Queensland Vegetation Management and Land Clearing Bill Passed
Monday 7 May 2018 @ 9.33 a.m. | Legal Research | Trade & Commerce
On Thursday (3 May 2018) the Queensland Parliament passed the Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 (Qld) (the Bill). This follows three days of debate and protests outside the parliament by farmers who argue the legislation will harm Queensland’s agricultural industry. To get the legislation passed during the current sitting, the debate was extended until 10.30 pm Thursday night. The final vote on Thursday night was 49 to 42, with the Bill's passage supported by the Greens.
About the Legislation
The Bill was originally introduced in 2017, but lapsed as a result of the Queensland State election, and was recently reintroduced. The legislation will:
- extend the protection of high value regrowth vegetation to align with High Conservation Values by:
- increasing the land types on which high value regrowth is regulated (as category C) to include freehold land,indigenous land and occupational licences; and
- amending the definition of "high value regrowth" to be vegetation that has not been cleared for 15 years;
- remove "high value agriculture" and "irrigated high value agriculture" as a relevant purpose under the Vegetation Management Act 1999 - removing the ability to apply for a development approval for clearing for high value and irrigated high value agriculture, and removing supporting provisions such as relevant purpose decision making criteria;
- provide consistent protection to regrowth vegetation near watercourses in all Great Barrier Reef catchments, by extending category R to include regrowth vegetation in watercourse and drainage feature areas in three additional Great Barrier Reef catchments, namely, the Eastern Cape York, Fitzroy and Burnett-Mary catchments;
- reintroduce provisions in the Water Act 2000 to require landholders to obtain riverine protection permits for clearing vegetation in a watercourse;
- provide enhanced compliance measures that will assist with enforcement of vegetation management laws consistent with other similar contemporary natural resource legislation;
- provide an option to landholders to request an area mapped as a category X area to be converted to a category A area, where the area contains remnant vegetation or high value regrowth vegetation on the ground; and
- support the implementation of the revised accepted development vegetation clearing codes (accepted development codes) including changes to area management plans.
For more detail see our article:Queensland Vegetation Management and Land Clearing Bill Reintroduced
Reaction and Comment
Queensland’s Natural Resources Minister is reported as saying that legislation:
The Guardian reports the head of the Queensland Conservation Council, Tim Seelig, as saying the legislation was important because it made Queensland's laws better and it corrected the direction of regulation in Queensland. He is reported as also saying he would have liked the legislation to go further in some areas:
The Queensland Opposition, the Liberal National Party (LNP), along with Katter’s Australia party and One Nation voted against the new legislation with the LNP leader, pushing several last minute amendments to the legislation stating they were:
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Sources:
Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 (QLD) and supporting materials - available on TimeBase's LawOne service
