Tasmanian Salmonid Growers Association Limited v Director of Biosecurity

This case sits at the intersection of biosecurity regulation, competition in a domestic market, and administrative law procedure. The commercial background was the arrival of Chilean salmonid products into Australia. The legal fight before the Federal Court, however, was not yet a final challenge to the underlying biosecurity settings.

It was a narrower dispute about whether Tasmanian salmon industry participants could obtain formal reasons, and potentially documents, for the government decisions that enabled those imports.

The applicants were Salmon Tasmania, an industry body, and three major Tasmanian producers: Huon Aquaculture, Petuna Aquaculture and Tassal. The Court recorded that they were engaged in the commercial production, processing and supply of salmon products for human consumption. Their concerns were not framed only as a policy disagreement. The agreed facts recorded both biosecurity concerns and concern about the commercial effect of a significant competitor entering the domestic market.

The Department had been engaging with Salmon Tasmania as a stakeholder for some time. It wrote in 2022 about assessing Chile's competent authority for salmon market access. In 2024 it provided updates about current salmon assessments and then advised that Chile's competent authority, SERNAPESCA, had been approved to certify salmonids sourced and processed in Chile for export to Australia. Salmon Tasmania passed that information to growers, and there was further direct engagement between Tassal and the Department.

By late 2024 and early 2025, the dispute had sharpened. Salmon Tasmania wrote to the Minister expressing concerns about biosecurity risk and market competition. It later provided an expert report said to criticise aspects of the 1999 import risk analysis as outdated. There was also a teleconference involving Department officers, NSW Food Authority, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Salmon Tasmania, Huon Aquaculture and Tassal. But informal engagement did not resolve the issue.

The applicants then moved to a more formal legal strategy: asking for documents and written reasons, and then commencing proceedings.

A key feature of the case is that there was not just one decision. The Court carefully separated at least two categories of decisions.

First, there was the decision to place Chile and SERNAPESCA on the Department's list of approved countries and overseas authorities for salmon. The Court referred to this as the list inclusion. That was an important step in the regulatory pathway, but the agreed facts also make clear that list inclusion did not itself immediately authorise importation.

Secondly, there were the permit decisions. The Court recorded that from 20 September 2024 to 28 April 2025, 41 permits were granted under section 179 of the Biosecurity Act allowing importation of uncooked salmonid products for human consumption from Chile and other countries. Those permits allowed 124 consignments of Chilean salmonid products into Australia.

The applicants wanted reasons for both categories. They also brought a separate preliminary discovery application seeking documents relating to the decisions. That matters because businesses often talk about a regulatory process as if it were one event, but in court each step may be legally distinct. A list inclusion, a permit grant, and a permit condition can raise different questions about standing, timing and whether the decision is one made under an enactment.

The reasons application was brought under section 13(4A) of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). The Court explained that section 13 allows a person who is entitled to seek judicial review under section 5 to request a written statement of reasons. That statement is to set out findings on material questions of fact, refer to the evidence or other material on which those findings were based, and give the reasons for the decision.

For the list inclusion, the Court identified several issues. It had to consider whether a request for reasons had actually been made on 3 March 2025, 12 March 2025 or 25 April 2025, and whether any such request was within time. It also had to consider whether the decision to place Chile and SERNAPESCA on the approved countries list was a decision made under an enactment, and whether the applicants were persons aggrieved for standing purposes.

For the permit decisions, the issues were slightly different. Because the permit decisions had not been furnished to Salmon Tasmania or the growers, the Court had to consider whether the request for reasons was made within a reasonable time after the decisions were made. It also had to consider whether the applicants were persons aggrieved in relation to those permit decisions.

The Court also had before it a preliminary discovery application under rule 7.23 of the Federal Court Rules. That application raised the usual questions about whether the applicants reasonably believed they may have a right to relief, whether they had made reasonable enquiries, and whether discretionary relief should be granted. But that application was not finally resolved in the orders made at this stage.

The chronology of correspondence mattered. On 3 March 2025, the applicants' solicitors wrote to the Department seeking documents and written reasons for both the list inclusion and the permit decisions. The letter also said that if reasons were not provided, rights were reserved to apply for reasons under section 13 of the ADJR Act. The Department's solicitors responded on 7 March saying the Department was considering the request. On 12 March, the applicants' solicitors pressed for a substantive response.

On 28 March 2025, the Department's solicitors responded and said the Department was not presently satisfied that Salmon Tasmania would be entitled to reasons. On 25 April 2025, the applicants' solicitors sent a draft originating application and affidavits. Proceedings were commenced on 28 April 2025. On the same day, the Department's solicitors sought clarification as to whether the 25 April communication was intended to be a request for reasons under section 13.

