ABOUT 20 minutes into his speech at the Agforce conference at Gladstone last Friday, Premier Campbell Newman strayed from his prepared notes to deliver a direct call to action to farmers across the state.
Mr Newman had been discussing his government’s much applauded reforms to vegetation management legislation which has given landholders some long awaited autonomy over managing their own landscapes.
After listing the reforms and the plan for further legislative changes in the coming months, Mr Newman looked up from the lectern and did not return to his prepared speech for the following five minutes.
Instead Mr Newman discussed candidly the greatest threat posed to enacting these future reforms – the green movement, which has long been adept at hijacking public debate.
Mr Newman said while the government was on the side of the farmer, he called on landholders across the state to stand up and become a more prominent voice against these radical environmentalist agendas.
Speaking to Queensland Country Life a few hours later as the government jet returned to Brisbane, Mr Newman set aside the Crime and Misconduct Commission scandal which had preoccupied the entire previous evening (where unknown to all at the time CMC chairman Ross Martin was already preparing his resignation speech for later that afternoon) to repeat his rallying cry for the agriculture sector to take aim at the unsubstantiated and misguided claims of the greens.
“I know the agriculture peak bodies do not always see eye to eye, but they should be united on tackling this green agenda issue,” Mr Newman said.
“They need a concerted campaign to brief media. They need to take the case directly to South East Queensland and tackle the green radical agenda.
“I think the issue is these groups need to play the game in the same way that the green groups do.
“They need to be in the face of the media and the public.
“We are a government who are on the side of the landholder and will stand up for them, but it is important the rural groups provide their weight to the argument.
“All too often we see reports in the news of Campbell Newman or John McVeigh being attacked by the green groups about a rural issue, but there is no proper input from the agriculture sector.”
