The Queensland Government has withdrawn a controversial 'data siphon' tender, hours after farmer groups expressed alarm over what the Government intended to do with the information it gathered about Great Barrier Reef catchment farmers.
The Department of Environment and Science last week advertised a tender for a contractor to "identify existing information sources that can be used to develop a spatial database of agricultural producers in the Great Barrier Reef catchment".
But in a statement, a spokesperson for the department said the tender would now not go ahead as "part of the new savings introduced by the Queensland Government to reduce the use of external contractors".
The statement said the Queensland Government was seeking a contractor to collate publicly available information about agricultural producers in the Great Barrier Reef catchment to assist with dissemination of information about the new reef regulations requirements.
Canegrowers CEO Dan Galligan had expressed concern that the State Government would use information gathered to make cane, beef and banana farmers comply with reef protection regulations, introduced last year to reduce water pollution flowing into the ocean.
"Canegrowers was very worried last year when the last round of reef regulations went through Parliament, that one very strong provision was the Government wanted to give itself power to acquire information from third parties in relation to agricultural producers," he said.
"We want to know what the linkage is here to the powers they gave themselves last year to try and administer regulations."
Despite being a peak lobby group with headquarters in the heart of Brisbane's CBD, Dan Galligan said Canegrowers was not informed when the Environment Department called the tender last week.
'Better outcomes through voluntary practice', says Agforce
Farm lobby AgForce fought a bitter and unsuccessful campaign against the reef regulation laws which failed to amend the Government's bill.
CEO Mike Guerin said members had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build voluntary water quality standards, which had then been ignored.
"What we've seen through this term of government is the use of regulation and red and green tape," he said.
"We know we get better outcomes through voluntary practice change."
In 2019, AgForce deleted gigabytes worth of farmers' data that had been earmarked for peer learning resources to drive practice change.
AgForce said it was left with no choice, after provisions in the law meant data could be compulsorily acquired by authorities and then used to fine non-compliant farmers.
Mr Guerin said claims that farmers were deliberately trying to avoid working with the Government on regulation that would support better reef outcomes was wrong.
"This Department of Environment and Science [DES] seems hell-bent on collecting enormous amounts of data down to a producer level and using that for compliance," he said.
"[Farmers] have literally put hundreds of thousands of dollars into working with the DES and this Government, to get better outcomes and they've fundamentally failed to date.
"All they want to do it sit down with Government, sit down with the Department, find a better way forward and work together."
