The government’s recently-released “debrief” of last summer’s mass salmon mortality event is not worth the paper it’s written on. While the report is titled ‘Reflections and Learnings’ it doesn’t appear to contain either.
We were promised a proper review of the government’s response to the mass mortality event and what needs to be done to make sure it never happens again. What we got was a report containing nothing more than a vague list of suggestions and no meaningful actions.
Worse, it shows that Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the EPA appear perfectly happy allowing business as usual for the multinational salmon industry.
Predictably, the report lets industry completely off the hook. In fact, it gifts them the job of writing their own Code of Practice for mortality events – if they feel like it. It takes Chile’s antibiotic-ridden industry as a ‘how-to’ manual for Tasmania rather than a warning.
The bottom line is – the salmon industry has not been required to change any of its practices to prevent a repeat of last summer.
For communities who had rank fish and fat wash up on their beaches, or who watched with disgust at live fish being dumped and sealed into bins, this report shows an appalling failure of government regulatory oversight and waste of resources.
The answer to rapidly warming waters and over-stocked salmon pens is to clean up the industry by de-stocking pens and removing them from sensitive inshore waters, not dumping unknown antibiotics like florfenicol into Tasmanian waterways.
After the scale of last summer’s marine disaster, a report that doesn’t bell the cat on bad industry practice is insulting. It’s completely out of step with the community’s expectation and definitely does not put the industry on notice to change its practices.
