Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm new to this place and I've heard a lot of talk this afternoon about people's concern, but I can tell you that I am now wildly concerned, because it seems that there are those on the other side who think that there is only one farmer in Australia. The big sheep at Goulburn, the home of the Big Merino, surely would be an indication that there is more than one farmer in this region.

I just want to read a little bit of the statement from the minister this morning saying:

There has been strong antagonism expressed by the farming community about federal and state native vegetation regulation for some time. The concern was very serious. The revised listing requires farmers to assess whether there is 50 per cent native vegetation down to parcels of one-10th of a hectare, at highly unfavourable times of year because clover, an introduced species, must be excluded from the assessment.

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It goes well beyond New South Wales regulations and is costly and unmanageable, as it is difficult or impossible to be sure that routine pasture improvement or weed management is compliant. Ultimately, the revised listing would halt pasture improvement and efficient weed control across the Southern Tablelands and Monaro. It has the potential to do untold damage to agricultural productivity throughout the region, undermining the livelihoods of many of the 2½ thousand people who work in agriculture in my electorate.

That's what I want to speak about: the regulation, particularly around vegetation, is making it almost impossible for farmers, particularly in Queensland, who, under the state Labor government, have been strangled by red tape and regulation, to manage the land that they're expected to manage. They have introduced regulation that is difficult to manage and the department will not respond to questions to answer what practices they are able to use.

This place should be representative of all parts of Australia. Again, I am terrifically concerned that there is only a few of us here who understand the impost and the impact of regulation on vegetation on the most important people in the country—those people who are growing food and fibre for Australians and for a good part of the world.

The recent bushfires in Queensland were a horrific example of what happens when regulation and green tape go berserk. We were very, very fortunate that no person died in those bushfires, but I can tell you that plenty of animals, plenty of old-growth trees and plenty of native forests died as a result of regulation that didn't allow normal farm management practices to happen. Australian agricultural lands have been managed for tens of thousands of years by our First Nations people and now by landholders. Those normal practices of fire management were not allowed to be used and resulted in untold damage. I think it is very important that people be able to make representations to manage regulation that is not allowing good land management practices to happen.