It shouldn’t be a bare-knuckle salmon battle

Being honest about salmon farming a good start to gaining social license, writes Professor David Adams

Tasmanians are used to debates about the benefits of economic growth versus the risks of environmental damage. However, at the moment we have the salmon industry and government in one corner and the critics with no apparent hope of mediation, according to Professor David Adams. Pictures: Richard Jupe

The main reason most Tasmanians are pretty annoyed at chunks of salmon washing up on our shoreline is not simply because it has happened, but rather because most of us thought it couldn’t happen.

We wrongly assumed that either the industry and/or the government would have told us about such risks and cared about our public interest. If we had known then at least what happened would not have been a shock.

But both the government and the industry seem more interested in an ongoing win/lose bare-knuckled fight with critics than in working towards a social license for the industry.

A social license would mean that we would have been aware of and potentially accepting of, the risks and how they could be managed.Even if we weren’t happy about it.

And we would be clear on who bears the costs if things do go wrong.

Most importantly we would be clear on the short, medium, and long-term benefits to Tasmanians and feel we could have a say in that.

UTAS Prof David Adams.

I have looked through all the publicity from the industry and nowhere could I find any discussion of public interest risks. Similarly, I have looked through all the industry statements I could find from the government and, again, no discussion about risks or, more importantly, how risks could best be managed. All beer and skittles is what the industry looks like from the glossy outside.

If the salmon industry and/or the government were a little more open about the risks of salmon farming – and how to mitigate them in ways that strike a balance between profit and public interest – then I suspect that most Tasmanians would all be a little less worried about salmon debris.

Again, not happy but less shocked and annoyed.

Tasmanians are well and truly accustomed to healthy debates about trading the benefits of jobs and economic growth with the risks of environmental and community damage.

What we don’t like is the way governments and business often spend more time obfuscating issues rather than being open and honest about trade-offs.

A social license is not about glossy publicity and lambasting critics, it is about government and business engaging with Tasmanian communities in an open and honest way about the benefits and risks of the industry.

Huon Aquaculture Group Limited. Supplied for TasWeekend story.

Social licenses create relations of trust and enable a shared understanding (not always a shared agreement) of how to manage trade-offs between risks and benefits. They create community safety valves when things do go pear-shaped so there can be a focus on solutions not recriminations.

It would seem that in the current case of the salmon debris the due diligence that both industry and the government should have taken were not up to scratch.

Without a social license governments are inevitably forced into increased and costly regulation and we taxpayers end up bearing the costs for literally cleaning up the mess.

Knee-jerk regulatory responses can often do more harm than good in the long-term.

To date many of our bigger industries seem to spend a lot of time and money on lobbying politicians and generating slick publicity rather than deeply engaging around the issues that matter. This is fodder for critics.

Both the government and the salmon industry need to make up ground with Tasmanians and being more engaged and honest would be a good start.

Most of the debates to date have been binary – as in, for or against – salmon farming. What would be good would be for the parliament (not the government) to lead a conversation with Tasmanians about the principles and conditions that could guide salmon farming futures in Tasmania.

At the moment we have the industry and government in one corner and the critics in the other with no apparent hope of mediation.

Most industries create externalities – things that go pear-shaped and cause harm – the issue is how to be honest about them and engage in community conversations about risk management.

There will always be people who will inherently oppose salmon farming.

But what neither the government nor the industry can afford is to lose the support of mainstream Tasmanians through failing to grasp the idea of a social license.

Professor David Adams, of the University of Tasmania, is the former Social Inclusion Commissioner for Tasmania and former UTAS Pro Vice Chancellor for regional development