Over 1,300 Tasmanians have signed a petition calling for the cancellation of salmon farming expansion plans in Storm Bay.
The petition, which gathered 1,367 signatures in just over a month, was presented to Parliament on Tuesday by Greens MP Tabatha Badger.
It comes at a time when fish waste is washing up on other southern beaches and millions of diseased dead salmon are being dumped.
Badger said the petitioners are “watching on in horror” at the situation and have drawn a “red line in the sand” to stop it from occurring in their bays and beaches.
“What we’ve seen in the past week particularly is completely unacceptable and we absolutely cannot stand by and see a repeat of this happen again,” she said.
Local resident Greg Lawson said their bays are “not a place for toxic billion dollar foreign corporations to come and use them and abuse them like a septic tank”.
“There’s no social licence left to use these bays as a dumping ground,” he said.
When questioned about halting the planned expansion, Premier Jeremy Rockliff defended the industry and said the government would continue to “support measured growth” in salmon farming.
“Some members of the community and particularly the Greens have never liked the salmon industry and have always wanted to shut it down,” he said.
“And along with it sending many thousands of people to the dole queues, which we won’t have.”
Salmon Tasmania has previously stated that no fish farms are being proposed for Frederick Henry Bay or “within cooee” of Dodges Ferry and the Southern Beaches’ communities.
