{"id":224683,"date":"2026-08-12T12:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T02:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/?p=224683"},"modified":"2026-09-21T12:08:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T02:08:51","slug":"salmon-hatcheries-motion-12th-august-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/12\/salmon-hatcheries-motion-12th-august-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Salmon Hatcheries Motion, 12th August 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

Salmon Hatcheries Motion, 12th August 2026<\/h1><\/div><\/div>\n\n

Mr GEORGE (Franklin) - Honourable Speaker, a vote will be required. I rise to move \u2011<\/p>\n

That the House -\u00a0<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Notes that:<\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the Tasmanian Salmon Industry Plan 2023 commits to transitioning freshwater salmon hatcheries from flow-through systems to recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS);\u00a0<\/p>\n

(b)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 no flow-through hatchery has yet completed that transition;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(c)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 14 flow-through hatcheries continue to discharge wastewater containing nutrients, chemicals and, at times, antibiotics into Tasmanian rivers;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 some hatcheries operate upstream of communities reliant on river catchments for drinking water supplies;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(e)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 climate change, reduced summer flows and increasing drought risk are placing growing pressure on freshwater ecosystems and water quality;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(f)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 recent testing has detected salmon-farming antibiotics in waters, sediments and eel tissue downstream of the Meadowbank hatchery, highlighting concerns about antimicrobial resistance and environmental contamination;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(g)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 modern RAS technology substantially reduces water consumption, wastewater discharges, disease risk and environmental impacts; and\u00a0<\/p>\n

(h)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tasmania\u2019s salmon industry is owned by multinational corporations that benefit from access to public waterways and environmental resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Calls on the Government to:\u00a0<\/p>\n

require all freshwater flow-through salmon hatcheries to transition to closed-loop RAS within three years;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(b)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 prohibit the expansion of existing flow-through hatcheries and approval of new flow-through hatcheries during the transition period;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(c)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 require independent monitoring and public reporting of river health indicators, including temperature, flows, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, algal indicators and antibiotic residues;\u00a0<\/p>\n

(d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 establish real-time public reporting of antibiotic and chemical use, disease outbreaks, fish mortalities, stocking densities, licence breaches and environmental non-compliance; and\u00a0<\/p>\n

(e)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 table a transition plan to replace all flow-through hatcheries with recirculating aquaculture systems in the House within six months.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honourable Deputy Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table the following document: A map of freshwater finfish farms, Tasmania, location and type, August 2026. The document has been circulated.<\/p>\n

Leave granted; paper tabled.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr GEORGE - Honourable Speaker. I rise to speak to Motion No.\u202f127. If you'll excuse the vernacular, the motion before the House is a no\u2011brainer. It's neither more nor less than a vote for the island's rivers of life. It will signal the end of the 19th\u202fcentury practice of using our rivers as a waste dump for industry. No\u2011one can defend 19th\u202fcentury practices of using our rivers as waste dumps. No\u2011one can defend 19th\u202fcentury practices in the 21st\u202fcentury. Not in the wake of hard\u2011won lessons that our rivers cannot be treated as toxic waste disposal systems without penalty. Not if everyone wants healthy water and a healthy island.<\/p>\n

Our rivers only became a convenient dumping ground for human and industrial waste with colonisation. Toxic dumps in the Queen and King Rivers on the West Coast caused 100\u202fyears' worth of damage, for which we still bear the burden. Mining on the Savage River cost us 90\u202fper\u202fcent of the river's invertebrate biodiversity and 99\u202fper\u202fcent of its invertebrate abundance. Upstream native fish populations in the national park were depleted because pollution halted fish migration.<\/p>\n

