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

As I was saying, Central Queensland, my area of the country, was devastated by fires last year. Indeed, I was down in Miriam Vale in the middle of the fires and almost everybody at the community centre came up to me and the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, and the local member, Ken O'Dowd, and complained about the Queensland government's land-clearing laws and their inability to manage their own fuel on their properties to protect their own homes and their own families. These laws in Queensland are putting average Australians and their families at higher risk from bushfire because they can't even manage their own land. The Labor Party, without any understanding of any of this, because they don't go to Miriam Vale, want to impose that on the whole of Australia. It is absurd, and it is an insult to the farming communities of this country that they have not consulted them before adopting this policy.