There's a glint of steely determination in his eye when Charleville grazier Dan McDonald tells you that his property rights are gone.
Mr McDonald says he has been put in an untenable position as a result of the Labor government's vegetation management policies.
He's no stranger to being in the headlines and over the past five years has become a lightning rod for the vegetation management debate in Queensland.
In 2017, he was convicted and ordered to pay fines and costs of $112,000 for six counts of carrying out development on his property without a permit.
After his appeal in the Brisbane District Court was dismissed, he went to the Court of Appeal in the hopes of getting his conviction and sentence overturned.
In late 2019, the Court of Appeal reduced his fines and costs to $10,000, citing the previous penalty as "a crushing burden".
Mr McDonald and his family run 400 Droughtmaster breeders at Wyrapa, where they've been for the past 16 years.
Like all landowners across Queensland, they have not been offered compensation for the loss of their "right to use our land and specifically, the right to use our vegetation".
"Up until early last year when the drought - I'm not going to say the drought broke - but we finally got some useful rain, we were at a point where we had approximately two weeks of feed left," Mr McDonald said.
"That rain came at a crucial time for us; we had one week to ten days left before we had to look at destocking and destock quickly.
"That's not because we were physically out of mulga, it's because we were legally unable to use the mulga that we had."
The most valuable element of property that myself and my family own has been taken from me and now essentially resides with government.
- Dan McDonald
Mr McDonald has described the government's policies around pushing mulga as the greatest violation of justice ever bestowed upon private landholders in Queensland.
As a result, he is seeking expressions of interest for a class action against the Queensland government for compensation of their loss of property.
"This action that I am proposing is what I see as the only means to take this out of the political spectrum; get the highest court in this country to essentially rule on this and vindicate our property rights with compensation," Mr McDonald said.
"That will do two things: it will correct the injustice that's been bestowed on us landowners and it will also provide, more importantly, an effective sanction against this sort of overreach of government taking place in the future."
With the state election looming on October 31, Mr McDonald says he feels like a political football.
"The most valuable element of property that myself and my family own has been taken from me and now essentially resides with government," he said.
"Every election cycle our property - and when I say our I mean the property of my family and every other landholder in rural and regional Queensland - our property is kicked around like a football.
"I've said for a long time that those fundamental principles of property law are, and must remain, above the reach of misconduct engaged in by deceitful political parties."
Speaking in Toowoomba on Thursday, Katter's Australian Party leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter said it was important to recognise that politics has failed the people of Queensland.
Mr Katter said his party was here "to be a lightning rod for those people who want to stand up and put some power back in their hands to fight back against these weak politicians that cave in to these ideologies".
"That's why private individuals have had to seek legal solutions to try to defend people's rights in this country and in this state," Mr Katter said.
"We stand behind Dan McDonald and we'll do everything possible to support and promote this action because it's the only option we've got at the moment to try and turn things around.
"If the government continues to undermine land tenure and property rights in this country then they are absolutely kidding themselves."
KAP candidate for Warrego Rick Gurnett said security of title was the foundation of a free democracy.
"If we can get the numbers, our plans are to repeal the vegetation laws along with the reef laws," Mr Gurnett said.
"Education is far better than regulation; the farmer uses considerable equity against considerable borrowings usually, so he's in the best position to manage his land because he's got the most skin in the game and is always going to look after his land the best."
- To register your non-binding interest in the class action, contact freehold2020@outlook.com or 4654 0366 by October 20.