The Derwent has been the dumping ground of heavy metals, zinc smelting, paper production and sewage discharge, the toxic remnants of which remain embedded in the sediment today. These are scars that our great-grandchildren will bear. Surely we have learnt the cost of almost 200 years of ignorance, arrogance and carelessness. Why, then, do cashed\u2011up multinational salmon companies continue to pour chemicals, faeces, sediments, uneaten food, excess nutrients, medicines, antibiotics and other contaminants into our waterways? Only because we let them. The salmon industry has tried and tested alternatives and employ them where and when and how it suits them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are 22 freshwater salmonid fish farms operating on our life\u2011giving rivers. The majority are permitted to siphon off fresh, clean water from rivers and discharge some or all of their sewage downstream. Six are entirely flowthrough, eight are hybrids. So, 14 hatcheries passing clean water through tanks and raceways containing fish, along the way accumulating fish faeces, uneaten feed, nutrients, disinfectants, various medicines including antibiotics, and other contaminants, only to discharge the contaminated water back into the river environment. At best, some hybrid facilities may manage to remove some solids through filters, settling ponds and wetlands, but dissolved pollutants still wash downstream, often into water catchments, for human consumption. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The government is not blind to the pollution and the damage inflicted on our waters and marine life by flowthrough salmon hatcheries. Nor is the industry blind to a 21st\u202fcentury alternative. In fact, the industry has invested in the alternative, but only where, when and how it suits the industry, not where, when and how it suits our waterways. It exposes the sham claim that the industry works to world's best practice. It exposes this government as the vassal of the industry, not the enforcer of strict environmental standards that we deserve.<\/p>\n

Recirculating aquaculture systems, known by the acronym RAS, are closed-loop, retaining almost all their water for reuse. They're the global gold standard for hatcheries and jurisdictions that are prepared to host the salmon industry. In one Nova\u202fScotia facility that I've visited, just five\u202fper\u202fcent of the water is lost: two\u202fper\u202fcent to evaporation, three\u202fper\u202fcent because the fish drink it. These RAS facilities experience little or no disease. Mortality rates are negligible. Solid waste is sold off to other industries. Animal welfare does remain a serious issue throughout a salmon's imprisoned life cycle, but the environmental advantages of RAS are now beyond dispute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Members may ask for proof of the efficacity of RAS, and they need not look further than the then-environment minister, the honourable Mr\u202fJaensch. In 2023, he said:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flowthrough hatcheries are no longer considered world's best environmental practice. Recirculating aquaculture systems are a contemporary, modern technology that present better opportunities for treatment and reuse of wastewater, which reduces the impacts on the environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sheer hypocrisy of this government and of the salmon industry when claiming world's best practice is laid bare for the lie that it is.<\/p>\n

Perhaps foolishly, I expected the government to follow through with its 2023 undertaking to improve 'environmental management, supported with a framework to transition flowthrough hatchery systems over a certain size to recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS)'.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, then, I am doing no more than putting a straightforward proposition before this House that a billion\u2011dollar industry operating in the 21st\u202fcentury should be required to use 21st\u202fcentury technology when conducting intensive industrial activities on our rivers. I'm asking this House whether it's prepared to sanction salmon multinationals using our rivers as industrial sinks, extracting enormous volumes from clean, publicly owned waterways, only to discharge effluent as if into an infinite drainage system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And what does it cost for these billionaire salmon barons to do this? Far, far less than a Tasmanian pays for their annual water bill. A Tasmanian household pays an average of about $1200 a year for water. The industry pays a flat fee of $472 for the use of a hatchery. Five flow-through hatcheries on the Derwent catchment can take more than 125,000\u202fmegalitres of water a year, more than consumed by the entire population of metropolitan Hobart, and yet each pays only $472 a year.<\/p>\n

So secretive are these hatchery operations and so poor their regulatory oversight, that the flow-through Meadowbank hatchery was able to treat diseased fish this year with antibiotics without being required to tell the EPA, the Health department, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or biosecurity. It's only thanks to MLC Meg Webb and the Tasmanian Inquirer that we learned about the treatment and the subsequent report of antibiotic residue in the catchment waters, in sediment and in eels.<\/p>\n

The question of antibiotics in our fresh and salt waters and their impact on aquatic and human life is for another day, but we must urgently explore serious concerns raised by the AMA and many scientists about antimicrobial resistance in our marine and human life.<\/p>\n

Those who know me understand the distaste I have for the Brazilian goliath JBS, owner of Huon Aquaculture, and the Canadian Cook Aquaculture, owner of Tassal, whose reprehensible global activities have been exposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This motion can in no way be viewed as anti-industry, anti-jobs, or anti anything else that I'm accused of. This motion, if passed, can only pave the way towards a better outcome for everyone, even the industry. They're spending millions on advertising, lobbying and media to gain community trust squandered by their behaviour, money that would surely be better spent on proving themselves to be fit and proper corporate citizens dedicated to reducing their damaging impacts on Tasmania's natural heritage.<\/p>\n

On we go. With the speed of technological change, it's more than possible that the industry may finally embrace RAS for the entire life cycle of their product. This then may be a first step towards gaining approval of some 75\u202fper\u202fcent of Tasmanians who reject and object to what's happening in their public waterways.<\/p>\n

