Right to clear land assured

DECEMBER 6, 2016: ANY suggestion that the Federal Government will intervene and ban farmers from tree clearing is just utter nonsense.There have been media reports which gave the impression that Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg would “stop Queensland farmers clearing land in an effort to protect the Great Barrier Reef”.The Liberal National Coalition Government will not be stepping in and banning farmers from undertaking tree clearing on their own land.Any media reports which claim we will are overblown nonsense.This type of interference was pushed by the state Labor-Green alliance, who attempted to pass laws earlier this year to allow ‘green police’ to usurp the rights of farmers.Their attempt failed.Any suggestion that the Federal Coalition Government would seek to do the same thing goes completely against Liberal National Government policies to support the development of agriculture in Northern Australia. Our commitment to support agricultural enterprise is outlined in the Northern Australia White paper and the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper.The Federal Environment Minister is required to consider actions in circumstances where there are concerns of significant national impacts, but those instances are isolated and rare.Farmers can rest assured that they can get on with the business of running their properties as they see fit, because the Federal Government is not proposing to stop the development of agriculture in Queensland, or anywhere else.