On 16 September 2021 the Minister for Primary Industries, Guy Barnett, announced the state government’s intention to create a new ten-year salmon plan. When reading anything about the 10-Year Salmon Plan, it is important to ask ‘what if anything has the current plan achieved?’ Is it possible that the 2017 plan was designed to just reflect what the industry intended to do and so achieved nothing?
Will the new ten-year plan have the same purpose and will any public consultation be futile? The other key thing to think about is: ‘is the announcement about a new salmon plan really just about calming sections of the electorate in the lead-up to the federal election?’ (See article ‘Reform of the Parks and Wildlife Service RAA system’ that makes this argument in more detail).
The minister made the announcement of the new plan using some over-the-top rhetoric. The minister’s claims about the salmon farming industry’s ‘strong foundations’, ‘improved regulation and transparency’ and that ‘Tasmanians are proud of the salmon industry’ really stuck in the throat but it was pretty normal Liberal spin which most people would see through.
But the minister’s media statement also included some apparently convincing commitments, including four principles presented as the foundations of the new plan, as discussed below. There were mixed responses but some people in the community seemed convinced by these principles and thought the government had responded to the community and intended to negotiate a solution. But these principles are not very convincing when read closely. It is easy to conclude that the government has just wanted, to calm the electoral waters while promising nothing of substance and providing timeframes that guaranteed nothing changed until after the election.
1. There will be no net increase in leased farming areas in Tasmanian waters. Community groups are demanding no new industrial fish farms, and it is not clear how this principle translates into any significant improvement when the area already leased is enormous and the promise could allow for swapping of areas, with worse or neutral outcomes. The principle includes a 12-month moratorium, but it’s not clear what it relates to – probably new exploration permits. The minister’s media release announced that the moratorium commences ‘immediately’, so it would appear that it will expire in September 2022 and only allows for no change while the plan is developed. After September 2022 any limit will be lifted and it is boom time again.
2. Innovation – future growth lies in land based and off-shore salmon farming The minister only commits to ‘new research and innovation programs to support salmon farming further off-shore in deep waters, including Commonwealth waters, and to increase salmon farming on shore in land based systems’. There is no commitment to replacing existing farms with new farms on land or further from shore.
The second annual report on the existing plan details work done to date to assess areas for salmon farms outside of the traditional estuarine environments but there is no suggestion that these are instead of existing areas. The report only refers to three locations that are being assessed, off South Bruny Island, east of Three Hummock Island and the eastern side of King Island. These are locations that have been the centre of community opposition over recent years, hardly places that will be broadly acceptable. The report also makes reference to the ‘Government working through the jurisdictional processes and regulatory framework needed to potentially provide for finfish farming, and other forms of aquaculture, to operate in Commonwealth waters’. There is no information provided about whether any specific areas are being assessed for salmon farms or whether salmon farming companies see farms in Commonwealth waters as feasible and attractive.
3. World-best practice through continuous improvement
Here the minister commits to ‘continuous improvement in regulation and transparency’ but when asked about long-standing draft legislation related to fish farming (contained in the long-delayed Environment Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2019) he does not even respond (see below for details).
The minister commits to ‘review fees and charges to ensure full cost recovery’ but we have no idea what the timeframes for this process will be, if it applies only to new farms and if the full cost recovery will be legitimate.
4. Strict independent regulation
The minister says that ‘Separation of the EPA from DPIPWE will further enhance its role as the independent environmental regulator’ but for an indeterminate period we won’t get to see the details of what, if anything, will change. Why is independence the only issue being looked at – what about the strength of the legislation the EPA regulates and what about transparency, in particular in regard to salmon farm monitoring data? And what has caused the government to want to make the EPA more independent?
There is an announcement of a new ‘Director of FinFish Compliance’ but there has been no indication of what this is and why it is being proposed. Correspondence with Minister Barnett My doubts about the minister’s announcement led me to write to him on 1 October 2021 asking the key questions listed below.
Dear Minister,
. . .We would appreciate being kept informed of developments as more information is made available. In particular we would appreciate being advised on the objectives, process and timeframes (beyond the proposed 12 month time frame included in the media release) for the 10 year salmon plan.
Can you explain how the four principles that are included in the media release were developed as we did not notice any public consultation? In relation to principle 4, I assume there is some documentation of why it is proposed to move the EPA out of DPIPWE and, if so, can you provide it? I assume that the government believes there is some lack of independence currently.
