00:00The salmon industry processes thousands of tonnes of fish every year.
00:07Now critics claim customers should be concerned about what's on the shelves.
00:12What they're now consuming is diseased Tasmanian farmed salmon.
00:18A bacterial outbreak has wiped out at least 5,500 tonnes of fish in the state's south east over the past month.
00:26Opponents claim dead and diseased salmon are still being processed.
00:31That's partly based on Huon Aquaculture's 2014 Standard Operating Procedure.
00:36Which says that in any large mortality event as many fish as possible should be recovered for harvest and processing.
00:43And that any fish in which the gills can still bleed is potentially recoverable.
00:49Huon says the documents are outdated.
00:52However it would not provide the ABC its current procedure.
00:56And I do not accept that these are historic documents and are no longer valid.
01:02Because they are entirely consistent with what whistleblowers are telling us today.
01:08Salmon Tasmania declined an interview but said in a statement the industry only harvests live fish for human consumption.
01:16It did not respond to questions about whether diseased fish are sent to the market.
01:20But scientists say there's nothing to worry about.
01:23There's no evidence that it causes disease in humans.
01:26So I mean it's obviously quite toxic, it's quite nasty to fish.
01:29But in humans it doesn't seem to have any effect.
01:31As anger bubbles over in the south, the federal opposition has confirmed it'll support the Albanese government's amendments
01:38to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
01:42Ensuring the future of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour.
01:46We've absolutely, we've proposed it.
01:48We've been months and months and months ahead of the game in relation to the salmon industry.
01:53We have stood with the salmon industry, with workers.
01:56The support coming before details of what the legislation will do.
02:00We can have strong environmental regulation and controls.
02:04And we can also have an industry that supports regional jobs and regional towns.
02:10With the Liberal's support, the legislation will sail through Parliament.
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