John Whittington
It is a broken promise and as you would have read through that letter there are a number of commitments made by the Premier, not just to the industry but to the thousands of people that work in the industry and the thousands of people that support the industry through their own businesses, whether cafes, transport operators, boat builders, net builders. The Premier said that he fully supports the industry, there would be no moratoriums but most importantly that he wouldn’t trade away the industry in a political power play and that’s what we have seen happen over the weekend.

David Reilly
Can you help me understand just a little bit more clearly how this will materially impact the industry, John Whittington? It’s not immediately evident.

John Whittington
Well I think David to be fair it’s not immediately evident to anybody, it’s something that emerged over the weekend and we’re all coming to understand what was in the Premier’s mind when he announced this.

David Reilly
News reports say it’s a pause on expansion but you read the Premier’s letter on Saturday to Peter George and it says a pause on spatial expansion and then the next day in his media release it’s a pause on marine expansion. I don’t know what those things mean but to me those modifiers, spatial expansion, seem like they’re probably important. What’s your read of what the Premier’s saying here?

John Whittington
David, we have very little information from the Premier. I think this was a very quickly cobbled together compromise with Peter George and so we probably have to ask both of them what they think that they mean. But make no mistake, when you say there’s a moratorium it just strangles investment and I’ll just use the mining example I started to before. You can imagine if the government said we’re not going to have any more mining for the next 12 months, no mining exploration in Tasmania, what that would do to the confidence in investment and in our case to the boat builders, the transport operators, those cafe operators and not to mention these hard working Tasmanians who get up at four in the morning and dive in 10 degree waters and do all those sorts of things out in the ocean to farm what is a fantastic product.

David Reilly
My read of this is a pause on spatial expansion. Tell me if I’m wrong, is that companies can still increase biomass, they can still add pens to their existing leases, they can stock more fish if they want within their existing footprint, which means actually it’s not a pause, production could indeed grow under this pause. My question to you is how is that in any way an existential threat to jobs given it will only be for the duration of a study, which could be weeks? Why is the industry jumping up and down? Look, I want to read to you some of the language actually from the industry, from your media release yesterday used to describe this spatial expansion. It struck me as a touch on the melodramatic side. You say the Premier’s word is worthless, you’re angry, it’s shameful, it abandons regional Tasmania, puts the industry on the chopping block, it’s completely betrayed workers. Is this theatrical? Is this performative outrage for what’s effectively a brief pause?

John Whittington
Well David, what we’re talking about is a process that has been cobbled together with the Premier and Peter George with the stated outcome of at least one of those to close the industry down over time. So yes, we are angry, we do feel let down and we are really concerned about what the government’s intentions are.

David Reilly
What do you suspect that those intentions might be

John Whittington
To form government on Tuesday

David Reilly
Has the industry been given any reassurances or has the industry been given any quiet private reassurances that it’ll all be taken care of and that there’s nothing to worry about, John Whittington?

John Whittington
I have not been given any quiet reassurances and to be quite frank, David, why would I trust them? Six weeks ago a letter was sent to industry and to our workers saying that this government would not trade away an industry as part of a power play and they did it. So a quiet reassurance, if one was given and one hasn’t been, wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on or the whisper it was made with.