“Spin doctor (noun) (informal):
a spokesperson employed to give a favourable interpretation of events to the media…”
And so we saw Tassal’s corporate engagement chief, Barbara McGregor, doing exactly that as she conducted a media tour over the salmon farm site in Okehampton Bay.
Like many rate payers in the Glamorgan Spring Bay Council (GSBC) area, I am at a loss to understand State Government and GSBC lack of transparency over so much of Tassal’s expansion onto the east coast. The first I heard of it was a casual comment by an acquaintance late in the 2015. By early 2016, a groundswell of concern had begun with the creation of a pressure group called Marine Protection Tasmania (MPT). That group, under the energetic direction of Wilhelmina Rea, has fought tirelessly for answers as to why it could be considered acceptable on any level, that an industrial fish farm be allowed to enter our iconic coastal waters.
MPT has managed to uncover much that is rotten in the industry and whilst the media has proved instrumental in getting that message out, at no point has government at any level, or Tassal, the company concerned, really engaged in depth and face to face with concerned ratepayers. In my view, it has been token consultation showing no sign of really listening.
Today, after hearing our Minister for Primary Industry, Jeremy Rockcliff claim on ABC Radio (14th June, Leon Compton Mornings) that he has listened to and engaged with the community, I decided I was tired of the empty and tiresome political rhetoric.
He has not listened.
Social Licence. It sounds like approval to have a good old knees-up with friends, doesn’t it? A bit of a bash with those you know are likely to make you feel good. A party. And it’s not that not far off the mark…
It’s a phrase a dear friend used when he and I stood on Long Point at Maria Island, on a day just like this.
Our respective families were not far from us, having fun, swimming, fishing, looking at life through a sea-lens. The day was perfection. He put his arm across my shoulder, and with his other arm, swept it grandly to indicate the Mercury Passage and Maria Island.
He grinned as if he was sharing a secret and said, ‘Where else in the world?’
