Claims ministers are farmer bashing
DESPERATION to hold on to their inner-city seats has driven two Labor ministers into “farmer bashing” and “distorting figures about vegetation clearing”, according to member for Gympie Tony Perrett.
Mr Perrett said dishonest claims were made by the Deputy Premier and Minister for the Environment despite vegetation across Queensland thickening faster than it was being cleared.
“The claims are nothing more than purely about saving their political skins by demonising regional landholders in order to appease the wealthy, unproductive inner-city green zealots,” he said.
“It is pure electioneering by two left-wing ministers who are trashing the reputations of farmers and landholders.
“Using emotive language and nonsense comparisons to paint a doomsday scenario, the fear-mongering over the release of the 2015-2016 Statewide Land and Tree Cover Study (SLATS) was true to form for the Labor Government, which pays lip-service to the regions.
“To bump up their figures over land clearing rates they included such practices as fodder harvesting to feed starving livestock, and clearing fire-breaks and fence lines as ‘broad scale land clearing’. There was no consideration of vegetation thickening rates or acknowledgement that farmers are already unable to clear remnant vegetation.
“Not considering thickening rates is like watching the tide go out and then claiming the sea water has disappeared.”
Mr Perrett said he was not aware of any broad scale clearing in the Gympie region.
“As a landholder and grazier my observation is that it is thickening faster than it can be controlled in areas that have previously been cleared, or had absolutely no history of clearing,” Mr Perrett said.