Wilkie calls for independent inquiry into salmon industry after deadly outbreak
Adam Morton
Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie has called for an independent inquiry into whether the state’s aquaculture companies are selling diseased salmon to the public after a bacterium outbreak caused a mass mortality event at fish farms south of Hobart.
Wilkie, the MP for Clark, and Peter George, an independent candidate in the neighbouring seat of Franklin and anti-salmon farm campaigner, held a press conference outside the Tasmanian parliament.
They said that while politicians and the industry had claimed that diseased fish were not sold for human consumption, a 2014 policy document from the salmon company Huon showed that staff were advised that “in any large mortality event, as many fish as possible should be recovered for harvest and processing”. It said “any fish in which the gills still bleed is potentially recoverable”.
Wilkie and George said this was at odds with claims by the salmon industry and the Tasmanian Liberal industry minister Eric Abetz that dying and dead fish were not harvested and sold to the public.
Wilkie accused the state government of “running a protection racket for the salmon industry and in the process risking destroying the industry”. He said there would be “increasing pushback from consumers” if the government did not act.
A lot of consumers want to eat salmon, they like salmon, but they want to know it’s healthy. At the moment, they have no confidence it’s healthy. I certainly won’t be buying any more salmon until I can have some confidence it’s healthy and sustainably produced.
Huon and Abetz have been asked for their response.
Key events
Smiggle sales slump weighs on Premier profit
Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments has posted a first-half net profit after tax of $117.1m, as key brand Smiggle sales slumped 14.5% on last year.
AAP reports that total sales were down 1.8% to $455m, excluding Peter Alexander UK, due to “a challenging discretionary retail environment”.
Peter Alexander meanwhile delivered record sales of $297.7m, up 6.6% on the equivalent half last year. Premier’s net profit before tax was down 12.7% to $148.4m.
The half in question was the last that Premier would own its Apparel Brands, including Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Dotti, Portmans and Jacqui E, which it sold to Myer in January. Premier also no longer holds any interest in Myer shares.
The results made no mention of fresh dividends for shareholders. Premier Retail interim chief executive John Bryce said Smiggle and Peter Alexander sales remained best in class:
Looking ahead, Premier Retail is focused on the future growth opportunities of Peter Alexander and Smiggle with investment in new initiatives for these much-loved brands.
Dee Jefferson
Art Gallery of NSW announces new director, the first woman in 154 years
The Art Gallery of NSW has announced its next director: Maud Page, currently deputy director and director of collections, will be gallery’s tenth director – and the first woman to helm the 154-year-old institution.
Page was appointed following a global search. She will take over from outgoing director Dr Michael Brand, who in his 13-tenure spearheaded the gallery’s $344m expansion, culminating in the opening of a new building in December 2022.
Page joined the Art Gallery of NSW in 2017, in a role that was responsible for the curatorial direction and public art commissions for the expanded gallery. She was previously deputy director at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, where she played a key role in developing their collection of contemporary Pacific art.
At AGNSW she has overseen key acquisitions such as the world-famous medieval Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, from France, and the recent Magritte blockbuster exhibition. Page said in a gallery statement:
I strongly believe in the transformative power of art and look forward to working with artists and colleagues at my neighbouring cultural institutions and in greater Sydney as well as further afield with regional galleries and museums across the state, to welcome new audiences and families.
She will commence in the role on Friday, 28 March.
Hanson-Young responds to US tech giants’ push for Trump to hit Australia on social media laws
Earlier, we reported that tech giants are pressuring the US president, Donald Trump, to punish Australia over its social media laws.
The Greens’ spokesperson for communications, Sarah Hanson-Young, issued a statement in response, stating that Trump is “not our president and Australians won’t be bullied by [his] tech oligarchs”.
Streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Disney make mega profits of Australian subscribers without any regulation or requirement to invest in the local industry and Australian storytelling.
As a sovereign and independent country, Australia has the right to make laws that represent our values as a fair society and protect our citizens online. We will not allow tech billionaires to undermine measures that keep our communities safe and cohesive.
Hanson-Young said Australia was “getting almost daily examples to show that in the Trump era our relationship with the US has fundamentally changed and it is time for [us] to chart a course for ourselves independent of the US”.
Calls grow for Aldi supermarket to open in Tasmania to improve competition
Independent Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell is doubling down on her call for Aldi to come to the state, amid the long-awaited competition watchdog’s report into the big supermarkets.
