Media Release

Following last week’s the Queensland Government announced the $7m purchase of a Cape York cattle station to protect the Great Barrier Reef from river “run-off”. The KAP member for Kennedy, Bob Katter and Qld KAP Senate candidate, Joy Marriot question the science and call for a moratorium on State acquisitions in Cape York:

Mr Katter said, “This resource belongs to the people of Far North Queensland; not to the Government in Brisbane.

“They have taken all of the land and resources needed for the First Australians to stay alive, they’ve taken that away from them and they are dying of malnutrition in staggering numbers, malnutrition being described as diabetes.”

Joy Marriot is a Cape York land holder and was a signatory to the Cape York Heads of Agreement in 1996.

Ms Marriot said, “The people of Cape York, Indigenous and Non-Indigenous are uniting to call for a moratorium on the State and Federal Governments acquisition of pastoral leases in Cape York.

“We’re also requesting the establishment of a stakeholders taskforce to review current land use and tenure arrangements of all the properties that have been acquired since the signing of the Cape York Heads of Agreement in 1996.The State and Federal governments are signatories along with representatives from the pastoral and agricultural, indigenous and environmental sectors.”

Currently, there’re about 30 pastoral leases left in Cape York. As the government has acquired the leases they have divested tenure to indigenous owners and then immediately granted a 99 year lease to themselves for a National Park or slapped a conservation zone on it effectively locking all people out of the landscape.

There are no joint land management arrangements and no economic development opportunities for Indigenous owners.

Ms Marriot said, “The recent acquisition of Springvale Station for a government landcare experiment is a huge investment of public money with a questionable outcome considering Government’s inadequate management of national parks.

“Everything needs to be put on the table and a broad conservation held with the people of Cape York. The science is available, the studies have been done and Lakeland farmers have been given a clean bill of health in the recent Great Barrier Reef Water Science Taskforce Final Report.”

Mr Katter said, “And the Government with their self-righteous hypocrisy of how they are saving the planet and the Great Barrier Reef.

“Not one single commentator has attributed the problems on the Great Barrier Reef to run off. Every single commentator from David Attenborough down has attributed coral bleaching from global warming.

“And Australia has done absolutely nothing about its CO2 obligations.

“Our electricity can come from sugar cane, and our petrol can come from sugar cane and grain - clean, renewable, no CO2, so the hypocrisy of people that will deprive the first Australians, some of the poorest people on earth, from their right to stand on their own two feet and make a living, howling about the Great Barrier Reef when they have not made a single iota of effort to meet their obligations.”

##ENDS##