Albanese stares down his own MPs over fishy captain’s call

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stared down a rare backbench revolt over his unilateral call to protect Tasmanian salmon farms and key seats in that state, as caucus met three times over the weekend to placate MPs afraid of losing votes in the cities over the environment.

The future of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour, on Tasmania’s remote west coast, has been uncertain since 2023 when environment groups challenged the government’s approval for the industry, due to its impacts on the critically endangered Maugean skate. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek had been reconsidering the approval.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will amend legislation to carve out Tasmanian farmed salmon from environmental laws.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Albanese’s decision follows the PM overruling Plibersek in November to scupper an election promise to create a national Environment Protection Agency, and in February took it off the agenda before the upcoming election, due by May 17, in a bid to win votes in Western Australia.

The salmon industry has campaigned for the government to shield it from legal challenges and promote its economic contribution and local employment. Meanwhile, the government is locked in an election battle to win the marginal Tasmanian electorates of Bass and Lyons, as well as the seat of Braddon where Liberal MP Gavin Pearce is retiring.

Albanese’s amendment sparked a series of heated meetings of Labor’s caucus committee, which must approve proposed reforms before they are brought to parliament, with two on Friday and one on Sunday evening.

The committee ultimately agreed, after several MPs raised concerns over weakening environmental protections before an election and opening up challenges from the Greens in marginal inner-city electorates. Dissenters were offered a guarantee that a second-term Labor government would make good on its existing commitment to create an EPA.

Left-faction MP Jerome Laxale, who holds the ultra-marginal seat of Bennelong in Sydney, emphasised to a meeting of the entire caucus on Monday the need for Labor to honour its commitment to create an EPA if it wins another term.

“I will not comment on caucus deliberations,” Laxale said. “However, it should come as no surprise that the environment matters to me and to Bennelong. I’ll always do what I can to have stronger climate action and environmental protection.”

A bill to amend the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act is set to be introduced to parliament this week.

A government spokesperson said the amendment would be targeted at the salmon industry, and that the existing laws remained in effect for other developments, including coal, gas, and land clearing.

“This bill is very specific – it’s a minor change, with extremely strict criteria – focused on giving Tasmanian workers certainty while government investments protect the Maugean skate,” said a spokesperson for the prime minister.

“We won’t stand by and let workers in Strahan lose their livelihoods because of a broken law.”

The Wilderness Society said Albanese’s bill “sends shockwaves through the entire environmental decision-making regime” by creating a precedent where projects could win carve-outs from environmental laws through political campaigns.

“With a stroke of the pen, the Albanese government would be thumbing its nose at a deeply concerned public, condemning a species to extinction, and undermining World Heritage,” said Wilderness Society campaign manager Sam Szoke-Burke.

The Coalition has been trying to harness frustration in the salmon industry to take seats off Labor in Tasmania.

Opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam said on Tuesday the Coalition would back Albanese’s amendment. Duniam has in recent weeks escalated the political fight by calling for the blocking of Chilean imports of salmon.

“Given the significant risk to our nation’s biosecurity … our country must immediately cease the import of Chilean salmon and update our biosecurity standards to ensure this risk never arises again,” Duniam said.

Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said the bill would set a precedent that undermined protections for more species from other industries.

“Rushing these laws through under the cover of the federal budget, without proper scrutiny or consideration, has the potential to impact dozens of other cases,” Hanson-Young said.

Albanese promised in December to secure the future of Macquarie Harbour salmon farming with amendments to environment laws during the next sitting of parliament. If the election was held on the anticipated date of April 12, this would have occurred after the poll.

Albanese said on Monday the salmon industry had reduced its impact on the environment.

“What we know is that the environmental science tells us that the skate is at the same levels that it was back a decade ago. We responded to the science to provide certainty,” he said.

The federal government’s threatened species committee said in August the best way to save the fish was to stop, or cut back, salmon farming in its habitat.

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