Northern Tasmanian offshore salmon farming trial set to start, but opponents stand firm

Australia Broadcast Center

12-05-2025

The opponents of salmon farming off northern Tasmania may not have had the numbers of their southern counterparts, but they had equally strong convictions as they gathered on Monday afternoon.
Many of the attendees at the Burnie Surf Life Saving Club came wearing bright red T-shirts emblazoned with the logo NO TOXIC SALMON.
The group of about 50 was attending a public meeting hosted by Blue Economy, the cooperative research centre behind a trial testing offshore fish farming in Bass Strait.
On Monday, Blue Economy began towing equipment for two fish farming pens to Commonwealth waters 12 kilometres north of Burnie.
It says the installation of the pens will be completed in July when nets are added prior to the introduction of Atlantic salmon. Kingfish will be introduced to the site in October.
Blue Economy is part of the CRC program which supports industry-led collaborations between industry, researchers and the community.
Blue Economy policy director Angela Williamson was at the centre of the meeting to answer the group's questions about several controversies Tasmania's aquaculture industry has faced in recent years.
Ms Williamson said the installation was a "significant step forward in sustainable aquaculture research for Commonwealth waters".
She said it would be a three-year research project attempting to gather evidence about how fish farms might affect other species in Bass Strait, recreational fishing in the area, and the impact of the marine environment on aquaculture infrastructure.
The project has been approved under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Initially, barges will be operating out of the port of Burnie to deploy the infrastructure, which includes a mooring grid to secure the pens in place, and two large, round floating "collars", like those in place elsewhere around the state.
Ms Williamson said the company's research was being conducted on behalf of aquaculture companies, governments and other international research organisations.
As well as members of the public, representatives from North West Tas for Clean Oceans attended the meeting alongside Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Scott Jordan, Greens candidate for Montgomery Darren Briggs, and Tasmanian independent Braddon MP Craig Garland.
In the first hour of the meeting, no attendee spoke in support of the industry or the research project.
Mr Garland said he believed the industry had "no social licence" and that residents of the electorate disliked salmon farms and "don't want them here under any circumstances".
At the recent federal election, Braddon voters swung heavily to the Labor Party, which was emphatic in its support for the salmon industry.
Prior to the election, the Albanese government introduced and passed legislation in part to protect salmon farming jobs on Macquarie Harbour where the endangered Maugean skate was being threatened.
Meeting attendees on Monday afternoon referred to issues the industry had experienced in Tasmania in recent months, including the use of antibiotics in the water and the welfare of the fish.
Questions were also asked about the transparency of the research results, and whether the public would have access to them, as well as concerns about how much information had been made available prior to the meeting.
Ms Williamson vowed to provide the requested information, but was greeted with apparent scepticism from some in attendance.
Speaking prior to the meeting, NW Tas for Clean Oceans president Cass Wright said she did not trust the fish farming industry and was staunchly opposed to the research being carried out.
Ms Wright said she believed the industry was too environmentally damaging to be allowed to run a trial in Bass Strait.
Mr Garland said the community did not support fish farming and therefore any research trial was unnecessary.
"Why do we need research when we don't want them here?" he asked.
He also said he was concerned about any pens — research or not — being installed in Bass Strait.
Ms Williamson, however, said the project was strictly a "research trial site" and that all equipment would be decommissioned at the end of the trial in three years.
Any commercial fish farming operation in Bass Strait would then be a question for aquaculture companies and would require further government approval.
"There is a lot more work that needs to be done by the federal government on regulatory regimes, and what that would look like," Ms Williamson said.
A spokesperson for industry peak body Salmon Tasmania said they backed Blue Economy's trial.
"Tasmania's salmon industry encourages innovation, research and development," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"The work being done by Blue Economy CRC to test infrastructure 12 kilometres offshore in the notoriously rough and exposed Bass Strait waterway is a testament to Blue Economy CRC and we look forward to monitoring the progress of the research."
The spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the industry could or would be likely to move Tasmanian operations further offshore, or whether it believed the community was supportive of Bass Strait research.