Reef laws Bill fires industry fightback
AN “EXTRAORDINARY attack” on cane farmers by an environmental group over controversial Reef protection laws has been described as akin to Bob Brown’s anti-coal cavalcade into North Queensland.
It comes as opposition against the State Government’s controversial Great Barrier Reef protection Bill hits fever pitch days before the laws are expected to be debated in Parliament.
The Bill, designed to improve the quality of the water entering the Reef including imposing new environmental standards on graziers and growers, has been condemned as “Big Brother” style legislation.
The new laws will increase fines for breaching environmental standards from a previous maximum penalty of $13,000 to as high as $217,365 and will allow unprecedented oversight into farming practices, including auditing records of fertiliser production to supply and use. Canegrowers Queensland recently undertook an advertising blitz opposing the Bill but the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has labelled them “hypocrites” for questioning Reef research.
“I will be very blunt to WWF and everyone else,” Canegrowers Queensland chairman Paul Schembri said. “At the end of the day it is 4500 cane farming families and more broadly 14,000 farmers in Queensland that will have to bear the brunt both in cost of compliance of this bureaucratic nightmare Reef protection Bill.”
WWF Australia chief executive Dermot O’gorman said Canegrowers’ attack on Reef science was undermining Townsville’s standing as a leader in Reef research.
“Tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars have gone to cane farmers to improve practices based on the accepted science that farm run-off harms the Reef,” he said. “It is hypocritical to accept that funding and then attack the science that underpins it.”
Dawson MP George Christensen said this was an attack” on growers.
“What the cane farmers are questioning are the Labor Government’s proposed laws; some people are asking questions around what evidence there is that is driving these laws, and that’s legitimate in a democracy,” he said.
Mr Christensen, whose petition to stop the laws has been signed by more than 1500 people, said the impact of the Bill was broader than just farmers and puts at risk Townsville jobs.
“It doesn’t just affect farmers, it affects the hundreds of people employed at mills … it impacts the “extraordinary people that work at the Port of Townsville and the people that transport the sugar,” he said.
Burdekin MP Dale Last said WWF’S trip to North Queensland to “bash our industries” would be welcomed at the same rate as former Greens leader Bob Brown’s bus tour during the federal election campaign.
“All that our responsible primary producers are asking is for the science to be reviewed, for the Government and groups like the WWF to stop portraying them as environmental vandals and for the Government to work with them, not against them,” he said.
Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said science was coming under attack for political purposes.
“Queensland LNP have taken on the role of flag bearer, with their plans to create an Office of Science Quality Assurance. This office of ‘alternative facts’ would be used to undermine science in this state,” she said. “The Reef is facing two major threats: climate change and water quality.
“We need to act now going to protect the Reef.”
IT AFFECTS THE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE EMPLOYED AT MILLS … THE PEOPLE THAT WORK AT THE PORT OF TOWNSVILLE AND THE PEOPLE THAT TRANSPORT THE SUGAR GEORGE CHRISTENSEN
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