I note that the media release does not mention the existing “Sustainable Industry Growth Plan for the Salmon Industry in Tasmania”. Is the existing growth plan to be considered in any way in the development of the new 10-year salmon plan? If so, has there been any review or criticism done of it and, if so, can we be provided with a copy? Can you advise how a number of previous government commitments relate to the 10-year plan? These include:
• the proposed environmental standards for the salmon industry, proposed during the 2020 state election and currently in draft form;
• Environment Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2019 which included numerous amendments related to regulation of fish farming. Will these and potentially other improvements in regulation be delayed pending the finalisation of the 10-year plan – noting principle number 3 in the media release?
But the minister did not answer one of my questions except for providing information on the consultation process and timeframes that we told him we had already accessed. Unusually for the
TCT, I sent a very grumpy reply asking the minister to try again to answer the questions. The minister responded on 29 October 2021, this time partially answering two of the questions but avoiding responding to the key questions.
The minister does not say where the four principles came from, including what they aim to achieve and why. Although he’s made them the foundation of the new plan, he will not discuss them at all, let alone respond to critical comments and questions.
There is no answer regarding the proposal to make the EPA more independent. This way the government can avoid admitting to any documented flaws in the EPA and there will be no way to measure whether any changes have fixed the problems.
Similarly, there is no response regarding the existing growth plan. The minister refers in his earlier letter to the annual reports on the existing growth plan, but my question related to a review of the existing growth plan not annual reports of its implementation, two entirely different things.
My question about how ongoing regulatory reviews or initiatives would feed into the plan clearly hit a bit of a nerve and he provided a partial answer. The minister acknowledged that the development of an environmental standard is still a commitment of the government and says that he is ‘informed’ that there is information (which he does not include) about it in the second annual report on the existing salmon growth plan.
The minister was misinformed because there is only one sentence in the second annual report stating that ‘the Government is developing a new Environmental Standard’ and no information is provided about what the standard will be, what progress has been made on developing it and no attempt is made to explain how it is relevant to the new ten-year plan. This is surprising, as we were informed by the department about six months ago that a draft environment standard was being reviewed. Linking the environmental standard at least time-wise to the new plan provides a reason for delaying the standard.
The minister says that the development of the environment standard ‘remains a Government priority and will progress in conjunction with the next year’s project to develop a ten-year plan for the salmon industry’. Just what it means that the environmental standard will progress ‘in conjunction’ with the ten-year growth plan is not made clear. I would have thought that it was vital for the community to know what the standards were before starting the new plan so that the community could consider it during consultation.
Will the proposed standard affect issues to be addressed by the new plan e.g. are some areas currently available for salmon farming unlikely to meet the new standard?
The proposed Environment Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2019 is not deemed worthy of any mention by the minister. The bill included at least 70 amendments to environmental legislation related to fish farming, fixing many flaws that the EPA had acknowledged. The bill had been subject to a consultation process more than two years ago and the government has just sat on it without explanation.
The minister refused to answer my question about the objective of the plan, claiming that to do so would ‘pre-empt what the objectives will be for the Plan’. But surely the government knows what its objective in having a new plan is? The context of my question clearly related to what the government intended to achieve from having a plan (perhaps purpose was a better word), and not the detailed objectives that would be in the final plan. So, it would seem the minister is admitting that the government is agnostic on the plan’s objective. Does this mean the creation of a plan, any plan, is the objective? Going back to the question I asked at the beginning of this article. Perhaps the minister has a clear objective, to create a plan that perfectly reflects the industry’s predetermined interests but obviously does not want to admit to this. To state any other objective would potentially interfere with achieving what the industry wanted.
So, with writing to ministers these days we are left wondering whether it is a pointless game that uses up huge amounts of our time and delivers nothing. There are numerous serious questions to ask about the government’s four principles and the legitimacy of the process of developing a new plan for salmon farming. They must be exposed for making apparently false commitments to improving one of Tasmania’s biggest and most destructive industries. But we must find more effective ways to expose the government’s deception, delays and obfuscations.
While it is important for some of us to keep a watching brief on the government’s process, the community should not get caught up in it, expecting an overall solution. These processes are often intended to dissipate community energy, when we need groups out there to keep exposing the issues and making life difficult for the salmon companies, and the government.
Peter McGlone