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An Australian politician has brought an unusual prop to parliament to make her distaste clear.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young pulled a big, dead salmon from under her desk and held it aloft as she protested a proposed law to guard salmon farms in a Tasmanian islet which is world heritage listed.
The bill would guarantee salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour, situated on Tasmania’s west coast, and make it tougher for the general public to review and challenge environmental decisions.
The Green senator criticised the bill, accusing the federal government of ‘gutting’ environmental protections to guard a ‘toxic, polluting salmon industry’.
As she lifted and dead fish and spoke, politicians behind her grimaced and laughed, and even waved their hands in front of their faces over the presumably smelly salmon.
She asked Labor senator Jenny McAllister, who was representing the Environment Minister: ‘On the eve of the election, have you ever sold out your environmental credentials for a rotten, stinking extinction salmon?
‘Now that the rotting, toxic salmon industry has a carve out from the environment laws, what toxic industry might be next?’
The stunt caused some commotion because the senate’s president asked her to remove ‘the prop’, and Ms McAllister replied: ‘My view is Australians deserve higher from their public representative than stunts.
‘The one way that environmental change has ever occurred on this country is thru Labor governments.’
Labor says the bill is required to guard jobs in Tasmania’s salmon farming industry, with prime minister Anthony Albanese saying he ‘makes no apologies for supporting jobs’.
Environmental groups and the Greens are concerned about pollution and the impact on marine wildlife, including a rare fish called the Maugean skate which is just present in two harbours in the realm.
The laws passed within the Australian parliament’s lower house yesterday, with Labor and the Coalition voting together while blocking the Greens from having the bill considered by parliamentary committee.
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Intensive fish farming in the realm has caused oxygen levels within the water to plummet in that area, a significant threat to the Maugean skate.
But the federal government says it’s committed AUD$28million (£13.7million) to improving oxygenation within the harbour, in addition to funding a captive breeding programme for the endangered skate species.
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