QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:34): It is all too predictable that Tasmania's salmon industry is embroiled in yet another animal cruelty scandal, and I do thank Animals Australia for doing what the government will not do: acting to protect salmon from the greed and cruelty of this industry, which gets away with persistent, regular acts of neglect and mismanagement and cruelty towards animals.

This death, disease and cruelty is the consequence of repeated governments and the salmon farming industry denying the sentience of salmon. The Tasmanian salmon industry is nothing but a mass polluter, an existential threat to Tasmania's unique marine habitat and wildlife and a death warrant for the Maugean skate. Since 2018, 110 seals have died at Tasmanian salmon farms.

Dolphins and seabirds have also been targeted. These multinational companies make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and pay little to no tax. In fact, the Albanese government gives them tens of millions of dollars in subsidies.

The Albanese government all too willingly bends over backwards to weaken environmental and biodiversity laws for them against the wishes of the people who live in this country. Biosecurity Tasmania must respond to the complaint from Animals Australia with the seriousness and the urgency that it deserves by launching an investigation immediately. But we know you cannot regulate your way out of cruelty.

Just as cruelty is inherent in greyhound racing, inherent in horse racing and inherent in factory farming, it is also inseparable from salmon farming. The only way this cruelty and environmental destruction ends is by removing the industrial fish farms from Macquarie Harbour. Question agreed to.