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Isaac planning scheme hijacked by Green Agenda

The Isaac Regional Council is taking final submissions on its new planning scheme (submissions close on 20 July 2020). As the State Member for Mirani, I am making the below submission and I publish it here so you can see what my feedback on the scheme and, if you wish, you can copy and paste (make any edits you wish) and make a submission yourself. They just need to be emailed to records@isaac.qld.gov.au by 5pm on Monday, 20 July 2020.

Office of the Mayor

Isaac Regional Council

PO Box 94

MORANBAH  QLD  4744

 

Dear Cr Baker,

RE:     SUBMISSION TO THE ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL

PROPOSED NEW PLANNING SCHEME  

 

What is being proposed by the Council amounts to little more than a policy of “planned retreat” that will ultimately see the relocation of human habitation out of coastal, rural and forest areas and into sustainable, affordable, communal, urban ‘live where you work’ hubs that virtually every Environmental Minister since 1990 has advocated and legislated for in this State.

No shacks on the beach, no sole occupancy detached dwellings, no family homes, no backyards, no pets and definitely no living in the hills or bush or by a stream in your old age.  Just communal living in low rise unit developments everywhere, with as small a ‘human footprint’ as they can get away with forcing on us.

The proposed changes to Planning contained in the new scheme are part and parcel of an ongoing program of transformative and radical change through the use of stealth and incrementalism.  A program that is being carried out in Australia at a Federal, State and Local level.  It relies on the strategic presumption that small changes brought in gradually will not provoke community protest action or media attention until it is too late.

The introduction of four new hazard zone mapping overlays for coast, fire, dust and flood will have a devastating impact on the Isaac Region’s economy and its capacity for future growth.  For landholders, the adverse impacts will be many, ranging from growing restrictions on access and uses of land in the region, to other issues around insurance and legal liability, increased costs and an overall reduction in property and resale value.

These mapping overlays have been shown to be excessively broad in their zoning designations and through Public consultation meetings at Clairview, Stephen Andrew State Member for Mirani was informed by the presenting Cardno Engineers the mapping overlays were in error by 48% (They were only half right).

The Member also requested information at that meeting, concerning what an increased compliment of renewables/reduction of current emissions would have on the predictive water rises and was afforded no answers..

So renewable implementation has not been taken into consideration, why not?  Greenhous Gas emissions are supposed to be central to Climate Change temperatures and therefore directly related to Sea Level Rise predictions, which suggests these predictions are built on fiction, not hard facts.

Under these overlays, and Government’s propensity for expanding their boundaries, almost every property in the Region will ultimately be at risk of inclusion in the new Hazard zones.  This means every resident of the Isaac Region should be concerned with the direction this scheme is going in.  At this rate, we are going to see a complete lockdown of the bush and coast, with many areas highly regulated and taxed, and others completely restricted and off limits.

The new Scheme is neither proportionate or democratic in response to the various inflated ‘climate change’ risk assessments contained in the mapping overlays.

In fact, the erosion of Farmers’ Property Rights as a result of the State’s Vegetation Management laws will look like ‘child’s play’ compared to what will happen should these draconian changes be passed.

Common law ‘property rights’ as we and our forefathers understood them will be rendered meaningless.  At this rate, owning a property will become so loaded down with restrictions and additional costs that there will be no incentive or reason to own property anymore.

The whole idea of a democracy is that you elect representatives who will follow the public’s lead on what is right for the country and their region, but this isn’t what we’re seeing in Queensland anymore.  In the case of this new Planning Scheme, the people of Isaac Region are no longer telling their public officials what they want or need done, they are being told  what their public officials want done and how.  All to further a collectivist Green Agenda, bent on revolutionising land access, use and management in Queensland, whether Queenslanders like it or not.

I ask that the Council scrap the proposed changes to the Isaac Regional Council Planning laws for the good of the community and the State.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Stephen Andrew

Member for Mirani

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Labor switches reef weapon to fight farmers

AFTER a decade saying climate change was the greatest danger to the reef to justify killing coal, the Queensland Labor government now focuses on farm run-off to justify attacks on farmers.

I recently called on both the Premier and the Prime Minister to withdraw funds from the Reef 2050 Water Quality program and use the money to support the farmers trying to rebuild the Queensland economy. I was surprised to get a letter from the Premier saying run-off was one of the greatest threats to the reef when we have been told for years the biggest threats all came from climate change caused by coal mining, including warmer seas, higher sea levels, acidic oceans, and (first more and then fewer, but more intense) cyclones. They have changed the scientific “consensus” story because they need to pivot and start attacking a different part of the community.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, in her letter rejecting calls to redirect Reef 2050 funding, said the “Queensland Government accepts the established scientific consensus that land run-off is one of the greatest threats to the GBR”. But last week in Mackay, I met with leading reef scientist, Dr Peter Ridd, who not only rejected the notion of science by consensus but also refuted claims about run-off affecting the reef.

“My group took more measurements of sediment on the reef than any other group, put together, it does not get out to the reef, except for once or twice every decade or so,” Dr Ridd said. “They claim that the fertiliser causes Crown of Thorns starfish outbreaks, but a lot of this evidence is highly dubious. The most distant reefs, which are the Swains Reefs, which are a couple of hundred kilometres off here, that’s the area where there has been the most persistent Crown of Thorns starfish outbreak yet it’s the furthest away from the affected run-off. And in Western Australia, where there is no agriculture, there are Crown of Thorns outbreaks. So this idea that the run-off is killing the reef is just completely ridiculous and, actually, when you look at the data, the coral growth rates have not changed in the last 400 years. We know that because coral grows like tree rings and you can drill holes in them and you can go back with these really great big corals you can find out what they were doing many hundreds of years ago. There has been no change in growth rates since agriculture started on this coast. If farmers were putting all this poison into the water, the growth rate should reduce. They’re not reducing.”

By diverting money to fight an ideological war against a problem that doesn’t exist, the focus was shifted from the real environmental threats faced by farmers and the wider community. The major parties, at both levels of government, are spending taxpayer money on this ideological attack on farmers when they could be funding the fight against real environmental threats such as Giant Rat’s Tail Grass and lantana.

We have a wide variety of feral animals and noxious weeds having a direct impact on the environment, on farmers, production, and our economy, but it seems the socialist agenda of demonising farmers is the vote winner in the south-east corner. The majority of the population and votes is in the south-east corner where people are very insulated from the real world and the economies that drive the state. But if, heaven forbid, the socialist agenda was ultimately successful, there would be no mining royalties to build their tunnels, there would be no food on their tables, and there would be no clothes in their walk-in-robes.

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