Property Rights Australia has slammed the State Government's moratorium on regrowth clearing, saying Labor has again shown its true colours of their "utter dislike, verging on hatred, towards the people in regional areas and in particular primary producers".
PRA chairman John Purcell says the program to freeze 1,000,000ha of regrowth vegetation "is nothing more than blatant theft".
"The existence of regrowth vegetation simply means someone in free enterprise has made a substantial investment to create new pasture or farming land," Mr Purcell said.
"Such a commitment and investment brings with it the requirement to control the regrowth to finish the job.
"Intervention by the Government has a devastating effect.
"The land will return to what it was originally, a form of scrub with no commercial value or productive potential."
Mr Purcell argues that the bans are not in the interest of science and conservation, but rather a pay-back to the green lobby for their votes in the recent State election.
"The Government speaks of protecting the environment by freezing vegetation regrowth control. What utter hypocrisy," Mr Purcell said.
"I refer to the open access given to the mining industry.
"Coal is a dirty and old-fashioned product. Nonetheless, the mining companies have open slather to destroy some of Queensland’s premier farming land, e.g. the Darling Downs of Southern Queensland.
"Why? Because the Labor Government depends very heavily on royalties from coal mining.
"We must remember that these mining sites are going to remain a blot forever and will never contribute to the future production of foodstuffs."
Email a friend