Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (11:21): It almost feels surreal to me that I am standing here on the last morning of the 47th Parliament to vote on a bill that will be signing the death warrant for a species that has literally lived on this planet for millions of years—the maugean skate. This is a shameful moment for this parliament, for this government and for senators in this chamber who will condemn the skate to extinction.
I've been raising the plight of the skate in this parliament, in this chamber, at question time, at every estimates. I initiated a Senate inquiry in 2015 into Macquarie Harbour, which, in the industry's own words, was a 'ticking time bomb' for the maugean skate. This is not something that has happened overnight—a quick political fix for the Albanese government; this issue has been bubbling away.
There are a lot of good people in the environment movement and in the community who care deeply about this issue and have been campaigning to try and get the skate protected. For the life of me I can't understand why we are doing this when all the best science tells us that this skate is endangered, almost certainly critically endangered, when the uplisting process to 'critically endangered' is underway at the moment and when the evidence is unanimous.
This bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025, means that, under federal law, this skate is on the path to extinction. That's the definition of 'endangered'. The science tells us that salmon farming is the cause of the skate's rapid decline, yet we are exempting the salmon industry from federal environmental laws.
What gives? I'll talk about the politics of this in a second. But if, from listening to her, Senator Urquhart—who I have no doubt is going to become known as the 'senator for extinction' in this place—believes this is really about jobs, then I would say to the Senate that the government's own advice to the minister, their own briefing, said there were 20 jobs in Macquarie Harbour.
Every job is important. There are 20 jobs, so I have a couple of questions for senators to consider before they vote for this: What's the price of the extinction of a species? Are 20 jobs worth us knowingly, actively driving a species to extinction?
This is a serious moral question, and I don't ask it lightly. This is a clear-cut case. What we are about to do today, I've no doubt, will be looked at all around the world.
I guarantee it. It has already been commented on in social media accounts all around the world today. It's going to resonate.
If this is about protecting jobs at Macquarie Harbour, let me tell Senator Urquhart, the Prime Minister and all those in the Labor and Liberal parties: if you care about workers and jobs in the industry, the worst thing you could do is what you are doing right now. You are lighting a match under this issue. It is now on every TV screen around the country.
Australians are starting to wonder whether they should be eating toxic Atlantic salmon from Tasmania. This is on the national agenda now, and it's not going to go away. This is going to spread like wildfire.
The worst thing they have done is to bring this stupid, dangerous, immoral legislation before this chamber, before this parliament. If it's not about the workers, is it about the politics? Well, there's no doubt the Labor Party want to win the seat of Braddon.
But, as Senator Lambie said in here yesterday, they need to get out more often and talk to people. This is not a popular issue in Braddon or anywhere else in Tasmania. The fact that the government would bring special legislation for their mates in the salmon industry into the parliament, as the last thing they do in the 47th Parliament, and the fact that they would give more than $40 million in handouts to foreign owned multinational companies who do not pay any tax suggest institutional corruption.
This is the institution of parliament and big political parties in bed with big, multinational salmon companies. It is cronyism. By any definition, this is straight-up cronyism and institutional corruption.
It is the Prime Minister and the Labor Party saying: 'We'll give you money and we'll pass special legislation for you so we can win a seat.' That doesn't pass the pub test. That is corruption, whichever way you look at it. You are pushing a species to extinction and you're prepared to say: 'We don't care about extinction.
We believe that a few jobs in the salmon industry and protecting its profits is more important.' I would urge senators to look at the scientific advice of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee. They have made very clear what threats there are to the skate and to the World Heritage values of Macquarie Harbour, which is now known internationally as a biodiversity hotspot that needs to be protected.
I would ask you to look at the evidence, please, before you sign the death warrant for this creature that has been with us since the age of the dinosaurs. When I initiated a Senate inquiry into this issue 10 years ago, I had a manila folder put under my door with leaked emails from CEOs of Tasmania's salmon companies to the Premier at the time. They were saying: 'Regulate the industry.
Do more to protect the skate, because, if you don't, this is going to blow up in everyone's face.' We had a Senate inquiry into that. Four Corners did an expose of it. That was 10 years ago, and the environment in Macquarie Harbour has only got worse because of climate change, extreme weather events and a lack of dissolved oxygen.
The salmon companies are losing millions of fish in single upwellings, where the nitrogen load becomes so high and the oxygen levels become so low, because of the warming oceans and farming practices, that millions of fish are literally drowning in their own shit. That is what this is. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I think you should withdraw that.
Senator WHISH-WILSON: I will withdraw it and say 'faeces' if that would make senators happier. But you get the point—imagine dying that way. As Senator Hanson-Young said in her contribution today, those fish are washing up on our beaches in Tasmania.
They're polluting our waterways. Come down to Tasmania, the clean, green and clever state, but just don't go for a walk on the beach—you might tread on rotting salmon carcasses. This is the industry and the industrial activity in the pristine Macquarie Harbour—or it was pristine, before the salmon industry came in—this parliament wants to protect with special legislation.
What happened after they leaked these dossiers to me and we had a Senate inquiry into this 10 years ago? The industry went to war. They took each other to court.
Huon Aquaculture took Tassal and the Tasmanian government to court to try and improve practices in Macquarie Harbour. The industry themselves recognised this problem. This is not the Greens or green groups, which is the way Senator Duniam and others try to label this.
