{"id":67329,"date":"2025-08-14T09:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67329\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T09:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:53:11","slug":"albanese-government-reaffirms-decision-to-allow-salmon-farming-in-tasmania-despite-fears-for-endangered-maugean-skate-tasmania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67329\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese government reaffirms decision to allow salmon farming in Tasmania, despite fears for endangered Maugean skate | Tasmania"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Albanese government confirmed it will permit salmon farming to continue in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania<\/a>, despite concerns from conservationists about the risks to the endangered Maugean skate.<\/p>\n

The Bob Brown Foundation and the Australia Institute accused the environment minister, Murray Watt, of condemning the skate to extinction.<\/p>\n

The groups were among three organisations to receive a letter from Watt on Wednesday notifying them of the widely expected decision, which follows the passage of amendments to Australia\u2019s nature laws to protect the salmon industry earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The groups had asked the government in 2023 to reconsider a 2012 decision to allow a salmon farming expansion in Macquarie Harbour without an assessment under Australia\u2019s environmental laws.<\/p>\n

Watt said all relevant information had been carefully considered before reaching his decision.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Albanese Government remains committed to the protection of the Maugean skate, including through our funding of oxygenation measures in Macquarie Harbour,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Watt\u2019s decision followed amendments to Australia\u2019s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act in March that were designed to prevent reconsideration requests in cases in which developments had been deemed \u201cnot a controlled action\u201d and the minister had specified that the development required state or territory oversight.<\/p>\n

It would apply when the development was already under way and had been ongoing or recurring for at least five years.<\/p>\n

The Maugean skate has been listed as endangered since 2004. Photograph: Jane Ruckert\/AAP<\/p>\n

The legislation was rushed to parliament before the May federal election and was subject to a fiery debate in which the Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, waved a dead salmon in the Senate<\/a> after asking if the government had sold out its environmental credentials for \u201crotten, stinking extinction salmon\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s decision to introduce the contentious legislation followed lobbying by industry and Tasmanian MPs.<\/p>\n

Anthony Albanese wrote to Tasmania\u2019s three salmon companies in February promising that the government would change the law to ensure there were \u201cappropriate environmental laws\u201d to \u201ccontinue sustainable salmon farming\u201d in the harbour.<\/p>\n

The review requested by the environment groups was commenced by the former environment minister Tanya Plibersek in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"WrappedWrapped in plastic: Sarah Hanson-Young waves a dead salmon in Senate \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The Bob Brown Foundation said Watt had invoked the \u201ccontroversial and outrageous new law\u201d to reach his decision to allow salmon farming to continue without an assessment and \u201chas today condemned the Maugean Skate to extinction\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a disgrace that a species that was identified by the Albanese government as a priority threatened species in 2022, has been purposely abandoned by 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took our looming court case to force the minister to make a decision after more than two years of inaction, deflection and delay,\u201d said Antarctic and marine campaigner Alistair Allan.<\/p>\n

He said the group would be challenging \u201cthis manifestly wrong decision\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Australia Institute\u2019s Tasmania director, Eloise Carr, said that when Watt became the environment minister, \u201che said the salmon industry needed to lift its game on sustainability\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this decision protects the commercial salmon industry and condemns the skate to extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carr said Tasmanians were \u201csick and tired of government inaction to address the harmful effects of the foreign-owned salmon industry on Tasmanian waterways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Maugean skate has been listed as endangered since 2004<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Concern about its plight escalated last year when a government scientific committee said numbers in the wild were \u201cextremely low\u201d and fish farming in the harbour was the main cause of a substantial reduction in dissolved oxygen levels \u2013 the main threat to the skate\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n

The committee said salmon farms in the harbour should be scaled back<\/a> and recommended the species be considered critically endangered.<\/p>\n

A separate report by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies<\/a> earlier this year said surveys suggested the skate population was likely to have recovered to 2014 levels after crashing last decade. It stressed the need for continued monitoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanese government confirmed it will permit salmon farming to continue in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, despite concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-67329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}