them and so cruelled the numbers and populations of those species. Krill are the foundation for those species, as they are for penguins and for a whole range of other species—indeed, the entire Antarctic marine ecosystem.

There is nothing sustainable about krill fishing. The amount of krill being caught is on the rise. It's on the rise because companies like Swisse, a well-known and, dare I suggest, much-loved vitamin and health supplement company—much-loved in Australia, at least—are using krill oil as one of the key components of a number of their products. Now, the supplier to Swisse, Aker BioMarine, has, since 2021, not just killed six humpback whales as a by-product of its operations; it is actually responsible for 70 per cent of all the krill caught in Antarctica—70 per cent. So, I say to Swisse and to all of Aker BioMarine's other downstream customers: it is time to end your association with this destructive practice that is causing so much fundamental harm to this complex, magnificent, marine Antarctic ecosystem. It is time to end krill fishing in Antarctica. Do it for the whales. Do it for the penguins. Do it for the krill. Do it for the whole myriad, complex web of creatures and beings that rely on krill for their very survival.

That's one reason krill is being caught. The other reason krill is being caught is the same reason that the Tasmanian government wants to exploit a massive new population of sardines that has recently been discovered near Tasmania, and that is for the destructive, poisonous, toxic, salmon industry in my home state of Tasmania. This toxic industry has resulted in the Maugean skate—which had survived quite nicely, thank you very much, in Macquarie Harbour for countless millennia—being on the very brink of extinction. That's because of this toxic industry. And now the Tasmanian government wants to, no doubt, overfish a massive new sardine population, to use as feed for the salmon-farming corporations that operate in Tasmania. Of course, another component of the feed that is used by the salmon-farming corporations that operate in Tasmania is Antarctic krill. So, again, we see the problem here: corporate profits driving species to extinction; corporate profits destroying marine ecosystems; corporate profits driving the overfishing of numerous species, including krill, in Antarctica.

The Antarctic animals that we know and we love—the whales, the seals, the penguins, the seabirds—all rely on krill to survive. It is the absolute foundation of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. Yet it is being exploited for profit; it is being exploited as a health supplement—needlessly, because there are other opportunities and sources available that would deliver the same benefits as krill oil—and it is being exploited as a feedstock for foreign salmon-farming corporations in places like Tasmania.

I want to point out to Swisse that one of the biggest wellness retailers in the world, Holland & Barrett, has just committed to ending the sale of all krill-oil products in its stores. At the UN Ocean Conference, over 75 world-renowned scientists, celebrities and conservation groups joined the call to end krill fishing. Swisse is a registered B Corp, and it markets itself as sustainable. But I say to Swisse: there is nothing sustainable about the use of krill oil in your products. Stop using krill oil, or stop calling yourself 'sustainable'. That is the choice that Swisse has, because it can't have it both ways. It can't continue to brand itself as sustainable while propping up a fishery in Antarctic waters, fishing the crucial foundation of that entire, beautiful, incredible, complex, marine ecosystem. The whales, the seals, the seabirds, the penguins and the myriad of other species rely on krill for their survival.

Swisse has an obligation as a registered B Corp to stop using krill oil and become an Antarctic protector rather than what it is currently doing, which is to act as an Antarctic destroyer and undermine the very foundation of the marine ecosystems in our southern oceans and in Antarctic waters. We need to end krill fishing in Antarctica entirely. The Australian government needs to take a leadership role. Corporations like Swisse need to take a leadership role and the salmon-farming corporations in Tasmania—those toxic corporations that poison our waterways, that pollute our coastlines and that drive species like the Maugean skate into extinction—need to stop using krill oil in their feed.