Labor’s fact-free vegetation management plan

 

                                 Andrew in Parliament  Jackie Trad Lynham

  • Labor being dishonest about vegetation management facts and figures
  • Jackie Trad refuses to acknowledge important facts in SLATS report
  • Labor inappropriately counts thinning activities as tree clearing

The Palaszczuk Government’s campaign to overturn the LNP’s common sense vegetation management framework has forced them into a fact-free policy zone.

Shadow Natural Resources Minister, Andrew Cripps, said a wholly dishonest media statement* from Jackie Trad, Anthony Lynham and Steven Miles was a new low and failed to acknowledge important facts and figures.

“These three Ministers have abandoned any pretence of wanting to debate this issue based on the facts, with figure fudging and scaremongering the centrepiece of the Palaszczuk Government’s latest defence of their flawed proposal,” Mr Cripps said.

“Jackie Trad, has all flatly refused to acknowledge vegetation management rates had increased to 261,000 hectares under Labor’s legislation in 2012-13 and did not not significantly blown out following the LNP’s amendments in mid-2013.

“The most recent SLATS report shows vegetation management rates under the LNP’s legislation remained static, despite Labor inappropriately counting thinning activities as clearing and failing to report fodder harvesting for drought separately.

 

 “Anthony Lynham’s claims that Labor’s amendments will not impact on the agriculture sector are a slap in the face to farmers and landowners who have expressed their serious concerns.

“ “His assertion that the majority of landowners won’t be affected by these proposed changes is nonsense, when they re-regulate regrowth vegetation, axe high-value agriculture as a purpose and slap extra restrictions on farmers in more catchments.

“Steven Miles, having outraged farmers and landowners by suggesting they shouldn’t rally in the Brisbane CBD ahead of the EKKA, has slandered Queensland’s agriculture sector again by asserting it is damaging the Great Barrier Reef.

“Despite this scaremongering, the latest report from AIMS makes it clear that coral cover was only declining on the Great Barrier Reef north of Cooktown, adjacent to catchments that are the least developed in terms of agriculture.

The Palaszczuk Government’s continued claims to justify its unfair and unnecessary amendments to Queensland’s vegetation management framework show it is losing control of the debate.”

*http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/8/4/lets-stick-to-the-facts-on-land-clearing

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