Reef regulations according to Steven Miles, Minister for the Great Barrier Reef, are to be broadened and enhanced. The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection released a discussion paper to which Property Rights Australia responded in a submission, finding concern with returning to the approach of government wielding the big stick. This is disappointing for although this approach yields political results in inner urban electorates; in the field cooperation provides the results rather than government coercion.
Discussion papers give an indication of which direction a government wishes to go. It’s where Department staff progress government policy and ask for feedback before drafting amending legislation or regulation.
There is certainly a broadening of the reef regulations with all agricultural producers being subjected and not just cane farmers who have borne the burden of government attention. It will be broadened to the far reaches of all the catchments from the tip of Cape York to the Mary River in the south. Although the regulatory proposals broaden to also mention impacts from urban, mining and landfills, the discussion paper continues the predominant focus on agriculture.
This all points to a worrying possibility of greater government control, which without local knowledge is easily mismanaged.
There is a great deal of ambiguity in the discussion paper which allows for a wide scope in which property rights can be impinged. Conditions are proposed under which agricultural production can “expand” or “intensify”. The paper introduces the concepts of “appropriate stocking practices”, and speaks of the necessity of affecting “land use change”, presumably in situations, away from agriculture. This all points to a worrying possibility of greater government control, which without local knowledge is easily mismanaged. This type of regulatory mechanisms provides the availability for government to achieve policy ambitions even though it may not be able to pass through amendments to other existing legislations. Landowners only have to recall what the government was set to impose on landowners in its failed vegetation management reinstatement bill.
The Minister for Agriculture, Bill Byrne, has said that the Government has used a vinegar and honey process to encourage landowners. With this paper it would appear that the honey has been given the flick in favour of the vinegar. View the report at http://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/assets/documents/reef/gbr-discussion-paper.pdf
- Dale Stiller, Property Rights Australia