LNP MP crosses floor on land recovery

A Queensland LNP backbencher has crossed the floor over the party’s support for the Palaszczuk government’s mining rehabilitation legislation.

LNP leader Deb Frecklington and Callide MP Colin Boyce.

A Queensland Liberal National Party backbencher has crossed the floor over the party’s support for Palaszczuk government minin­g rehabilitation legislation he believed could restrict the way farmers use their land.

In a rare breaking of ranks in the state opposition less than three months from the state election, Callide MP Colin Boyce said farmers and graziers were “sick to death” of being vilified and accused­ of being “environmental vandals” by the government.

Vegetation management laws have become a key issue in the past three elections in Queensland, with the tree-clearing legislation changing three times as the government changed hands.

Mr Boyce has angered some fellow LNP MPs who are concerned the dissent could be exploite­d by the Labor government just two months after LNP leader Deb Frecklington faced a destabilising campaign by the party’s headquarters. Ms Frecklington won unanimous support to lead the party but there is still some unease among the more conservative and regional membership of the LNP.

“I think they’re a bit taken aback, would be a reasonable assumptio­n,” Mr Boyce said of his colleagues after the vote.

Ms Frecklington said Mr Boyce was entitled to express his views to the house. The last time LNP MPs crossed the floor ­without party approval, over ­legislation to decriminalis­e abortion­ in 2018, it prompted a furious rebuke from then party president Gary Spence, who warned the MPs their preselection was not guaranteed.

The legislation Mr Boyce voted against would lead to the statutory appointment of a rehabilitatio­n commissioner to oversee the environmental replenishment of former mine sites.

Mr Boyce said the amendment created a risk that farmers would be caught up in the new law and subjected to “ideological politics” because the rehabilitation laws could apply new commercial cropping and horticulture in the Great Barrier Reef catchment.

The grazier, whose electorate takes in the rural region west of Gladstone and Maryborough, told parliament he rejected the bill “in its entirety”.

“On behalf of the Callide grazier­s, farmers and miners, I do not support this bill,” he said. Mr Boyce said he backed the idea of a rehabilitation commissioner on face value but the leg­is­lation’s intent­ was “entirely different”.

“The mining and resource sector already implements and practises world’s best rehabilitation and environmental standards that are second to none,” he said. “To overlay another level of bureaucracy is totally unwarranted­.

“Put simply, farmers will now face the prospect of having to lodge applications with a government department to plant their crops and this is disgraceful.”

Mr Boyce said the fact the rehabilitation commissioner would be appointed by the environment minister opened the position up to political interference.

Katter’s Australian Party also voted against the bill, along with One Nation’s Stephen Andrew and North Queensland First MP Jason Costigan.