Labor romped home in Tassie. The PM’s salmon move worked

Tasmanian voters have endorsed Labor’s shift to protect salmon jobs from environmental challenges, as the government claimed two fresh Tasmanian seats, retained two others and locked the opposition out of lower house seats entirely.

But the politics of salmon farming continue to carve a course through the south of the state, with anti-salmon candidate Peter George coming second on preferences to Labor’s Fisheries Minister Julie Collins.

Salmon farming pens that proliferate along Tasmania’s south-east and west coasts are owned by eight companies including foreign-owned giants Huon Aquaculture, Petuna and Tassal.

The $1.8 billion industry made national and international headlines when a “mass mortality” event over summer caused by a bacterial outbreak killed more than a million fish, and led to chunks of salmon carcasses and oil globules washing up on beaches near the pens.

After salmon workers were filmed shovelling still-writhing fish from diseased pens, and sealing the lids closed, the RSPCA revoked its certification for Huon Aquaculture salmon. No Tasmanian salmon is now certified as meeting the authority’s animal welfare standards.

Meanwhile, farmed Tasmanian salmon has increasingly been on the nose. There have been mounting concerns about pollution, and the looming risk of the Maugean skate extinction.

As negative headlines grew, so too did industry concern for the more than 5000 workers it says rely on the industry (estimates vary between 1700 and 5100), and for the wider impacts losing the $1.3 billion industry could cause in the state.

In March, the day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the federal election, Labor and the opposition joined forces in the Senate to pass amendments to federal environment laws.

Those changes put a line under Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s formal reconsideration of the 2012 expansion of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour – in the electorate of Braddon – at the request of environmental groups.

Preferences were still being counted in Tasmanian seats on Tuesday evening, but the election has thrown the salmon industry into the spotlight as never before.

Climate 200 poured funding towards well-resourced independent candidate George, who for several hours on Tuesday appeared close to unseating Collins on preferences.

Those hopes were dashed on Tuesday evening, when Collins edged ahead to a comfortable 57 per cent of the two-candidate preferred result, with 84.3 per cent of the vote counted.

Saturday’s result shows Albanese’s calculations on salmon paid off in political terms across the state, but particularly in Braddon – which enjoyed among the biggest swings of the election.

Labor’s Anne Urquhart – an industry-awarded “Tasmanian Salmon Champion” – won the seat with a 15.09 per cent swing (as of Tuesday night) and a 57 per cent lead on retiring Liberal MP Gavin Pearce, who previously enjoyed a nominally safe 8 per cent margin.

Albanese had persuaded Urquhart – a popular local politician (who in March described Albanese’s environmental law amendments as “a lifeline for the community of Strahan”) – to give up three remaining years of her Senate term to run in the lower-house seat of Braddon.

Another captain’s pick, former Tasmanian opposition leader Rebecca White, retained Lyons for Labor on 61.1 per cent of the two-party preferred vote on Tuesday evening, succeeding retiring MP Brian Mitchell with a swing of 10.19 per cent. In the process, White turned an ultra-marginal seat on a 0.9 per cent margin into a safe Labor seat.

Elsewhere in Tasmania, Labor’s candidate Jess Teesdale claimed Bass from Liberal incumbent Bridget Archer, with a 9.8 per cent swing to claim 58.4 per cent of the two-party count on Tuesday evening.

The sole exception to the Labor landslide in Tasmania was in Clark, where long-term independent and outspoken opponent of salmon Andrew Wilkie held his seat with a commanding 70 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, ahead of Labor’s Heidi Heck.

As Labor romped in Tasmania (with Clark the notable exception), independent candidate Peter George maintained on Monday the election result vindicated the opposition among sizeable sections of the community to the salmon industry. In late counting, George was out polling Collins in areas affected by salmon farms, including Alonnah (South Bruny), North Bruny, South Arm and Woodbridge.

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