Rural landholders in Queensland, Australia and the politics of environmental law

This chapter considers the political context and systems within which environmental laws are made and shaped. What has happened on rural land in Queensland and, more recently to environmental law and policy, has been dominated and fashioned by the political cycles, political systems and ideologies of successive governments. Consideration is given to a particularly controversial environmental law: the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (Qld). This Act, particularly for rural freeholders, engendered the gradual and ever increasing erosion into the traditional sanctity of private land ownership. Much of the angst with statutory regulation for rural landholders has been generated by the politicization of the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (Qld).The Act is frequently characterised by pre-election promises from the Queensland Labor Party followed by post election changes to the law. Such was the case in the latest Queensland State election in which a particularly controversial and retrospective amendment was brought about by the Vegetation Management (Regrowth Clearing Moratorium) Act 2009.