AGRICULTURE and Water Resources Minister David Littleproud says farmers should not be given “carte blanche” when it comes to managing their land and environmental assets.
But amid the announcement of an agri-specific review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, Mr Littleproud said governments should be able to entrust them with land stewardship and management “in a balanced and mature way”.
The EPBC Act review was announced last week by Mr Littleproud and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg following a recommendation of the Productivity Commission’s comprehensive report last year into red and green tape in Australian agriculture.
Dr Wendy Craik will undertake targeted consultation to examine areas for possible reduction of needless bureaucratic interference and provide a final report to the government, by the middle of this year.
The review will examine the interaction between environmental law and the agriculture sector to ensure positive environmental and economic outcomes are achieved, a statement said.
Mr Littleproud said the federal government wanted to hear from Australia’s primary producers on “how we can get government out of their lives”.
“We’ve got this insane case in Queensland where the state government is trying to get involved in farmers’ lives (through proposed land clearing laws) but at the federal level we’re trying to get out of it,” he said.
“We want to empower them to do the right thing because ultimately farmers are the greatest environmental custodians because their profit and loss is intrinsically tied to it.
“I’ve seen it first hand – if the farmers go out and flog their land they don’t stay there very long because the land doesn’t respond to give them the returns they need to stay on the land and that’s the stark reality of it.”
Mr Littleproud said Australian primary producers had a great story to tell around environmentally and ethically produced food and fibre and “they should be proud of it”.
But he said people living in metropolitan Australia needed to overcome ignorance to understand what farmers were actually doing on their land, in terms of sustainability.
“Farmers are the greatest custodians of our environment because they have to be,” he said.
“We need to ensure we put the right framework around it and we can’t give them carte blanche - but we need to be able to entrust them with the stewardship and management in a balanced and mature way.
“Anything the federal government can do and any part of it where we’re in the road, we need to get out of the road, to encourage Australian agriculture and empower them to reach a $100 billion industry by 2030 which is a great aspiration of the National Farmers’ Federation.”
Mr Littleproud said he understood there was a statutory requirement to review the EPBC Act by the end of the year but after conversations with Minister Frydenberg they felt that an agri-specific review could be undertaken to see how the sector “interacts” with the EPBC Act and to “identify some quick wins”.
“That’s why we’re asking for primary producers and others around the country to come up with practical solutions and identify them now, so Wendy Craik can look at them and put them across the lens of the EPBC Act and how we can do them better, to streamline the process, cut the red tape and get out of peoples’ lives,” he said.
“We’re pleased Minister Frydenberg has listened to the Nationals and the importance of agriculture and taking it to a $100b industry.
“I gave the NFF a pledge when I met with them for the first time that I would go and fight for this, to give them a voice, and now we’ve given them that voice and empowered the NFF and their membership to come out and give us their examples, to get this right.”
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