John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To my staff and the various people who have run my office over the years—Ev, Pinky, Melissa, my current staff like Cathy and Gordon, John McDonald, who I had for years, and Bernice, Anthony and Kylie—all said I would never remember them. I remember you.

I also need to say something that I had meant to say when I delivered a report yesterday—that is, how wonderful the secretariats are in the committees here. Peggy and her staff, and Ashley and the rest of them, who were in our secretariat for the environment committee, were just so professional and so good. On behalf of the committee and the parliament, I thank them and their colleagues. I had not actually been involved in committee work for something like 10 years until I took over this committee recently. I had forgotten just how very good they are. I thank them.

In my very first speech here I talked about the injustices done to agriculture by green groups and governments, so I think it is pretty fitting that I finish up the same way. I have long been a critic of what Senator Robert Hill did when he introduced the EPBC Act—not the act itself, but the fact that he misled us to believe it did not give federal government the power to override states in some circumstances. It most certainly does, and it is most certainly quite draconian. The member for Watson, in his time as the environment minister, did not make it any less so. With all the state laws we have seen—New South Wales, who went so hard—it is not surprising the current government is looking at making it actually workable for agriculture. In Queensland, I remember warning a mate of mine when he bought country over the Macintyre River. I said, 'If you're going to clear, mate, do it now.' He said, 'They won't interfere.' I said, 'They will.' He did clear it, and he thanked me profusely because 12 months later he could not have done it. In the same way, Queensland has relooked at what previous governments have done and mitigated those laws. New South Wales has to do the same thing.

The last thing Australian agriculture needs is for the federal government to dream up laws to get on top of state laws on native vegetation, because, by God, they are bad enough now. They do not allow agriculturalists to look after the thing they treasure most—their land. There is nobody more interested in leaving the land better than they find it than farmers, who, more often than not, pass it on to their own children. Stand up for them; do not screw them.