Originally published by Matthew Denholm of The Australian.
29.05.2026
Routine farming operations have been criminalised by federal environmental law changes, say farmers, who are demanding Environment Minister Murray Watt intervene to avoid a hit to farm productivity and food security.
The green tape shake-up late last year struck between the Albanese government and the Greens qualifies “continuous use” exemptions, by which farmers have managed existing farmland largely without federal approvals.
Farmers say key changes mean they can no longer automatically clear regrowth vegetation older than 15 years, while they must assess any new activities that might impact “matters of national environmental significance”.
Senator Watt in February met Queensland farmers, reportedly assuring them he did not want the changes to impact routine activities or lead to perverse environmental outcomes.
But farmers say these assurances have not been reflected in discussions with the departmental team implementing the changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Instead, they say fencing, clearing regrowth scrub, building firebreaks and drainage, and even invasive vegetation removal appear to now need approval from Canberra bureaucrats.
Meanwhile, prosecutions have started and farm projects across the nation have been cancelled due to the new legal risk.
“Ongoing uncertainty is placing enormous strain on industry and seriously effecting decision making,” Cattle Australia chief executive Will Evans told The Australian.
“There are tens of millions of dollars in investment decisions currently on hold because we aren’t able to receive clarity on what is the reasonable application of the act to cattle enterprises nationally.
“The only clear outcome that has emerged from this legislation is the weaponisation of it by environmental activist organisations.”
Senator Watt’s department had been “inundated with poorly informed and completely incorrect allegations against landholders”, Mr Evans said.
Cattle farmer Adam Armstrong told The Australian the risks and costs caused by the changes had forced his Russell Pastoral Operations to halt several projects.
“Effectively, this (EPBC Act) now applies right down to a single tree or individual plant level,” said Mr Armstrong, who manages significant cattle properties in NSW and Queensland.
Plans to manage regrowth on a 136,000-acre property had been halted due to legal uncertainty. “We are not doing it, because there is enough doubt and lack of clarity in the department’s own interpretations,” he said.
He believed the changes would lead to perverse environmental outcomes, including by allowing single scrub species to dominate, including some that stifled other plants, leading to “deserts”.
“If you don’t manage regrowth you end up with monocultures that have no ground cover beneath them – so bare earth, and erosion and runoff,” he said.
“The very things they’re trying to protect – the Barrier Reef and our waterways – are in fact going to be adversely effected because we can no longer manage these things. You are going to have monoculture deserts with zero biodiversity.”
Uncertainty over the changes had also forced him to suspend plans to remove invasive vegetation to restore ironbark and white box grassy woodlands. “We’ve taken the view that will be too (legally) dangerous to do and will have to let it degrade further,” Mr Armstrong said.
He urged Senator Watt to get personally involved in the implementation to include “workable frameworks where we can continue to manage our landscapes without fear (of prosecution)”.
“Otherwise we are going to have massive losses in productivity and massive losses in biodiversity and ecological outcomes,” he said. “This is continuous (land) use. We’re not asking to go to remnant areas and clear it.”
Senator Watt told The Australian farmers had “always been expected to comply with national environment law”.
“What has changed … is that landholders are now required to self-assess whether any clearing of regrowth – trees which haven’t been cleared in the last 15 years – will have a significant impact on anything that’s nationally protected,” Senator Watt said. “If it does, they are required to have it assessed and approved under the EPBC Act.
“In addition, significant clearing of land in the Great Barrier Reef catchment will also require federal assessment, to prevent sediment damage to the reef.
“As I mentioned to graziers when we met, this change doesn’t represent a blanket ban on all clearing and brings the ag sector in line with what every other industry has to do.”
Senator Watt said the government was “simply requiring farmers to follow the same process that miners, renewables and property developers have followed for years”.
However, AgForce general president Shane McCarthy said this ignored the fact that farming was an existing, continuous land use – “feeding and clothing the nation” – and not a new, temporary extractive industry.
“We support practical environment protections, but without clear agricultural exemptions we risk undermining national food security and regional economies,” said Mr McCarthy, a fifth-generation sheep, cattle and cane producer. “Routine farming activities shouldn’t require ongoing permission from Canberra.”
AgForce modelling suggested the changes would cost Queensland producers alone some $3.5bn a year and slash state food production by 15 per cent.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan told The Australian the Coalition would repeal the changes if elected.
“Farmers are pulling their hair out because they can’t get clear answers on what Labor’s rushed laws mean,” Senator Canavan said.
“Farmers now feel like criminals under a Labor government that rushed to do a deal with radical Greens just so they could get a pointless parliamentary win.”
The government says fencing and firebreaks do not need assessment, but farmers say discussions with the department suggest otherwise.
