We are needs based and grower focussed.

Mayor Helen Blackburn said it was an important initiative that would help Council stay informed about the specific challenges faced by the agricultural sector.

“Our Bundaberg Region is home to one of the largest agricultural industries in the country, we supply 25% of Australia’s produce during the winter months,” she said.

“It’s important that we continue to engage with the industry, understand the issues they’re facing locally and consider how Council can support them.

“I’m looking forward to working collaboratively with our ag sector into the future.”

BFVG CEO Bree Watson said the agreement was a chance to work proactively with Council.

“We’ve traditionally been quite reactive to Council decisions when it comes to planning and development rates and a whole other host of policies that impact on our farmers,” Bree said.

“We have a lot of urban encroachment at the moment with our farms, and we need to ensure that our community and our farms can continue to live in close proximity to each other and continue to move forward, acknowledging the role that agriculture plays here in Bundaberg.

“It’s the third largest employer and so it’s really important we have a vibrant community to ensure that our farmers can keep supporting the local community.”
Bree said signing the MOU was also significant to the wider Queensland agricultural industry.

“It’s my understanding that this is one of the only Local Governments that actually has an MOU with the agriculture sector,” she said.

“I sit on the Queensland Horticulture Council and everyone in that committee is looking to Bundaberg, they’re looking to this relationship that we have developed and they hope to develop ones similar in their own areas.

“So, it’s really important for us to get this right and to show other areas throughout Queensland what Bundaberg can do.”

BAFFA Executive Director Dale Holliss said the agricultural industry was a significant economic driver in the region.

“Intensive agriculture in Bundaberg’s worth about $2 billion a year, the Bundaberg regional economy is worth about $8 billion a year,” he said.

“So, it’s very important that we help Council understand what we need and that Council becomes needs based and outcomes focused, in terms of what it provides for intensive agriculture in this region.

“[Signing the MOU] is something that we’ve worked for, for the last 18 months and we’re very pleased to see an outcome.”

The Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019, was designed to apply to Great Barrier Reef river catchments. However, the legislation does not stipulate a geographical, or scientific property of a catchment that defines it as being a “Reef river catchment.” Instead, Reef catchments are “prescribed by regulation”.

The government in 2019 prescribed the Burnett and Mary Catchments as Reef catchments without presenting any scientific reasoning despite the following objections.

• The Burnett and Mary rivers do not discharge into, or anywhere near, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
• The closest coral reef (in the Capricorn-Bunker sector) is 75 km north of the Burnett mouth, and 120 km from the Mary mouth.
• The East Australia Current (EAC), runs predominately southwards, taking river discharge predominantly away from the Great Barrier Reef.
• The Capricorn Bunker Sector of the Great Barrier Reef, which is nearest to the Burnett/Mary mouths, is flushed by the huge quantities of water in the East Australia Current (EAC) – quantities that completely dwarf the Burnett/Mary flows.
• The water flow of the Burnett River for an entire year is equivalent to just two minutes flow of the EAC. And the EAC direction is largely taking river discharge southwards.
• Sediment: The nearest reefs to the Burnett/Mary are bathed, continuously, in sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. There is effectively zero sediment on these reefs indicating zero impact from rivers.
• Nutrients: The Capricorn eddy, which is often embedded in the EAC, upwells vast amounts of deep, nutrient-rich, water to the Capricorn Bunker Reefs. This eddy delivers up to ten times as much nutrients as the Burnett River, and very close to the reefs, rather than over 75 km distant for the Burnett. In addition, recycling of nutrients on the sea bed is around 100 times the discharge of the Burnett.
• Pesticides: Pesticides are in unmeasurably small concentrations on the entire main reef matrix of the GBR where 99% of the corals exist.

The worst facet of this issue is that no evidence has ever been advanced for why the Burnett/Mary catchments were defined as reef catchments in 2019. A useful step forward would be to invite the relevant science and management institutions to produce evidence for why the inclusion might be continued. This would provide a useful basis for a genuine scientific debate that would be valuable for the government to consider possible changes to the catchments prescribed, by regulation, as reef catchments.

Compliance with Reef Regulations

Growers are reminded that Compliance/Audit Checks from DES have recently occurred in the region.

The audits checked records from previous years as well as checking where growers had current Nitrogen and Phosphorus Budgets for their farm.

If any member receives notification about an upcoming audit please contact Matt Leighton for assistance in preparation for the audit, as well as being available on farm while the audit check takes place.