Government is telling only half the story on land management
The Palaszczuk Government's admission tree survey data is flawed shows they are only interested in telling "half the story" around land management laws.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This week’s revelations the State Government can't accurately measure how much vegetation in Queensland had regrown after being cleared undermined their arguments to move away from sensible and workable land management laws.
Farmers manage vegetation on their land to grow food for people and animals to eat.
The reality is only about 0.1 per cent of woody vegetation cover is being cleared annually, and almost two-thirds of that is to control regrowth.
Just as you must mow your lawn regularly or it overgrows, farmers manage vegetation on their land to prevent thickening and to maintain pasture to feed their cattle and sheep.
AgForce has always said we are willing to work through a science and evidence based process, but the Palaszczuk Government is more interested in green politics than developing good policies and getting the science right.
AgForce absolutely agrees with the green groups and Health Minister Cameron Dick this will be an election issue.
And we will be making sure voters in multiple marginal electorates know how irrational land use laws based on politics rather than science will cost regional Queenslanders jobs today and their kids jobs in the future.
Labor's determination to re-introduce flawed land management laws if they are re-elected just shows that they have no plan to develop the north and don't care if they push up food prices for Queensland families.
Agriculture is one of the foundations of the Queensland economy and could grow from $17 billion a year to $30 billion a year over the next decade.
But only with sensible and workable laws that allow primary producers to manage their land and grow their businesses.
The agricultural sector, indigenous groups, the mining industry, the property industry and lawyers have all aligned in opposition to the Palaszczuk Government's flawed land management laws.
Grant Maudsley
AgForce General President
Stop the useless war on drugs
If any intelligent alien visited our planet they would ask many questions.
Where is Bach?
Or for that matter where are Mozart, The Beatles and Chuck Berry?
How did those great Renaissance artists manage to produce heart-stopping images on canvas from simple earth-based ochres and soils?
But their biggest question?
In the 1970s Richard Nixon announced a war on drugs.
Why on Earth are we wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a war on drugs?
This is a war that we are comprehensively losing.
We waste money on drug enforcement programs that don't work.
Why enforce more and more punitive laws that don't work.
Stop wasting money on stupid, pointless, ineffective and counter-productive expensive rubbish laws.
Drug addiction should be treated as a medical issue.
Portugal, Sweden and Spain have got things right.
They have stopped treating the drug problem as a "War".
It is a MEDICAL problem.
Lets forget the stupid rhetoric from the 1970s.
We will all be better off.
George Harley
Mount Isa