On 1 May 2025, the applicants responded that the Department's 28 March letter could be characterised as a notice under section 13(3)(a), but that they did not object to the Department treating the 25 April communication as a request for reasons under section 13. Later letters in May 2025 recorded the Department declining requests for reasons under section 13.

This procedural history is important because the Court was not simply deciding whether reasons would be useful. It was deciding whether a valid statutory request had been made, whether it was in time, and whether the applicants were entitled to make it. Those threshold issues often determine whether a business can get formal reasons at all.

The result was mixed, and it is important to state it precisely. The applicants succeeded only in part.

The Court made two declarations in their favour in relation to the permit decisions. First, it declared that the applicants were entitled to make the request for reasons for the decision to grant a permit or permits authorising the importation of salmonid products for human consumption from Chile under section 179 of the Biosecurity Act, being the decisions made between 20 September 2024 and 28 April 2025.

Secondly, for the purposes of sections 13(5)(b) and 13(6) of the ADJR Act, the Court declared that the applicants' request for a statement of reasons made on 1 May 2025 was made within a reasonable time after the permit decisions were made.

But the Court did not grant all the relief sought. Order 3 stated that the further amended originating application in the reasons proceeding was otherwise dismissed, subject to the reserved costs issue. That means the applicants did not obtain all the declarations they had asked for. On the face of the orders, the only express success was the permit decision reasons request.

The preliminary discovery application also remained unresolved. Order 4 adjourned that proceeding, part-heard, to a date to be fixed before 30 June 2026. So there was no final ruling at this stage on whether the applicants would obtain preliminary discovery of documents.

Costs were reserved, and the time for filing any notice of appeal in respect of orders 1, 2 and 3 was extended to 13 February 2026.

Businesses should read this case as a reminder that administrative law disputes are often won or lost on threshold questions before the court ever reaches the broader merits of the controversy. The applicants were deeply concerned about biosecurity risk and market competition, but the immediate court fight was about access to reasons and documents. That is often the first practical step in any challenge to government action.

The case also shows that a business can have a genuine commercial stake in a decision without automatically succeeding on every related issue. Here, the applicants obtained declarations only for the permit decisions. They did not obtain all the declarations sought in relation to the broader decision-making pathway. So if your business is affected by a regulator's conduct, do not assume that all connected decisions will be treated the same way.

Another practical point is timing. The Court expressly declared that the 1 May 2025 request for reasons for the permit decisions was made within a reasonable time. That tells businesses to move quickly, especially where decisions are not directly furnished to them. If you hear about a decision indirectly, through a website update, stakeholder email, market activity or a competitor's conduct, record when you first became aware of it and act promptly.

Finally, this case shows the value of a disciplined paper trail. The correspondence history was central. Businesses dealing with regulators should preserve emails, letters, website screenshots, permit references, meeting notes and any expert material provided to government. In a later dispute, those records may be critical to proving what was requested, when it was requested, and whether the request was framed as a formal statutory request.

Although this case arose in a biosecurity setting, the practical process point is broader. If a Commonwealth decision affects your business, one of the first questions is whether you can request reasons under the ADJR Act. That usually requires careful attention to four things.

First, identify the decision. Courts distinguish between a broad regulatory process and a specific decision. If you ask for reasons for the wrong thing, you may lose time and create avoidable disputes.

Secondly, identify the decision-maker and the statutory source of power. The applicants here focused on decisions said to have been made by the Director of Biosecurity under the Biosecurity Act.

Thirdly, consider standing. The Court identified whether the applicants were persons aggrieved as a live issue. A business should be ready to explain exactly how its interests are affected, whether through operational risk, compliance burden, market access, or commercial competition.

Fourthly, act quickly. Timing rules can differ depending on whether the decision was set out in a document furnished to you or whether you learned of it another way. Delay can become a separate fight before the court ever considers the substance of your complaint.

None of this means every request for reasons will succeed. This case itself shows the opposite. But a well-framed request can still be a powerful step in understanding your position and deciding whether a broader challenge is viable.

This page summarises the Federal Court decision in Tasmanian Salmonid Growers Association Limited v Director of Biosecurity [2025] FCA 1669. It focuses on the orders made, the agreed facts recorded by the Court, and the issues expressly identified in the published reasons.

The safest reading of the outcome is that the applicants succeeded only on the permit decision reasons request, that the rest of the reasons application was otherwise dismissed, and that the preliminary discovery application remained unresolved because it was adjourned part-heard.

Readers looking for a complete account of the Court's reasoning on every issue, especially the approved countries list issue, should keep in mind that the published material gives fuller certainty on the orders than on every aspect of the reasoning.