Something very fishy is going on in relation to the seat of Braddon in Tasmania. And Freedom of Information is helping shine a light on things. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick reports.
EPBC Act changes
On Tuesday this week I participated in the (relatively) polite pre-election debate between myself, Labor’s Senator Karen Grogan and Greens’ Senator Barbara Pocock. The debate was organised by the University of Adelaide’s Politics and International Relations Association (PIRA) and was well attended, with more than 100 students and academic staff in attendance.
One of the questions raised by the moderator was, unsurprisingly, the environment.
Pocock pointed to Labor’s coal and gas approvals which caused Grogan to allege that the Greens has somehow held up their changes to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity and Conservation (EPBC) Act.
“We haven’t been able to get the changes we wanted to make to the EPBC Act through the Parliament”, she said.
I unhelpfully chipped in from the side. “That’s not true, in the last sitting week you managed to change the EPBC Act to protect the Salmon industry at the expense of the Maugean Skate”.
Grogan burst into defence mode. “But the latest information shows that the extinction data on the Skate was wrong”
I rebutted, “Well, how would the public know. I was just refused access to the decision brief that was given to Tanya Plibersek to determine whether salmon fishing should continue.”
I’ll come back to that refusal, below.
PIRA Debate with Senator Pocock, Senator Grogan and the author (Source: PIRA)
Salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour
Salmon farming began in Macquarie Harbour in the late 1980s in what was a very small scale Australian owned operation. Over the years the operation has greatly expanded as large foreign owned non-tax paying companies have taken over.
Scientists and environmentalists assert their significantly enhanced operations are dumping tonnes of antibiotics, chemicals, feed waste and faeces into waterways, threatening extinction of the Maugean Skate.
Midway through 2023 the Australia Institute, the Bob Brown Foundation and the Australian Marine Conservation Society formally requested a reconsideration of a 2012 EPBC Act decision that allows the industrial scale farming to occur.
One and a half years later, in February 2025, Plibersek was handed a ‘decision brief’ and set about making a decision. But a looming election appeared to cause a stop to the reconsideration.
Election fever
The Federal seat of Braddon, which encompasses Macquarie Harbour has switched regularly between the Liberals and Labor, is currently a Liberal held seat. The current Liberal member, who has held the seat since 2019, is retiring and Labor want it back.
To attract some of the slightly right leaning people who live in the seat, it has to be jobs before the extinction concerns for the Skate, even though the 2023 brief to the minister identified only 20 jobs at stake.
20 Jobs – December 2023 Departmental Brief to Plibersek (Source: FOI)
And that’s why Labor, supported by the Liberal Party, rammed a bill through the parliament in the last sitting week of parliament. It was introduced into the House on 25 March and rushed through the Senate on 26 March; with no legislative inquiry and a guillotined debate.
The Bill, which passed, purportedly restricts the Minister for the Environment’s ability to reconsider past decisions under the EPBC Act 1999 to provide certainty to industries and communities by limiting the timeframe for reconsideration requests, particularly after actions have been ongoing for five years.
It was a calculated move in the interests of the Labor party; but not the environment.
Access refusal
I have been FOI’ing briefs provided to Plibersek on the Salmon farming re-consideration. It’s been like extracting teeth. A fight for a 2023 brief took a year to resolve, and cost the taxpayer more than $50K in lawyers’ fees. The government’s lawyers lost.
A win for transparency, a blow to secrecy, a loss for the Maugean Skate
Some bombshell revelations came when the brief was handed over.
After officials at Senate Estimates revealed that the actual ‘decision brief’ had been handed to the minister on February 22, I FOI’ed that brief.
After all, one of the objectives laid out in section 3 of the FOI Act is to ‘increase public participation in Government processes, with a view to promoting better – informed decision – making’.
Flawed decision making
After their recent defeat in the Administrative Review Tribunal, I thought the Government would have just handed over the document.
After all, in trying to resist release of the 2023 they told the Tribunal that a preliminary review would be of little public interest. Surely that means the final brief would be of significant public interest.
Decision reasoning on the 2023 brief (Source: Administrative Review Tribunal)
The decision maker on the 2025 brief, Ms Valarie Hush, did not find there would be such significant public interest, but did acknowledge releasing the 2025 Brief would “inform debate on a matter of public importance”.
Ms Hush denied access to the document on the basis that the minister still had a decision to make. The preferred position of the Department, and indeed the Government at a political level, is that a fait accompli is presented to the public after the decision is made – and in strict contrast to the objects of the FOI Act mentioned above.
Actually, the fact that the minister is still to make a decision in itself has created controversy – noting the Bill that was rushed through Parliament in March to kill the decision making process. Perhaps they are taking a cautious approach given legal action in relation to the legislation initiated by the Bob Brown Foundation.
Ms Hush went on to suggest that a release of the brief would somehow affect procedural fairness and impede the Minister making her decision.
The only problem with that is that the Administrative Review Tribunal flatly rejected that argument in the lost secrecy fight over the 2023 brief.
Decision reasoning on the 2023 brief (Source: Administrative Review Tribunal)
A convenient refusal
Perhaps Ms Hush didn’t read the Administrative Review Tribunal decision. I can’t explain what has happened. We’ll have to find that out on another appeal ($$$$).
One thing’s for sure, not having the 2025 decision brief in the public domain will make the government happy. The last thing they want is the public forming their own view on the facts that are before the minister, especially the public in Braddon, Tasmania.
Meanwhile the Maugean Skate is hanging on for dear life on earth. Possible cause of extinction; election fever.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is running for the Senate on the Lambie Network ticket next year - www.transparencywarrior.com.au.