She said that Aldi was “crucial to keeping prices down at Woolies and Coles” and that Tasmanians were “suffering” because the “two major supermarkets dominate and we don’t have substantial competition like Aldi”.
Tasmanians deserve better grocery competition and cheaper grocery prices. It’s time we get what every other state has and Aldi comes across the Bass Strait.
Greens senator Nick McKim spoke to ABC RN earlier this morning from Tasmania and also called for the supermarket to enter the state:
Aldi doesn’t operate in Tasmania, and they should operate in Tasmania because it would insert a greater competitive force into the supermarket sector down here. And the same could be said for a number of regional areas around the country.
McKim said the current “oligopoly” operates “in an anti-competitive way” and “shuts out competitors who are considering entering a particular region or a particular area, and that is absolutely something we need to address”.
Molly Ticehurst’s alleged killer assessed
The man accused of the domestic violence murder of Molly Ticehurst has been mentally assessed and will face court again later in the year, AAP reports.
Daniel Billings is charged with the murder of Ticehurst, whose body was found in her home at Forbes, central-western NSW, in the early hours of 22 April.
The 30-year-old was freed on bail a fortnight before the alleged murder on charges related to Ticehurst, including three counts of sexual intercourse without consent and four counts of stalking and intimidating her.
He was also charged with destroying property at her house and aggravated animal cruelty against her 12-week-old dachshund puppy in 2023. Four more serious charges, including one count of aggravated sexual assault, were laid in December 2024.
Legal documents before the court accused Billings of threatening to cause Ticehurst further physical harm during the alleged assault. Billings is facing a total of 17 charges.
Legal Aid solicitor Diane Elston today told Parkes local court that Billings had undergone a mental assessment and the case could progress. Magistrate Michael Maher adjourned the case to the same court on 16 May.
He also removed Ticehurst’s name from an interim domestic violence order, which was put in place with the initial charges.
Wilkie calls for independent inquiry into salmon industry after deadly outbreak
Adam Morton
Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie has called for an independent inquiry into whether the state’s aquaculture companies are selling diseased salmon to the public after a bacterium outbreak caused a mass mortality event at fish farms south of Hobart.
Wilkie, the MP for Clark, and Peter George, an independent candidate in the neighbouring seat of Franklin and anti-salmon farm campaigner, held a press conference outside the Tasmanian parliament.
They said that while politicians and the industry had claimed that diseased fish were not sold for human consumption, a 2014 policy document from the salmon company Huon showed that staff were advised that “in any large mortality event, as many fish as possible should be recovered for harvest and processing”. It said “any fish in which the gills still bleed is potentially recoverable”.
Wilkie and George said this was at odds with claims by the salmon industry and the Tasmanian Liberal industry minister Eric Abetz that dying and dead fish were not harvested and sold to the public.
Wilkie accused the state government of “running a protection racket for the salmon industry and in the process risking destroying the industry”. He said there would be “increasing pushback from consumers” if the government did not act.
A lot of consumers want to eat salmon, they like salmon, but they want to know it’s healthy. At the moment, they have no confidence it’s healthy. I certainly won’t be buying any more salmon until I can have some confidence it’s healthy and sustainably produced.
Huon and Abetz have been asked for their response.
International students have little impact on rental crisis, research finds
Caitlin Cassidy
International students have little to no impact on the Australian rental crisis and are being “politicised” by Labor and the Coalition, new research suggests.
The study, published by Associate Prof Guanglun Michael Mu and Dr Hannah Soong from the University of South Australia, analysed 76 data points from 2017 to 2023 at the national and capital city level.
It found in most major cities, structural issues in the housing market were the primary cause of lower supply, adding some politicians had “blatantly attributed the national housing crisis to the rapid growth of international student numbers”.
In this context, the presence and impact of international student mobility are leveraged for political debates and agendas, rather than being addressed through evidence-based measures.
Prof Mu said the political discourses came on top of a “raft of other policy initiatives, including doubling student visa fees, tightening migration schemes, and proposing legislation to cap international student admissions for higher education providers”.
Australia’s economic security system needs ‘redesign’ amid threats – report
AAP has more details on the unclassified 2024 independent intelligence review, which was released today (as we flagged earlier).
Among the 67 recommendations was an economic security function be set up in Treasury to protect against financial threats. The review said economic decisions within the government was an area where national security risks were “becoming more challenging to manage”.
