Estimates suggest that there are only140 Maugean Skates left in the world. Despite this, it appears there’s something fishy going on as the Government avoids dealing with its extinction. Rex Patrick reports.
The skate, a stingray-like creature that only lives in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, is at high risk of extinction, so much so that the Government’s independent Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) is urgently considering whether the skate should be uplifted from ‘endangered’ to ‘critically endangered’ in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act listing.
The TSSC’s draft assessment shows that they consider it faces a high risk of extinction in the near future and action is clearly needed.
However, evidence given by a senior official in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) this week indicates that the Government neither cares nor wants to address it.
It’s all in the water
No one disputes the danger the skate species is in, just the specific cause. The TSSC has pronounced in its preliminary determination:
“The species has a restricted distribution with continuing decline in habitat quality with ongoing threats. The primary threat to the species is degraded water quality, in particular, substantially reduced levels of dissolved oxygen throughout Macquarie Harbour. There is a significant correlation between the reduction in dissolved oxygen levels and increases in salmonid aquaculture due to fish respiration and the bacterial degradation of organic material introduced into the water column from fish feed and fish waste…”
The science could not be clearer: the mechanism of impact from aquaculture on the Maugean skate is well understood. The greatest risk to the skate is reduced water quality from salmon and trout aquaculture operations in Macquarie Harbour.
However, salmon farmers dispute their operations are the key cause.
Review of Salmon farmers’ operations
In June last year, the Australia Institute (TAI) wrote to Minister Tanya Plibersek seeking a formal reconsideration of the current operations of salmon farmers in Macquarie Harbour. Their application under the EPBC Act was quickly backed up with an independent application in July from the Bob Brown Foundation and, in August, from the Environmental Defenders Office.
That started a formal process, which requires a decision from Plibersek as to which way to go: the way of the skate … who are backed by scientists, environmentalists and a broad cross-section of the community … or the way of the foreign-owned salmon farmers … who are backed by a grab bag of politicians including Tasmanian Premier, Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Resources, Eric Abetz, and the Mayor of the West Coast Council, Shane Pitt.
Extinction politics
Macquarie Harbour sits in the Federal Electorate of Braddon. The current Federal member is Gavin Pearce, who has been in the House of Representatives since 2019. Prior to that, it was a Labor seat.
At the last election, Pearce was re-elected with a 6.2% swing in his favour on primary votes and retained power with a two-party preferred vote of 58% compared to Labor’s 42%. It’s a large margin.
However, the recent State election saw the Liberal vote fall away significantly from 40K in 2021 to 32.4K in 2024, with their representation going from 4 to 3 seats. Labor also fell but not as much, from 18.5K to 17.K. They retained their two seats. The Jacqui Lambie Network got one seat, as did Independent Craig Garland, a commercial fisherman and staunch anti-salmon advocate. The Greens also increased their vote.
It’s a hard result to pull apart, but Labor will have noticed the significant swing from Liberals to the Jacqui Lambie Network, Garland and the Greens and might be thinking there’s a small chance of winning the seat back in the next Federal election.
The choice that Plibersek makes on the skate may well have an effect on the election outcome.
Cross-examination in the AAT
This brings us back to the cross-examination of a senior Departmental official in an AAT hearing on Wednesday. Ms Rachel Short, Branch Head, Environment Assessments (Victoria and Tasmania) and Post Approvals Branch, Nature Positive Regulation Division of the Environment Department (DCCEEW), was in the AAT assisting the Government to keep a procedural brief secret and was asked the question … does the Minister have the decision brief?
Departmental lawyers objected to the question on grounds of relevance to the proceeding but withdrew the objection once the relevance was explained.
Ms Short proceeded to give me a ‘Senate Estimates answer’ (that is, an answer to a different question).
“That’s very interesting”, I said. “But that’s not the question I asked. Has the Minister been provided with the decision brief”.
Ms Short gave me another Senate Estimates answer (that is, an answer to a different different question).
I looked at the AAT presiding member and said, “I’m entitled to an answer”. The presiding member spoke to Ms Short and asked my question for me.
Ms Short answered, “The Minister does not have a decision brief.”
A poisoned chalice
What’s going on, I thought. This reconsideration has been in play for over a year, and the minister doesn’t yet have a decision brief. That makes no sense.
Relevance to the AAT processing prevented me from asking her what the delay was. I had to move on to secrecy issues around a different procedural brief.
But there can only be one reason. The Minister doesn’t want the brief. It’s a poison political chalice. It’s much better for her and the Labor Party, but not the skate, if the decision is not made until after the next election.
That offers an explanation for Ms Short’s reluctance to answer the question.
Senator Whish-Wilson agrees, “Everybody wants the minister to make a decision, but Labor is clearly kicking the can down the road for cynical political reasons.”
The only better political outcome for Labor would be if the skate became extinct before a decision had to be made.
I don’t really know if the minister doesn’t want the brief, but I lived in the world that is politics with my 4.5-year stint in the Senate. A saying I learned and observed in my time there:
Always back the horse named self-interest. It’ll be the only one trying.
It’s quite unbelievable, except when politics are factored in, that the minister doesn’t have in her hands what is needed to make a clearly important and pressing decision. As Whish-Wilson says:
We shouldn’t be playing politics with the extinction of a species – delaying this decision for political gain is abhorrent.
The situation is not OK and pressure needs to be bought to bear on the issue. Plibersek needs to get her skates on.
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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 - www.transparencywarrior.com.au.