The Labor dominated parliamentary committee has politically sanitised a three-year inquiry into invasive weeds in Queensland.
Late on Friday evening (6 December 2019) the State Development, Natural Resources and Agricultural Industry Development Committee dropped its long anticipated and delayed Inquiry into the impacts of invasive plants (weeds) and their control in Queensland, with only one recommendation, that the report be ‘noted’*.
LNP Shadow Minister for Agriculture Tony Perrett said to hand down the report
without any substantive recommendations showed just how ignorant the Palaszczuk
Labor Government is to the issues facing regional Queenslanders.
“After three years all Labor can offer up on an issue affecting farmers and regional Queensland is more secrecy and cover up,” Mr Perrett said.
“The fact Labor admitted that it never had any intention of implementing any findings from this report** is a disgrace.
“Queenslanders were told this was their opportunity to have their say and make a real difference, but after three years and thousands of combined hours of effort there is nothing to show from it.
“While Queensland loses the battle against weeds in this state, Labor Minister Mark Furner continues to play politics with rural and regional Queensland.
“This is the same Minister who committed $5 million of state funding to match the federal government’s commitment to tackle the spread of prickly acacia, and then did not provide the funding after the federal election.
“There
is something deeply unsettling about the Palaszczuk Labor Government’s apparent
failure to uphold its obligations to the management of the state’s pests, weeds
and biosecurity.
“This is yet another example of the Palaszczuk
Labor Government’s anti-farmer and anti-regions agenda.”
