Chamber and committees

I am sorry, Ariane, but I will have to hurry you.

We will move to our first theme, which is research and collaboration.

That concludes our business in public.

We will move on to our final theme, which is consenting and planning. The first question on the theme is from Emma Harper.

That is a good foundation for us to move on to further questions. Emma Harper will lead on our first theme, which is research and collaboration.

Colin, can I stop you? We are jumping ahead to an issue that will come up later. I ask you to restrict your questions to sea lice regulatory reform, and we will move on to planning and consent at the end of this evidence session.

Other than the economic impact of fish loss on salmon farmers, is the main issue with escapes the genetic introgression, which is the genetic interaction between wild and farmed salmon? Is that the number 1 issue, or can escaped fish cause other problems for the wild salmon population?

In the previous session, I touched on environmental outcomes. The prime objective in preventing escapes, other than in relation to the economic impact that it has on the farmers, is to avoid introgression. What role does fish breeding play in that? If we could prevent fish that escape from being able to breed with the wild population, would that not knock the problem on the head and result in the best environmental outcomes?

Your recommendations had unanimous support, which suggests that nothing was unreasonable and that there were no unreasonable asks of Government or the industry in implementing those recommendations. Why have we seen such a poor response to the recommendations and so little progress? Is there a lack of resources or ambition? Why have we made little or no progress on most of the recommendations?

Okay—good. I call Ariane Burgess.