In our judgment, a system redesign is needed.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told reporters today that national security and economic security were becoming more connected:
So much of the uncertainty and risk that we see in the world, the geopolitical uncertainty, has an element of economic consequences attached to it as well.
National security and economic policy have become more and more intertwined. They’ve always been intertwined to some extent, but they’re now almost inseparable from each other.
The report said economic security threats had increased since the last time a review was carried out in 2017, due to shifting global tensions.
Queensland man accused of smuggling fugitive out of country
A man will face court today for allegedly smuggling a fugitive out of Australia.
In a statement, the Australian federal police said a Bagara man, 57, was charged yesterday under Operation Harrakis, which is investigating an alleged criminal syndicate suspected of helping serious organised crime figures flee Australia.
It will be alleged the man and another man crewed a vessel that collected an alleged fugitive during an at-sea transfer, before the three men sailed from Thursday Island in September 2023 and arrived in Phuket, Thailand, in early November.
The fugitive had been charged under Operation Ironside with dealing with the proceeds of a crime over $100,000, and conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs.
A search warrant was executed yesterday at a house near Bundaberg in Queensland, where police allegedly seized devices with correspondence between the man and offshore criminal syndicate facilitators, discussing arrangements for a fugitive to flee.
The AFP charged the man with one count of providing support resources to a member of a criminal organisation and one count of people smuggling. He is the fifth person charged as part of Operation Harrakis, which remains ongoing.
Australia joins London defence talks on Ukraine support
Senior military officers from more than 30 countries across Europe and beyond – including Europe – met in England yesterday to flesh out plans for an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine as details of a partial ceasefire are worked out.
A defence spokesperson confirmed an Australian delegation, led by air vice-marshal Di Turton, participated in planning talks in London yesterday, and said:
Australia remains steadfast in its support, and supports all meaningful progress towards a just and enduring peace for Ukraine. Australia will continue to participate in collaborative military planning at a range of levels.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he didn’t know whether there would be a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war but that “we are making steps in the right direction” as a “coalition of the willing” led by Britain and France moves into an “operational phase”.
We hope there will be a deal but what I do know is if there is a deal, the time for planning is now. It’s not after a deal is reached.
It is vitally important we do that work, because we know one thing for certain, which is a deal without anything behind it is something that [Russian president Vladimir] Putin will breach.
– with AP
Mass death of leatherjacket fish on NSW south coast investigated
The mysterious death of thousands of juvenile leatherjackets are being investigated, after they washed ashore on beaches across NSW’s south coast.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said there had been reports of dead fish from Lake Conjola to Narooma and that it was investigating:
Current reports are estimating numbers in the thousands of fish, mostly juvenile leatherjacket washed up on several south coast beaches, with the cause currently unknown. Samples have been taken to determine the cause of the mortalities and fisheries officers are continuing to monitor the areas for any further events.
Adeshola Ore
First person in Australia found guilty of arranging forced marriage loses bid to challenge jail term
A Victorian mother who forced her 20-year daughter to marry her eventual murderer has lost a bid to challenge her three-year prison sentence.
Last year, Sakina Muhammad Jan, 48, became the first person in Australia to be found guilty of arranging a forced marriage since the practice was criminalised more than 10 years ago.
In a 2-1 ruling handed down this morning, the Victorian court of appeal upheld the sentence handed down by the county court. A jury found that Jan had forced her daughter, Ruqia Haidari, to marry Mohammad Ali Halimi in August 2019.
Halimi killed Haidari five months after their wedding and is serving a life sentence for her murder.
US tech giants urge Trump to hit Australia on social media laws
Tech giants are reportedly pressuring US president Donald Trump to punish Australia over its social media laws, AAP reports.
The move is in response to the federal government putting in place laws to ban children under 16 from accessing social media, as well as measures to force tech companies to pay media organisations in Australia for content on their platform.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the reaction from the US companies were predictable, and told Sky News earlier:
It’s not surprising that the tech giants would have that view. Our job is to make decisions in Australia’s national interest, to protect kids online, for example, or to make sure that there’s a level playing field in our media with our media organisations.
It’s self-evident that [tech billionaires] are very close with the US administration. Our focus and our job is to make our case in the US, as we have been doing.
A lot of people around the country, not just parents, but including parents, they want to make sure that there are appropriate protections for people online. The tech giants won’t always like that.
