Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens' Leader
In a sign there’s no sliver of light to be seen between the Liberal and Labor parties on fish farm expansion, the two old parties voted together today against the Greens’ No Confidence Motion in Minister Rockliff.
It was no surprise given their championing of the industry, collective failure to properly regulate it and policies that propose doubling its size by 2030.
The vote demonstrates that Labor has confidence in Minister Rockliff. They backed in a Liberal Minister who has overseen devastating impacts on Macquarie Harbour and the TWWHA, and approved a twenty year lease at Okehampton Bay for fish farming.
We moved no confidence because Minister Rockliff is responsible for ignoring scientific advice, decisions to allow overstocking, extensive marine pollution and impacts on threatened species, a legal case brought by the industry against government and a willful deafness to the concerns of Tasmanians who want this industry brought under control.
In Parliament and Estimates over the past two weeks, we have exposed the cynicism of the Liberals’ so-called ban on fish farming in ‘99% of Mercury Passage’, and their deafness to community concerns about fish farming in Okehampton Bay and unsustainable expansion into areas such as Storm Bay and other parts of the East Coast.
This Sunday, the community’s lack of confidence in Minister Rockliff will be on display at Float Mo. Vessels are expected to arrive from all over Tasmania in a show of absolute commitment to protecting the East Coast from an industry which has been allowed to pollute the marine environment, largely unchecked.