Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McGrath for his question and I recognise his longstanding advocacy for the great Queensland agricultural sector. He's right that last year the Queensland Labor government imposed draconian laws on our farmers, restricting their ability to develop their land and manage their land and to do what they do for all of us, which is to provide fresh and wonderful produce. What we have learnt this week is that the Labor Party and Bill Shorten are planning to bring these laws to Canberra—to bring these same draconian laws that are restricting Queensland farmers now to Canberra and apply them nationally. As the Prime Minister said this week, Bill Shorten wants to land-lock this country away from development, away from progress and away from growing more food. In fact, what he really wants to do is padlock the Queensland farming sector and the Australian farming sector to the land-lock laws of the Queensland parliament. And that's something we oppose. We support farming in this country. We support the hard work that our farmers do.

It's best summed up by the farmers who have been impacted by these laws. Peter Thompson, a beef and crop farmer in Queensland, has said that the laws in Queensland 'will lead to erosion because we won't be able to manage scrub'. He said:

It's really hard when we get these laws that have just been pushed through as a political football from the last election, affecting the livelihoods of businesses and the land.

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I know we are only borrowing the land and I want to make sure it's in a better condition when I pass it on to my grandchildren.

We recognise Mr Thompson's ability to manage his land and to be a good environmental custodian. But the Labor Party, with their mates in the Greens, have done a pre-preference deal arrangement. They've done a preference deal with these guys. They're going to, once again, screw over Queensland farmers and not let them manage their own land.