Blair: Lessons to learn from Qld clearing

Farming and native vegetation controls are among the hottest topics in an election campaign that is poised on a knife’s edge. State government argue Qld falls short when it comes to environmental checks and balances in native vegetation policy, which has clouded the debate in NSW. 

“The experience in Qld is often used as an example of how not to enact reforms such as these,” NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair said.

“(We) have taken a fundamentally different approach to Qld, after listening extensively to public input into the consultation around the reforms.”

Qld Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk would bring in Land Restoration Fund and stricter land clearing controls.

But Ms Palaszczuk pledged to dump the reverse onus of proof aspect, which would have required farmers to prove their innocence on suspected clearing breaches.

Opposition leader Tim Nicholls, meanwhile, says she was pandering to inner city green votes, but has since made agriculture one of six drivers of jobs and economic growth in his party’s plan for the state.

Stats that clearing had “quadrupled” since the year before Newman took office, including a 33 per cent rise to almost 400,000 hectares in 2015-16, are often presented as a reason not to trust NSW with producer-friendly vegetation reforms.

Former NSW Deputy Premier, Troy Grant, even once told a press conference that reckless farmers in NSW were not welcome.

"If they want to be a cowboy, they can move to Queensland,” he said.

The new NSW regime is undoubtedly still finding its legs - with much still being learned about the package and many farmers still concerned about the reform settings.

But Mr Blair was confident it had the balance right, and was in a better place to help farmers sustainably manage their land.

NSW Farmers president, Derek Schoen, said Qld and NSW producers had similar concerns in terms of native vegetation regulatory concerns, nominating state mapping, and timely ground-truthing.

“There are also the ongoing issues with the workability of self-assessable codes that we share, and of course all states face the extreme complexity and duplicity of federal environmental law.”