Jacqui Lambie and Rosalie Woodruff weigh in on Macquarie Harbour salmon farms

The Advocate

Jacqui Lambie and Greens Leader Rosalie Woodruff weigh in on the future of Macquarie Harbour salmon farming.

Transcript

00:00 Your comments, Jackie Lambie, about salmon farming have clearly angered the West Coast.

00:05 Mayor, do you believe salmon farming can have a future in Macquarie Harbour and if so, what

00:09 needs to change? Yeah, there's certainly a future for salmon farming in Tasmania but when you go

00:15 from a thousand tonnes in 2004 and we're now looking at 20,000 tonnes sitting down there in

00:21 Macquarie Harbour in 2015 and I'm not sure what it is today, I think we're a little bit overstocking

00:26 and we're putting Brant, Tasmania at risk. That is my problem. Okay, we can do this and we can do it

00:32 well but this has all happened, this is why the benders and that left. They could see what was

00:37 going on, they've sold out to the internationals knowing very well, yeah we've made more than enough

00:41 out of this, we're backing off, we're leaving. Okay, and all we've done is seen those numbers

00:47 go up. That is, it's not sustainable the way it is and I'll tell you this, if the Mayor of the

00:53 North West Coast has had a problem, maybe he should have picked up the phone and either rang me

00:57 directly or B) contacted my office, which he did not. So I have to ask, how much of a problem does

01:03 he actually believe he has or he just wants to throw his thing out there? Right now, if I was him,

01:08 I'd be going after those royalties that they get from there, which he's always bitching about to me.

01:12 $80 million they got from royalties in Tasmania last year, okay, and they get less than $2 million

01:18 of that down the West Coast. So, you want to talk about people and your people down

01:23 there, how about you go in for some more royalties so you can give them more, so you can actually

01:27 help them out more economically down there. That's what I'll be doing. Thank you. Rosalie Woodruff on

01:33 salmon. The Greens have been strong critics of the industry and its practices. Now, there have

01:39 been suggestions they could work better potentially environmentally in further offshore, more dynamic

01:46 waters. That would obviously preclude Macquarie Hover, however, or even an industry to be developed

01:52 on land. Can you see yourselves supporting either of those possibilities? The Greens have never been

01:59 a strong critic of the salmon industry. We've been a strong critic of the government's failure to

02:04 regulate the salmon industry to protect the community and to protect the marine environment.

02:09 And so, here we are in a situation, as Jackie said, where in 2004, salmon was being sustainably

02:15 farmed in Macquarie Hover, no problems, and it was like that for a very long time. And then it went

02:20 up and up and up, and it was 3,000 or 4,000 tonnes a year back then, and then it went up to 21,000

02:27 tonnes a year with tassel and human in there. And that was like five years ago, and since then,

02:34 we've been monitoring it year on year from our IMS scientists, and that ancient species is about

02:41 to go extinct. And so, that's the situation we're in, and that's a failure of the government,

02:46 the Liberals. It's a mess under the Liberals. And so, we don't have a problem with the salmon

02:52 industry. We don't have a problem with any farmer, but it's the fact that they're not being regulated

02:56 to protect the environment. And so, we are really concerned about that going into the northwest

03:01 area. Absolutely, that would be a shocking situation, given the beautiful fishing industries,

03:08 given the beautiful nature up there, the marine environment. So, we want the industry to be

03:13 properly regulated. Does that mean then that on-landing is the future for it? Well, on-landing

03:20 is the future in other countries. That's where they're heading, and that's our policy to

03:25 transition there. Obviously, that's not going to happen straight away. Obviously, there's got to

03:29 be a time, but we think that the Liberals and the Labor Party are throwing regional communities

03:35 under the bus because they're not seeing the writing on the wall with these industries.

03:39 They're not sustainable. And so, there should be a plan to help the West Coast to get a job

03:47 industry when the salmon industry falls over in Macquarie Harbour. It's just not the place to

03:54 farm salmon, and it's also regional Tasmania are not the place to clear, fell, and burn native

04:01 forests, but it is the place to have plantation hardwoods and to support regional communities

04:06 to gear up, to tool up, and to go into that area. Depending, Rosalie Woodruff, on which level of

04:14 government is responsible for the decision, if there is a government decision that was, for

04:18 instance, to force salmon farming out of Macquarie Harbour, would it then be incumbent on that same

04:24 level of government? Because there's got to be an element of sovereign risk in there. To help

04:31 fund that industry, well, perhaps on landing or some other alternative for them.

04:36 Look, here we are talking about JBS. This is the world's largest protein producer. They are a

04:43 multi, multi, multi, multi-billion dollar industry. You know, I think these industries have a

04:49 responsibility when they're working with workers to actually support those workers into areas which

04:57 are sustainable. They're just choosing the cheapest way because we are not putting the standards in

05:02 place. Other countries, those industries are working in other countries, and they're working

05:07 to higher standards. So we've got to stop being afraid of actually putting the same standards.

05:12 We've got to value Tasmania, value what we've got. And we should do that because other countries

05:18 value what they've got. So all we're saying is, why don't we lift our level of pride in ourselves

05:23 and understand we've got something so special. We can just increase our environmental regulations

05:29 like other countries do. Not more, actually be world's best practice.

05:33 Yeah, I think what people need to know, it's not about profits. It's not about

05:36 internationals coming down here and profiting off us, you know, if we lose that brand Tasmania.

05:43 We're not, I'm not certainly, we're not certainly telling them to go and shut down the seven farms.

05:46 What I'm having, what I'm asking them to do is to make sure it's regulated properly and have a

05:50 look at the numbers, the stock that you are using, because quite frankly, we are going to come unstuck with it.

05:55 you

05:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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