The industry themselves went to war over this, and nothing has come of it. The salmon industry formed an association to speak on behalf of themselves. They've been bought out, now, by foreign owned multinational companies, and they have plans to expand—not on our watch.
This legislation will, no doubt, pass today, because the Labor and Liberal parties don't care about the extinction of a species. They aren't prepared to listen to the science. But it's not going to stop here today.
I haven't seen Australia's environment movement—and Senator McAllister is close to a lot of our environment groups in Australia, so she understands—so united on an issue as they are on this. I have never seen them so angry—and rightly so. After coming into this place year after year and fighting, lobbying and advocating for strong environment laws, what do they see?
They see a government weaken environment laws for the salmon industry. You have done what many of us couldn't do—you, the Labor Party and the Prime Minister, have united Australia's environment movement behind this. Expect this to be an election issue, an issue after the election and an issue in a balance-of-power arrangement.
This is not going to go away. This is one of the stupidest strategic political decisions I've ever seen. This is actually, for me personally, coming up to 13 years in this place, the lowest moment, to see two major political parties get together to protect a polluting industry that's about to push a species to extinction.
You will get contacted by your constituents. There will be a lot more than 20 workers you'll be hearing from. You'll get contacted all around the country about this.
You'll get international pressure from international agencies who care about the world heritage values of Macquarie Harbour. The damage that will be done to the salmon industry and its workers from this will far outweigh any economic damage to the salmon industry from withdrawing from Macquarie Harbour. I have a timeline here going back to when the salmon industry rapidly and aggressively expanded in Macquarie Harbour in 2012 without doing the required work.
That was opposed by the Greens all those years ago in 2012. They have bulldozed all obstacles in their way, because of the cosy relationships they have as cronies with the Labor and Liberal parties at both state and federal levels. It stinks.
The politics on this are as rotten as the stinking fish washing up on Tasmanian beaches, and Tasmanians and Australians can smell it. But that's enough of the politics; let's just look at the science. I heard the Prime Minister, at a press conference the other day, say that a new report has been released by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, at the University of Tasmania, saying that skate numbers are back to what they were in 2014, 11 years ago.
Guess what? That is disputed. There is considerable uncertainty in the science.
The most eminent scientists in this area have provided advice to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee that is different to that, and that's not to mention it was IMAS themselves that rang the bell on this, by saying this species is one extreme weather event away from extinction. That's what has triggered this whole process. That's the science.
Even if the Prime Minister was right and the numbers are back to what they were in 2014—and I hope he's right; I genuinely do—it is still endangered. The number of skate left in the harbour before the 2022 report was believed to be 1,200, and it's the only place left on earth where this dinosaur lives. And it is actually a dinosaur.
That's why Macquarie Harbour has World Heritage value; it's because of this skate. There are 1,200 skate left, so, if the Prime Minister is right, we are still talking about an endangered species on the brink of extinction. That is the definition of 'endangered' under federal environment law—on the path to extinction.
So that is meaningless. He also talks about the money they have committed to oxygenation in Macquarie Harbour, turning a World Heritage harbour into a giant oxygenated fish tank. Well, guess what?
Labor's own pilot study as to whether that will work doesn't finish till the end of this year, but they've already committed the money. How bloody cynical is that? And then he talks about the money they're putting into the captive breeding program.
So there we go—we're going to have the maugean skate, one of the last dinosaurs left on this planet, in a bloody aquarium! These skates are fed a brew they don't get in the wild, and the females are laying eggs which hatch into baby skates, but they can't tell us whether the eggs had already been fertilised before the females came into captivity. This is what the Prime Minister has been saying to try and defend this toxic legislation that we have before us today.
I was feeling pretty speechless this morning; I really was. I can't tell you how angry and disappointed I am, after all my time in this place, to see this in the last moments of this parliament. You guys are a bunch of cynical, mean—I've got to try and control myself here—heartless, mongrel bastards.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Cox ): Senator Whish-Wilson, in the interests of the chamber, I would ask you to withdraw that last comment. Senator WHISH-WILSON: Sorry, Acting Deputy President. It pains me to say this, but I can't withdraw it in good conscience, because that's how I feel, and I believe that is the truth.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: For the goodwill of the chamber, I would ask you to reconsider using unparliamentary language. I already have people on their feet for a point of order—Senator Ciccone—so I would ask you to reconsider that and please withdraw. Senator WHISH-WILSON: I withdraw because you are in the chair, Acting Deputy President.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you. Senator Polley. Senator Polley: I would just make the point, in my point of order, that who is in the chair should not determine whether you're going to withdraw.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Polley, you do have the call, but could you just take a seat. Minister. Senator McAllister: I think Senator Polley was in fact rising on a point of order rather than to seek the call.
I rise on the same point of order. A withdrawal, conventionally, in this place is unconditional. You asked Senator Whish-Wilson to withdraw, and he has given you a conditional withdrawal.
I don't think that's consistent with the practices in our chamber. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I'm pretty sure that you heard me twice invite Senator Whish-Wilson to withdraw his comment on the basis of the language used that I considered unparliamentary. I would ask him to do that without condition.
Senator WHISH-WILSON: I withdraw. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. Senator Polley, you have the call.