Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, I want to take you back to 2004, when the member for Wentworth was elected to this parliament. It was also the time when the Queensland government, under Peter Beattie, brought in land-clearing legislation. It was quite controversial at the time, but it saw land clearing in Queensland go down to 78,000 hectares in a year. However, under the changes brought in by Campbell Newman and Tim Nicholls when they were the LNP government and gutted the laws protecting Queensland from land clearing, we saw that the industry had not reformed and, last financial year, 2015-16, we saw that there were 400,000 hectares of land cleared in Queensland.

We know that, if we're going to reduce emissions, we need to start fixing carbon. We know that, if we are going to meet those Paris targets for 2050, we need to have a big carbon sink, and reafforestation will be big part of that. So I'm calling on the Prime Minister, who's been in parliament now for 13 years, to remember his time as environment minister under the Howard government and to remember when we were committed in a bipartisan way to meeting the Kyoto protocol targets and solving this environmental imperative, which is to make sure that Queensland's forests are protected and that the agricultural industry reforms itself and doesn't do broadscale clearing. It is absolutely imperative that we get back down to that 78,000 hectares a year under the Labor government.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.