Members’ Newsletter
14th July 2016
Vegetation management protests – Fair Laws for Farmers Rallys
There have been a series of rallys organised by Agforce to protest the Vegetation Management Reinstatement Bill. With these dates now set the interests of all would be best served by swelling the numbers at these rallys.
Saturday July 16 – Cairns – 10am – meet at Gordonvale Park, Corner of Norman and Cannon Streets.
Saturday July 23 – Townsville – 10am – meet at Tom’s Tavern car park, Nathan Street.
August 4 – Brisbane – details yet to be announced
August 10 – Bundaberg – details yet to be announced.
http://fairlawsforfarmers.com/event/save-the-date-brisbane-fair-laws-for-farmers-rally/
Clearing prosecution – restoration notices
PRA has long held concerns about restoration notices. According to a February news article DNRM are quoted that they have “has finalised 24 other investigations, where landholders were forced to replant, and is currently investigating a further 67 cases of unexplained clearing.” Board member Joanne Rea is starting a file and would like any PRA member who has been issued with a restoration notice to contact her or the PRA office.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-25/illegal-land-clearing-prosecution-queensland-figures/7201246
Vegetation Management e-petition
Those who are yet to do so please sign this petition; to do so click on the link below and look for petition 2569-16. Click on the words – ‘Vegetation Management (Reinstatement) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016’ and follow the instructions.
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petitions
Freeholding – Forest consent
For those with a freeholding application that has had forest consent placed as a condition to freehold there is a path forward from purposely over complicated mapping that makes it easier to concede the entire title to forest consent. Ashley McKay faced this problem in a freeholding application and has worked out what is needed to be done to simplify the mapping and only have forest consent where there are commercial timber areas.
Cluster Fencing
Cluster and Exclusion fencing has taken off around much of Australia and in particular, Queensland. If you are entering into a Cluster Fence through one of the NRM bodies, then please take the time to know your property mapping with relation to neighbouring properties. Much of Queensland has veins of state land in the form of access roads or access stock routes that border many landholdings. If your property adjoins state owned land, then you need to know where the boundary of this land is in relation to your boundaries, as in many cases this will negate the need to negotiate with neighbours regarding cluster/exclusion fencing as the State does not enter into fence agreements, unless their land is freehold. The Four Mile Map series has fine detail in relation to land access, fence types and also the width of any state owned land. The DNR are able to provide details of any state owned land also along with https://data.qld.gov.au/maps-geospatial/qld-globe The Terrance Alick map books also have access/stock routes marked on their maps. It is vital that you go fore armed with the knowledge regarding your land boundaries, as this will save many headaches further on through the cluster/exclusion fence process.
Self-assessable codes – Managing thickened vegetation
The Palaszczuk government in its changes to the Vegetation Management Act have allowed the self-assessable codes introduced by the Newman government to continue but said it will make changes to them.
So far only the Managing thickened vegetation draft code has been made available with submissions closing on August 2 – https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/our-department/corporate-information/policies-initiatives/vegetation-management/review-sac/draft-code-thickened
The proposed codes appear to be unworkable and will result in the thinning of vegetation to continue in name only being unpractical to undertake thinning in the field.
Please go to the above link, the draft code is the first link on the page and can be downloaded for reading. Scroll further down the page to the heading – ‘Provide your feedback on the draft thinning code’. Here is a link to a questionnaire that you can fill out & send in.
Qld Nature Conservation Act – Trigger maps
Landowners need to be aware not only the Vegetation Management Act administered by DNRM, but also the protection of endangered, vulnerable and near threatened (EVNT) plants in the Nature Conservation Act administered by DEHP. Please find attached an overview of the NCA trigger mapping by Steve Cupitt of Crossroads Consultancy.
Regards
Dale Stiller
Dale Stiller
Chairman
Property Rights Australia
Phone: 07 49 214 000
Fax: 07 49271 888
Email: pra1@bigpond.net.au
www.propertyrightsaustralia.org
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