More 4 Agriculture

My Commitment to Our Farming & Prime-Agricultural Community

As someone who proudly calls Toowoomba home, and with deep roots in the country, farming life has always been close to my heart. My family comes from the land, so I understand the challenges and rewards of life on the farm. I’ve seen firsthand the resilience and hard work it takes to keep our agricultural industry thriving, and that’s why I’m all in for our farmers and our community.

Why I Care?

For too long, our region’s farmers have been taken for granted by the major parties. They have failed to deliver real support for our agricultural sector, leaving our farmers to face rising costs, crippling regulations, and the looming threat of destructive CSG mining on their own.

It’s unacceptable that the very people who feed and clothe our nation are ignored by politicians more focused on city-centric policies than on the needs of rural and regional Queensland. Our farmers have been left behind, and it’s clear that the major parties are more interested in protecting their own interests than standing up for our region.

That’s why, as part of my More 4 Agriculture platform, I’m fighting for real, practical solutions that put our farmers first. I’m committed to safeguarding our prime agricultural land from harms from mining, securing better access to financial support, and ensuring farmers get the mental health services they desperately need.

We deserve more than empty promises from politicians who only show up during election season. It’s time for a representative who listens and delivers. Our farmers deserve a fair go, and I’m ready to fight for them in Canberra.

This election, I’m asking for your support to Protect Agriculture and deliver the strong agricultural policy that our region has been waiting for. It’s time to put our farming communities back at the heart of our future.

Protecting Prime Agricultural Land – OP-ED

 Paraphrase from: Holt, S., Balmain, L. and George, D.A. (2023). Protecting prime agricultural land – executive summary. Queensland Royal Society

PREAMBLE

Agriculture and farming is the most important job in Australia. Providing fresh food, fibre, fisheries, forestry and pharmaceuticals are the foundation of a healthy nation. Therefore, to achieve this, protecting soil and water for national sovereignty/security and landscape health are paramount.

Protecting prime agricultural land so that sustainable farming can prevail and maintain healthy food production for all Australians now and into the future is essential, not optional.

Coal Seam Gas (CSG) encroachment on prime agricultural Land – viz. the Condamine Alluvium, threatens sustainable food and fibre production. Mining and agriculture on these land systems cannot co-exist. This is because of the combining impacts of climate change, landscape degradation, ecological biodiversity, and the unravelling socio-economic fabric that occurs with CSG development.

CSG ENCROACHMENT IS AN URGENT AND IMPORTANT PROBLEM IN THE CONDAMINE ALLUVIUM

(i) Law and legalities - a landholder’s perspective

The state laws are written to favour mining companies and make it difficult and expensive to navigate for farmers. Sustainable mining co-existence with farming in this particular area is a myth;

The precautionary principle is not being applied in assessment, and alternate ‘make - good' arrangements are fundamentally and scientifically flawed. The regulatory framework and make-good arrangements are threatening the short, medium and long-term future of agriculture in this prime agriculture area.

(ii) The importance of land and soil, and groundwater

The black soils of the Condamine Alluvium are unique insofar as they are fertile, deep, and associated with an abundant good quality groundwater reservoir, enabling permanent farming and cropping. And even though it makes up only about 3-4% by area of Queensland, it is responsible for about 25% of the state’s agricultural production;

Climate change increases the frequency, severity and duration of extreme events. Adaptation and mitigation are critically important now. Fossil fuel mining, use and reliance are incompatible with sustainable farming being promoted.

The groundwater system is inter-connected, where impacts on one part of the system has flow-on impacts to other parts of the system, including on surface expressions of groundwater, like artesian springs. Subsidence and drawdowns at certain tipping points are irreversible.

(iii) The economic and social contexts of CSG

CSG creates greater risk for farming whilst generating minimal income to the local economy. CSG development employs few local people. Those it does employ tend to be already skilled workers from existing businesses. This forces local employers to compete with gas industry wages, driving up costs and crowding out local businesses and jobs;

CSG is almost entirely exported with gas demand in Australia falling in all sectors;

CSG companies have pay little if any company income tax despite billions of dollars in income. Their royalties make up only 1- 3% of Queensland Government revenue;

CSIRO surveys show only 4-7% of local residents believe CSG development has changed their community for the better;

Social studies show that the expected benefits coming from CSG are grossly exaggerated and instead may fracture the community. In recent studies, the existing local business community who were most interested at the start of CSG developments were found to be the most disappointed and disillusioned following CSG commencement.

(iv) The Condamine Earless Dragon and ecosystem function

The Condamine Earless Dragon is endangered and endemic to this specific ecosystem niche. Impacts from mining are unknown.

Attention needs to be drawn to the issue of csg and farming which is both urgent and important because csg is already encroaching in this area and impacts such as groundwater drawdowns and subsidence are already evident. The subsidence is irreversible. The conventional wisdom to address the groundwater drawdowns is that it should apply the precautionary principle until it is proven to be reversible. Ignoring this practice means landholders take all the risk, now, and into the future. This has severe social, environmental and financial impacts and disadvantages.

PRIME AGRICULTURAL LAND NEEDS BETTER PROTECTIONS FROM CSG.

CSG impacts already show groundwater drawdowns, gas migration and subsidence;

Farmers are presenting with mental health distress owing to greater risk in production and sustainability threats;

Authentic consultation with CSG companies is tokenistic at best, or non-existent at worst;

CSG contracts are perpetual and burdensome on titles;

The impacts from CSG development are unmanageable in such a valuable prime agricultural landscape; rendering the co-existence of extractive industries and prime agriculture incompatible. No amount of planning can overcome legislatively deficient safeguards.

Prime agricultural land need better protections from CSG. This is because the impacts from CSG are irreversible on the land and groundwater systems of the Condamine alluvium. In addition, the financial returns from CSG are insignificant compared to the value coming from protections now for continued farming in these areas. Legislative amendments are urgently needed to better protect prime agricultural land and the associated water resources.

LEGISLATIVE AMENDMENTS TO BETTER PROTECT PRIME AGRICULTURAL LAND IS ESSENTIAL

Synthesis of these findings draws one to the conclusion that without appropriate risk assessment, and by ignoring and/or dismissing current scientific-based knowledge, certain land characteristics and land use types cannot feasibly coexist with the extractive resources industry.

It is then essential, not optional, to recommend amending appropriate federal legislation to achieve better protections of land, soil, plants and water, not only for food production purposes, but also for the environmental and the ecological health of this region, now and into the future. More specifically, amendments to the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 will enable these better protections for prime agricultural land and water resources.