IT’s a well worn path for Queensland Labor. Belt a farmer over vegetation management and enjoy the political support of extreme, inner-city greens all the way to the polling booth.
This time around the belting comes in the form of winding back the LNP’s common-sense reforms to the draconian Vegetation Management Act (VMA) developed under the Beattie and Bligh administrations.
What adds insult to injury is the that heavily publicised round table process headed by Natural Resources Minister Anthony Lynham has been abandoned in favour of a star-chamber headed by Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.
The anti-agriculture lobby has simply sidestepped the minister and headed for the sympathetic ear of Ms Trad’s green, left faction.
Forgets the promises of working with farmers and finding workable solutions, Labor has lied to farmers once again.
In a nutshell the LNP reforms transformed the VMA from unworkable to the workable legislation including the development of a way forward for high value agriculture, enabling Queensland to grow its critical agricultural base.
The reforms also restored an important Westminster convention that all people are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Under Beattie and Bligh farmers charged with breaching the VMA were denied this natural justice. Anyone charged with breaching the VMA had little choice but to plead guilty with the hope of incurring a lesser fine regardless of whether or not they had commited any wrong doing.
The reforms restored ‘mistake of fact’ as a defense. Under Beattie and Bligh farmers breaches of the VMA could not be defended even where genuine mistakes had been made.
The reforms also removed the oxymoron of so-called endangered regrowth.
However, possibly the most important LNP reform was the introduction of self assessable codes. These green-tape busting codes allowed landholder to notify the department about planned routine vegetation practices rather than being forced to seek approval.
Importantly, all of the heavy penalties designed to deter breaches of the VMA remained in place.
Despite the rhetoric, Queensland Labor has chosen political expedience over common sense legislation that benefits all Queenslanders.
