A plan for Australia’s military to take over vast swaths of Queensland cattle country faces an escalating political backlash, including opposition from the Turnbull government’s state counterparts.
The $2.2bn expansion of military sites at Shoalwater Bay and near Townsville arises from a training pact with Singapore that the federal government trumpeted last May during the election campaign.
But it was not until last November that more than 60 cattle property owners in Marlborough and Charters Towers learned in letters from the Department of Defence that they may face forced resumptions.
About 170,000 hectares is mooted to accommodate 14,000 troops a year arriving from Singapore. Most of land on the slab makes up some of the country’s best, drought-resistant grazing property, home to 100,000 head of cattle. There is a further 5,000-plus hectares of national parks and state forest.
The federal government, which engaged KPMG to carry out a socioeconomic study of the plan’s impact, has fast-tracked the release of the exact properties Defence is eyeing to next month. But not before provoking community outrage in a region that includes one of its most marginal seats, Capricornia, held by Michelle Landry.
Up to 50 cattle property owners are believed to be in no mood to hand over their land titles without a fight. The political salvos fired on their behalf have come from some of the Turnbull government’s familiar antagonists – the Palaszczuk state government and the federal Labor opposition, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Katter’s Australian party.
But then, on Monday, the state Liberal National party opposition joined the chorus of complaint. The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, said he had written to Malcolm Turnbull asking that he “immediately intervene”, suggesting Defence had botched its handling of a plan that left rural landholders in limbo and failed to persuade the community that forced acquisitions were necessary.
“The ADF has dropped the ball on this and hasn’t clearly communicated the process to the potentially affected landholders or successfully justified the acquisitions to the wider community,” Nicholls said.
The shadow state minister for northern development, Andrew Cripps, said the agricultural land at stake was “too valuable to be taken out of production without a good reason” and it was not clear that “all alternative options have been fully considered”.
The shadow agriculture minister, Dale Last, said: “You simply can’t do this to our beef industry.”
Vying for the decisive contribution to a growing controversy, Hanson on Tuesday said she understood the proposed forced resumptions “may well breach” the Land Acquisition Act that empowered Defence to take over properties, as well as the constitution.
She questioned whether the need to accommodate Singaporean troops as part of a training deal under a free trade agreement met “the ‘public purpose’ as required by the legislation”.
“There is no public support in this acquisition, nor is there any purpose behind it,” she said. “The army has stated the public will benefit from this acquisition; however no benefit can be demonstrated.”
She added: “If the farmers affected by this land grab were to take the matter to the high court they would have a very arguable case that they might very likely win.”
Bill Byrne, the Queensland agriculture minister and a former lieutenant-colonel and commanding officer at Shoalwater Bay, dismissed what he said was “an opportunistic attempt by Pauline Hanson to get into the media space about an issue she has been very weak on”.
“When she spoke at the public meeting in Marlborough recently it was clear she had next to no appreciation of the issues involved,” he told Guardian Australia. “She has significant influence in the Senate. If she was serious she could tell Malcolm Turnbull that she will vote down every bill until he rules out compulsory acquisitions.
“The affected graziers want certainty. They need to know that the threat of losing their land and livelihoods has been removed. Anything less is not good enough. That’s what I have said since the day this shonky plan was revealed.”
The federal opposition’s spokesman for agriculture, Joel Fitzgibbon, was similarly dismissive about the utility of a high-court challenge to the community at this point.
“Legal action should be a last line of defence and, if it ends up there, landholders and local businesses will be living with years of uncertainty,” he said. “They need answers now. Labor’s primary focus is to get the government talking with those affected, to have them lift the secrecy and explain why other options aren’t available.”
Matthew Canavan, the minister for northern Australia and a Queensland senator from Rockhampton, has said the Australian Defence Force would only propose resumptions that were “absolutely necessary to meet military training requirements”.
The government would acquire any land “on just terms” and prefer to do so from willing sellers, Canavan said this month.
Some willing sellers have already emerged. Glenprairie cattle station – whose owners have ranged from a knight to a Greek shipping magnate and the family of Australia’s first billionaire, Robert Holmes a Court – sold this month for as much as $45m, the Australian Financial Review has reported.
But scores of families who have spent generations running cattle on land largely immune to drought are loath to start again elsewhere.
A protest rally for farmers is due to be held at the Lakes Creek Hotel, in the north of Canavan’s home town of Rockhampton, on Wednesday evening.
Fitzgibbon said it was “fairly extraordinary for the state LNP to be so critical of the conservative national government” on any issue. “But it hardly surprises me because this is a very big issue in Queensland and a matter that’s been very badly handled by the Turnbull government,” he said.
Fitzgibbon said the LNP’s stance meant “this should now be a slam dunk … a call to the Turnbull government that this thing has been so badly handled that they really need to go back to the drawing board and for the first time start consulting those affected in the communities involved”.
