Regional Pest Management Project Officer Rachael Payne (left) with Errol and Carmel Comerford, Turrawulla Station.

[wd_hustle id=’land-access-review’ type=’popup’]Published details[/wd_hustle]

Calls for contractor land access review

LAND access laws for government agencies and utility companies who access properties in North Queensland must be strengthened to safeguard farmers’ best interests, graziers say.
More than 60 graziers and industry leaders recently attended a pest Advisory Forum in Collinsville, where they raised concerns about biosecurity risks associated with outside bodies accessing grazing land.
They said groups who maintain power transmission lines, roads, rail lines, national parks, solar farms and coal mines had an obligation to maintain best-practice principles to reduce biosecurity threats.
But grazier Buster O’Loughlin said there was little graziers could do but request that those accessing their land comply with biosecurity requirements, and said he would like to see tougher land access protocol guidelines.
“We have energy distribution network service providers come onto our place and we can’t legally do anything about it apart from insist that they comply with our biosecurity requirements, to wash down their vehicles upon entering and leaving our property,” Mr O’Loughlin said.
“And that’s if we know what day they plan to enter our property.
“It’s near impossible to prove that someone else brought pest weeds onto your land, it’s time for all land managers to get a bit more fair dinkum about closing the risk.

“The annual financial cost to me as a grazier to manage and prevent weeds is enormous, and it’s frustrating when you know another vehicle, not owned by the property, introduces pest weed.  It’s a vicious cycle,” he said.
Grazier Carmel Comerford and her husband Noel own Turrawulla Station, near Nebo, and are also part-owners of a property at Collinsville.
She said graziers should be given more rights to better control those accessing their property.
“We should be able to control the people that come on our land better, and contractors need to be made more accountable for weed control, especially vehicle weed control,” Mrs Comerford said.
“Weeds are a huge cost to our business.  They put our agriculture, our environment, and our livelihoods under pressure,” she said.
NQ Dry Tropics’ Landholders Driving Change (LDC) and the Burdekin Dry Tropics Regional pest Management Group hosted the forum in a bid to better coordinate engagement between government agencies, utility companies and landholders on biosecurity awareness, policy and regulatory issues.