The anger I have witnessed over the past few days within the environment and climate movement has been extraordinary.
I have spent the past four days in emergency meetings with leaders across the environment movement furiously responding to Anthony Albanese’s latest attack on nature.
The government’s carve-out for the salmon industry means the environment is more poorly protected at the end of its three-year term than it was at the start of it.
In case you missed it, the government has introduced amendments to the national nature protection law that sideline the environment minister and effectively terminate a review of the impact foreign-owned salmon farming companies are having on the endangered Maugean skate and the adjacent world heritage area on Tasmania’s west coast.
The prime minister came to government in 2022 promising to strengthen Australia’s failing nature laws. But nearing the end this term, this move to push through a bill to weaken those very laws has damaged Labor’s environmental credentials.
The Coalition is expected to support the amendments.
Peter Dutton’s comments in the past week show he is in favour of overriding established protections and processes on behalf of other destructive and polluting industries.
You may not have heard of the Maugean skate before and you might be wondering why this species has suddenly become the poster child for Australia’s broken nature laws.
The skate is a flat-bodied ancient ray – a bit like a stingray – that grows to about a ruler-and-a-half in length from its pointy snout to the tip of its tail. It is found only in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania.
It may soon join the sorry list of extinct Australian species.
Pollution, including from salmon farming, can lead to conditions that choke the skates to death.
In the 2019 storms, the harbour was basically flipped upside down, with oxygen-depleted bottom waters pushed up the water column, suffocating nearly half the skate population in shallower waters. This could happen again.
Scientists agree Maugean skate numbers remain perilously low and the imminent extinction risk remains unchanged, as does the threat of salmon farming to the species.
The federal government acknowledges all of this. Its own conservation advice for the Maugean skate describes the pollution created by salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour as being “catastrophic” for the endangered fish.
Tuesday night’s budget allocated $3m for a captive breeding program for the Maugean skate. And the federal government has earmarked millions of dollars to oxygenate Macquarie Harbour.
In other words, public money is being used to breed an “insurance” population of the endangered fish and clean up the salmon industry’s putrid mess.
Surely the more economical – not to mention ethical – approach would be to protect the skate’s natural habitat and compensate and support the career transitions of local salmon workers?
But here we are. The Maugean skate survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 66m years ago. Now it could be snuffed out by a reckless pre-election promise from the Albanese government.
Earlier this month the prime minister publicly expressed his outrage when a so-called “hunting influencer” visiting Australia from the US filmed herself for social media wrenching a wombat joey away from its mother.
Yet now, Albanese appears willing to put the future of an entire unique Australian species at risk at the behest of one industry. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
But the impact of these legislative changes extends far beyond that.
They could encourage big polluters to seek other industry-specific carve-outs – creating open season on nature. They will make it harder for communities to challenge destructive coal, gas and deforestation projects too.
This is bad law-making and bad process – rushed through in the shadow of an election.
It’s a middle finger to every one of us who has raised their voice for strong nature laws that would stop the destruction of Australia’s precious forests, oceans and wildlife.
The Albanese government has fumbled reforms to our broken nature laws for three years. Now, with an election looming, the prime minister has hurried a bill into parliament that means nature has less protection that it did when he came to office.
Polluting industries like salmon farming need to be properly regulated, not let off the hook.
We call on all Australians who love nature and care about the future to urge Labor MPs and candidates to dump these amendments and deliver full reform of Australia’s failed nature laws in the first 12 months of a new term of government.
