Anthony Albanese plans to rush through contentious legislation next week to protect Tasmania’s salmon industry from a legal challenge over the industry’s impact on an endangered fish species.
The future of the salmon industry on the state’s west coast has become a sharp political issue centred on whether it can coexist with the Maugean skate, a ray-like species found only in Macquarie Harbour’s brackish estuarine waters.
After lobbying by industry leaders and Tasmanian MPs, Albanese wrote to the state’s three salmon companies last month promising that the government would change the law to ensure there were “appropriate environmental laws” to “continue sustainable salmon farming” in the harbour.
He had expected that would be a commitment for the next term of parliament. But with the election campaign delayed by Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the prime minister plans to introduce a bill on Tuesday that could abruptly end a long-running legal review by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of the industry in the harbour in 2012 was properly approved.
The bill – an amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – has been listed to be introduced in the lower house next Tuesday, 25 March, when parliament will largely be focused on the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, delivering the federal budget. It is expected in the Senate the following day.
With the Greens and several crossbench senators opposed, it will need the support of the Coalition to pass. Peter Dutton has previously told the industry he would guarantee its future and legislate if elected prime minister.
It is understood the legislation will be broader than the salmon industry and will be intended to limit conservation groups’ powers to challenge past decisions that have allowed developments to go ahead.
A spokesperson for Albanese said the government would legislate next week “to amend the flawed EPBC Act to secure jobs and local industries … We call on the Coalition to give this legislation bipartisan support to give communities certainty.”
The proposal has been criticised by environment organisations. Eight conservation councils led by Environment Tasmania wrote to Albanese last month saying they had “grave concern” about his pledge. They said it would undermine Plibersek’s reconsideration of whether a salmon industry expansion 13 years ago should have been allowed without a full federal environmental assessment. The reconsideration process was triggered in 2023 by a legal request by three conservation groups.
An environment department document from November 2023, released under freedom of information laws, showed officials considered it was “likely” the reconsideration process would lead to the expansion being declared a “controlled action”, a step that would require a full environmental impact assessment. The officials suggested salmon farming in the harbour, a third of which lies in Tasmania’s world heritage wilderness area, would need to stop while that assessment took place.
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The Australia Institute’s Eloise Carr said the government appeared to be stopping that legal process by “smashing through” legislation while parliamentarians were focused on the budget. “This is not how law reform should happen,” she said. “The situation in Macquarie Harbour … is a perfect example of why Australia needs stronger environment laws, not to water down already inadequate protections.”
The Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young said she was “staggered” the government had adopted and planned to “ram through” through Liberal party policy and legislation.
“This shows Labor cannot be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to the environment,” she said. “Gutting environmental laws, stopping community from being able to raise concerns about what’s going on in their local environment, and ignoring the scientific advice is absolutely shameful.”
A government scientific committee last year found that fish farming in the harbour had substantially reduced dissolved oxygen levels and should be scaled back or removed to save the Maugean skate – a species that marine scientists have called the “thylacine of the sea” – from extinction.
In his letter to salmon bosses last month, Albanese referred to a new report by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies that said surveys suggested skate numbers, which crashed last decade, were likely to have recovered to 2014 levels. The report stressed the need for continued monitoring.
The salmon industry has been under pressure across the state as more than a million fish have died during an bacterium outbreak in the south-east and been dumped at landfill and rendering plants. Fatty chunks of fish have washed up on beaches in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island, prompting public protests.
Both major parties believe the salmon industry may be a crucial election issue in the seat of Braddon, in Tasmania’s north-west, which the Liberal party holds with an 8% margin.
Bob Brown, a former Greens leader, said Albanese would be legislating a “death warrant” on the Maugean skate. “Albanese cannot expect thoughtful Tasmanians to vote or preference Labor if he condemns our natural wildlife on the altar of the foreign corporations who run the rotten Atlantic salmon industry,” he said.
The chief executive of the industry group Salmon Tasmania, Luke Martin, said he had not yet been briefed on the legislation but hoped the issue would be resolved next week.
