{"id":144005,"date":"2016-05-07T01:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=144005"},"modified":"2020-10-15T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T02:25:00","slug":"farmers-angered-by-green-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2016\/05\/07\/farmers-angered-by-green-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Angered By Green Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At least 120 people crowded into the Kingaroy Town Common Hall to hear the two LNP speakers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

May 7, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least 120 South Burnett landowners packed into the Kingaroy Town Common Hall on Thursday to discuss the Labor Government’s proposed changes to the Vegetation Management Act.<\/p>\n

The forum was led by Shadow Agriculture Minister Deb Frecklington and Shadow Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps, who have been urging landholders to campaign against the Bill.<\/p>\n

AgForce and Mr Cripps have sponsored an E-Petition against the proposed changes, which the MPs have urged all South Burnett residents to sign.<\/p>\n

Mrs Frecklington organised the information forum so landowners could learn more about how the amendments would affect their farm businesses.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to help my constituents get a better understanding of what the Labor Government’s bill means for their properties going forward,” Mrs Frecklington said.<\/p>\n

“Right across the region, landholders are reporting the new restrictions on their properties being greater than under the previous Bligh Labor Government – in particular, regrowth being reclassified as remnant vegetation and Category R (regrowth) vegetation being regulated for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would really like to thank everyone who took the time to attend and we appreciated the number of excellent questions and interest shown by local land managers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Examples put to the forum included homestead “house gardens” being classified as protected vegetation on new government maps and watercourses – “or drainage features” – that only run one year in a hundred having protected “bank” vegetation zones that draw spiderwebs across properties located thousands of miles from the Great Barrier Reef, which the zones are supposed to protect.<\/strong><\/p>\n