Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens' Marine Environment spokesperson
Tassal’s Macquarie Harbour operations have failed to meet the Aquaculture Stewardship Council’s minimum standards for the environment for a third year running, in further evidence of the Liberal Government’s failure to regulate the salmon industry.
The role of government is to protect the marine environment from destructive corporate practices. The ASC has again documented a consistent pattern of deadly oxygen depletion and other breaches in environmental and fish welfare conditions by Tassal in the harbour. But for all their “tough on crime” rhetoric, the Liberals have gone missing when it’s time to call to account big companies that break rules and damage the environment.
For twenty months up to April 2017 Tassal refused to obey Environment Protection Authority orders to remove fish from their Macquarie Harbour Franklin lease. The Liberal Government failed to enforce any penalty as Tassal continued to grow fish up to market-ready size. Unsurprisingly, ASC audits showed oxygen levels were below safe minimums during that period.
There is no point making rules if they’re never enforced.
It is shocking that the Liberal Government has given immunity from prosecution to a salmon company that flagrantly refuses to obey the law, and has damaged world heritage values in the process.