The Queensland government has again jumped on the populist bandwagon of regulating farmers to ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef with its recent discussion paper Enhancing regulations to ensure clean water for a healthy Great Barrier Reef and a prosperous Queensland.
The paper proposes including production horticulture for the first time, despite providing no evidence that horticulture is enough of a risk to warrant such a high cost intervention or saying how this might be achieved in an industry that comprises more than 120 different commodities. Successive government investment strategies indicated that horticulture is a lesser risk than other commodities and has consequently received significantly less funding.
It is concerning that again there seems to be a reflexive push toward regulating farmers as the solution to the reef’s ills. Farmers are tired of being demonised and a siege mentality is not conducive to innovation and best practice.
Farmers are not fools and they know that the scientists say the biggest threat to the health of the reef is not their practices, but climate change. The hypocrisy of pushing regulation on to farmers while at the same time supporting the development of a major coal mine is not lost on them. Many growers support the mining industry but there is a resentment that they are expected to shoulder the burden of “protecting the GBR” while the rest of Australia sit in their air-conditioned houses and demand the farmers “change their practices”.
Industry accepts its role in building the resilience of the reef through improved water quality and has made significant progress over the last decade, but most of the win-win options have been implemented. If there is an expectation that growers should change their practices to meet community expectations around the Great Barrier Reef, then they should be compensated for their lost productivity.
Farmers should be acknowledged for their role in protecting the reef from the impacts of climate change on behalf of Australia and indeed the world rather than traded off for votes in urban electorates.
