PERVERSE impacts of the Bligh Government's much-touted strategic cropping laws (SCLs) will strangle growth in agriculture and give the green light to rampant mining development.
The LNP member for Southern Downs, Lawrence Springborg and council officers briefed by the State Government say the very laws claimed to protect farming will instead pave the way for mining companies to expand even faster.
"It's exactly opposite to what Queenslanders expected and what we were promised," the former opposition leader said. "These laws, which were said to be pro-farming, are a black hood for farmers to wear while their businesses are destroyed.
"Farmers wanting to diversify by building a packing shed or a home-stay will be required to apply twice to State Government bureaucrats, spending $3998 and then up to $46,253," Mr Springborg said. "The SCL laws would require the Government to then reject any such project if it was located on strategic cropping land."
Mr Springborg said the only applicants able to sidestep rejection would be those with big projects, offering lots of jobs, ready and willing to go to court to prove that their venture was an 'exceptional project' in the state interest. "And we know who that will be," he said.
"No farmer planning a home-stay, a packing shed or a steel fabrication business could afford the costs and the delays that would be part of this process.
"And there's no way such a project could be classified as exceptional. On the other hand, to the coal seam gas and mining developers, these rules are tailor-made. For them, it will be easy meat."
Southern Downs Regional Council planning director Ken Harris, who attended a State Government briefing on the laws, said that within SCL protection zones, which covered a wide swath of southern Queensland, the laws would limit the construction of fruit-packing and processing facilities to a maximum size of only 750 square metres. Such applications were commonplace and the proposed restrictions would impact directly on output costs.
"And the laws would forbid farmers or co-ops processing fruit from one block on another, even if the farmer owned both," Mr Harris said.
Mr Springborg said the laws were hailed by the outgoing Environment Minister, Kate Jones, as 'her greatest achievement', but none of these serious shortcomings had been explained or revealed when they were in the pipeline.
"So if you are Joe Blow farmer, and you want a tractor repair shop, a craft shop, a chook farm, a restaurant or a second homestead, you can't do it," he said. "But if you are a mining company with six or seven adjoining farms and a plan for hundreds of jobs in a mine, you will have every chance to prove those jobs are important to the state's interest.
"When you do, you win."
Town planners attending a briefing by the Department of Environment and Resource Management at Dalby were told the laws would prohibit any use of SCL land that was not basic farming or cropping.
"Four councils were represented," Mr Harris said. "No one was expecting anything like this. The potential impacts on farmers are dramatic and the rural community needs to get a good look at the changes that have been made."
Mr Harris said landholders within the protection zone could not diversify their activity from basic farming - to build a piggery or a chook farm, for example - without first spending $4000 to have the SCL status of their land determined.
"There is no time-frame for that process, which could take months or years," he said.
"And as for the price, we receive complaints about council charges when they are only one or two thousand dollars."
Mr Springborg said the laws created a whole new bureaucracy. "Farmers will be waiting months, potentially years, for answers from bureaucrats when they are sweating on projects that may be seasonal or time-critical by their very nature," he said. "And all this is before there is any consideration of their particular project. Once again, the only people who can afford these delays are large corporations and, in this context, the corporations we are talking about are the ones looking to mine."
Mr Springborg said the impacts of the SCL legislation extended far beyond the area affected by the rapid expansion of the coal and gas mining industries.
"These impacts extend from the granite belt to the Lockyer, out past Chinchilla to Millmerran and east to King- aroy and Benarkin," he said. "So while my local council area may or may not be affected by mining, this new legal instrument will have our local businesses, the community and the council tied up in knots and with no end in sight."
Mr Harris said that, even on areas of a farm declared to be outside the SCL criteria, farmers would still have to pay a further $27,254 to propose an alternative use. "And on SCL it goes up again - to $46,253," he said. "That's where a proponent has to prove their project represents an 'overwhelmingly significant opportunity or benefit to the state', he said, "and the key word there is 'state'. It has to be something to impact on Queensland as a whole."
Mr Springborg said the changes would cause most pain when the local farming community could least afford it. He said options for diversification became critical in times of drought, or whenever on-farm income was under pressure. "That's when other sources of income are essential," he said. "They are condemning farmers to serfdom. Mrs Smith said the farmer might have a plan to sell lavender soap or open a restaurant. She has no chance. But the mining companies - I mean what's $46,000 to them? What is $10 million for that matter?"
Mr Springborg said the laws should be redesigned to match community expectations and the promises of the Bligh Government.
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