AgForce has demanded the State Government come clean on a pre-election deal with activist groups to enact their radical environmental policies lock, stock and barrel if Labor was re-elected.
A submission by the militant groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation and GetUp to then Environment Minister Steven Miles was basically enacted into law exactly as they requested, leading to the disastrous Vegetation Management Act and proposed Reef Protection Bill.
The document was discovered in a Right to Information search.
AgForce CEO Michael Guerin said that, if true, the deal was clearly driving the State Government’s procession of ideologically-based environmental laws and their unwillingness to listen to divergent science-based arguments by the agriculture industry.
“We have suspected for some time that the Government is not interested in the views of farmers, even on legislation that so deeply affects them, their families and their businesses,” Mr Guerin said.
“Their pre-election deal with environmental radicals explains our battle to achieve better environmental and biodiversity outcomes so absolutely denied in the current vegetation management legislation.
“This week, we are again asking for sensible changes to the badly-thought-out Reef Protections Bill to make it effective, workable and fair to farmers.
“However, again, our calls are falling on deaf ears; we are struggling to understand why it has been so hard to get a hearing for our rational advice.
“A cosy deal between Labor and the environmentalists would explain a lot.
“It is the act of a Government that has abandoned its moral and legal duty to govern for all Queenslanders.
“It proves they are really only working for a small number of people in the south-east corner, primarily urban-dwelling Greens.”
Mr Guerin said the saddest part of this travesty was that, because the Greens’ policies were based on emotion and ideology rather than science and practical experience, this legislation actually harmed the environment.
“We have witnessed how selective science misused by radical green ideologists is slowly destroying our environments and biodiversity,” he said.
A great example of ideology over science is the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to native vegetation legislation that fails to acknowledge that there are 13 distinct bio-regions that require different management techniques.
“Far from supporting strengthened biodiversity and environmental outcomes, this pig-headed approach achieves quite the reverse.
“Now we know why.
“It is vital that the general public is made aware of this collusion, of who is destroying our environment, and of the sadness and frustration being felt by our farmers, who truly care.”
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