We all know that RAS is infinitely better, so why do we allow outdated flow-through systems on our rivers? It's not in the state's interest, it's certainly not in the interests of Tasmanians, and it's only in the interests of the multinationals who are of course driven by profit. JBS and Cooke will do what they're allowed to get away with under the regulations administered by timid, under-resourced regulators who are regularly browbeaten by an industry that is supported by two political parties that blindly follow in lockstep.<\/p>\n

Tasmanians paid a quarter of a billion dollars to build the Bryn\u202fEstyn water treatment plant, an installation made necessary because of the algal blooms that affected the purity, taste and smell of Hobart's water supply. A major cause of those blooms is the hatcheries' nutrient-heavy effluent spewed into the Derwent River catchment area. This is indisputable. These are not industrial zones. These are public rivers. They are a source of drinking water, recreation, biodiversity and natural heritage, and of life itself. They should not, in the 21st century, be the dumping grounds of industrial waste.<\/p>\n

As the Mercury newspaper reported this week, the environment is exposed to potentially many hundreds of different pollutants and different pharmaceuticals, mixtures that these wildlife species were never meant to be exposed to. That could have flow-on effects. Obviously, humans are impacted in the chain, the web of species. Anything that gets out of balance potentially has implications for us.<\/p>\n

Hatcheries are a major contributor to those pollutants, pharmaceuticals and the algal growth downstream. They include antibiotics and the danger of antimicrobial resistance developing in humans and wildlife. Once relatively small, producing eggs and juvenile fish in pristine rivers and headwater streams, the hatcheries have now expanded to support an industry that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars annually and then exports the profits. Their licences to divert river waters are justified by their classification as non-consumptive use, a false assumption based on water returned downstream in the same quality as is supplied from upstream, not laden with fish waste, nutrients, disinfectants and other contaminants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of the state's largest water users enjoy access to vast public resources at a cost that is often lower than an ordinary household water bill. It's not manifestly good public policy, nor is it world's best practice. Some hatcheries have no production limits. Some licences lack meaningful discharge limits. Monitoring lacks rigour. Unlike in other jurisdictions, there's limited public reporting. One licence at Millybrook reportedly contains no production limits, no emission limits, no monitoring requirements and no public annual reporting requirements at all. World's best practice? I do not think so.<\/p>\n

Even if we start the transition today to RAS, it'll still take three\u202fto\u202ffive\u202fyears before there's a meaningful diminution of pollution in our rivers. Furthermore, this motion is no more than a compromise for me and for the many communities, constituents and scientists I represent who are appalled by what the salmon industry gets away with. It's a compromise made reluctantly because I recognise the need to take prompt action, especially in light of the predicted giant El Nino that will take place this year and place ever more stress on the health of our rivers, the life they support and the human population that loves, respects, enjoys and recreates on our waterways.<\/p>\n

Had the minister for Environment or the opposition spokesperson, the honourable member for Bass, bothered to contact me to seek common ground, I would not have bitten them. It's not as if they hadn't received plenty of notice of this motion. For instance, for a small flow-through operation like 41 South, we may well have crafted exemptions, especially as I'm prepared to believe their assertion that the facility uses a wetland as a natural biofilter to filter the fish waste. Good on 41 South for being able to make a claim that the billionaire salmon barons cannot, that -\u00a0<\/p>\n

The water that leaves us is as clean as what comes in, so we have no negative impact on the environment.<\/p>\n

The government recognises we have a problem. The government recognises a solution. What it does not seem to have is the courage to implement it. A three-year transition period represents a balanced and reasonable approach. It allows industry time to invest and plan. It provides certainty for workers and communities. It creates a level playing field where all operators know the standards expected of them and it aligns environmental performance with modern community expectations. Importantly, this proposal would not simply order facilities to close down overnight. It would establish a clear sunset clause, a clear pathway, a clear deadline, and a clear expectation that Tasmania's rivers should no longer function as a waste conveyance system for industrial agriculture.<\/p>\n

I can only hope honourable members on both the government and opposition benches have the wisdom, the dedication and the courage to approve this motion and then insist its proposed actions are implemented. Dum spiro, spero<\/em> - while I breathe, I hope. Though in all honesty, in this parliament, comprising as it does Australia's first Liberal-Labor coalition, hope here hangs by a thread. I commend the motion to the House.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224685,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224683\/revisions\/224685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petergeorgeforfranklin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}