The Queensland government has moved to rein in soaring land-clearing rates with new native vegetation laws reintroduced to state parliament.

The state government introduced the land-clearing laws last year, however they lapsed when the election was called.



The state’s natural resources minister, Anthony Lynham, reintroduced the laws to parliament on Thursday, after the Labor government promised to do so if elected to a second term in power.

Rates of clearing surged when the state’s former premier Campbell Newman promised to scrap restrictions, which his Liberal National party government did in December 2013. Rates then reached a plateau of about 300,000ha for several years.



But Queensland again underwent a dramatic surge in tree clearing – with the heaviest losses in Great Barrier Reef catchments – as the Palaszczuk government attempted to restore the protections. This attempt was blocked at the 11th hour when its former MP turned crossbencher Billy Gordon sided with the LNP.

Figures released in October showed a 33% rise in clearing to almost 400,000 hectares in 2015-16, giving Queensland two-thirds the annual rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

The resurgence of clearing suggested “panic clearing” by rural landholders – primarily graziers – in anticipation of Labor’s latest changes going through.

Lynham told parliament that the new laws would put back in place a framework for the protection of native vegetation in Queensland.



“These laws will protect our climate, our wildlife and our Great Barrier Reef, and the tens of thousands of jobs that depend on the Reef,” Lynham said. “Landholders will still be able to maintain their land and clear fodder trees to feed their stock, and the majority of landholders will continue to do the right thing, as they do now.”

Labor says the policy will reduce land degradation, protect water quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sustain biodiversity.

The Queensland Conservation Council has welcomed the introduction of the new laws.

The Queensland Conservation Council head, Dr Tim Seelig, said the new laws would draw a line “on a brief but shameful period in our recent history”.

“Recent land-clearing figures show a disastrous increase in land-clearing rates in Queensland, including in Great Barrier Reef catchments, resulting in tens of millions of native animals being killed every year and countless habitats destroyed,” Seelig said.

“Right now, we have a massive land-clearing crisis on our hands. We simply can’t keep bulldozing our native woodlands. That’s not a pathway to a healthy, sustainable future.”

Seelig said strengthening land-clearing laws had not caused a downturn in agricultural productivity in the past.

“Despite scare campaigns and misinformation from farming lobby groups, stronger laws, land restoration and carbon farming will be good for both the economy and environment.”

WWF-Australia said the bill was a major step forward in the battle to end the state’s tree-clearing crisis.

The WWF-Australia conservation director, Paul Toni, said that the “acid test” for the proposed legislation was if it could drive down excessive clearing rates, which had resulted in more than one million hectares of bushland being bulldozed in four years.

More than 5,000 koalas were killed between mid-2012 and mid-2016 due to large scale land-clearing, the WWF-Australia says.

“Scientists have repeatedly warned that koalas could become extinct in Queensland unless habitat destruction stops.”

The Wilderness Society said the proposed laws were a good start but there were “a range of outstanding issues” that the state government needed to address to stop broadscale clearing.

The Wilderness Society’s campaign manager, Gemma Plesman, said the legislation “will not stop all clearing of remnant vegetation”.

“The challenge for the government now is to put in place the plans and policies to protect all remnant and high conservation value vegetation as outlined in its election policy.”

Plesman also said the government needed to act to ensure that panic clearing did not occur.

“Already more than 1 million hectares has been targeted for clearing this year so there should be no reason to clear without approval,” she said.

The bill will now go through the committee process, with a report due back in parliament by 23 April.