A decision brief on protecting the threatened Maugean Skate shows the Labor Government puts extinction second to politics. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick reports.
A long-awaited brief, prepared by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), has now been released after an FOI fight in the Administrative Review Tribunal.
MWM can now reveal that DCCEEW’s decision brief recommended that the original decision to allow salmon farming should be revoked, but with an election looming, science was to take second place to both vested interests and politics.
The Labor Government twice refused to grant access under Freedom of Information laws to the briefs. Twice, they lost that fight.
Summary of the Department’s Recommendation (Source: FOI)
In March 2025 Labor, fully informed by the Department as to the right thing to do, and supported by the Liberal Party, rammed a bill through Parliament restricting the Minister for the Environment and Water’s ability to reconsider past decisions under the EPBC Act to provide certainty to industries and communities.
The Bill limited the timeframe for reconsideration requests, particularly after actions have been ongoing for five years.
It was a calculated move and a slap in the face for the departmental officials who’d worked diligently to come up with the correct conclusions.
It was a betrayal of the Maugean Skate.
Maugean Skate – possible cause of extinction … election fever
Salmon farming waste
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 the 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 industrial-scale farming to occur.
In February 2025, then Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, was handed a ‘decision brief’. The brief, as we can now reveal, said STOP!
DCCEEW had done its job. It had consulted, engaged a scientist, and formed the view that the original decision to allow the salmon farming needed to be revoked.
Last hopes for the Maugean Skate
The North West Tasmania for Clean Oceans are now in the Federal Court fighting what has happened. The proceedings are well advanced, but MWM has no feel for how the Court will rule.
Of the few Skates that are left, they need not feel alone in their betrayal. They share it with whistleblowers, transparency advocates and those who care about climate change.
After the Skate betrayal, Green’s Senator Peter Whish-Wilson heckled the Prime Minister outside Parliament House calling out “You’re a pack of mongrels.”
MWM contacted Whish-Wilson for his response to the now-released decision brief. “I feel vindicated in my remarks and now repeat it – they’re a pack of mongrels.
They can’t be trusted on the environment.
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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 also known as the "Transparency Warrior."