Friday, 4 April 2019

I rise to speak about an important matter in my electorate of Southern Downs. Most people would be aware that about a week ago there was an invasion of a feedlot at Lemontree owned by the McNamee family who are great constituents of mine. About 100 protesters forced their way onto the property, trespassing, harassing and intimidating the owners, their family and their staff. They came on to the site with no regard whatsoever for biosecurity or for the property rights of the individuals who run and own the site.

I have spoken with the McNamee family and naturally they are very distressed about what happened. It was quite disgraceful, in fact, that so many protesters could come onto their property and wander off and face no action whatsoever. I did hear the Premier this morning in question time say that she has sympathy for the operators of the feedlot and that she believes it is inappropriate that protesters should do such things, and I take her comments on that at face value.

I would like to see the minister for agriculture and the Minister for Police and Minister for Corrective Services come up with a plan now because we need something done. We hear noise about future attacks occurring in my electorate of Southern Downs and in other electorates, and I want to know that everything is being done.

I urge the Police Commissioner to undertake some sort of operational response to this, to monitor and gather intelligence on these protesters, these law breakers, so that they are better able to respond and to hold them to account. We need to make sure that not only are the laws strong but also the police have the resources they need to go to these properties when required and hold protesters to account, arrest them if necessary and make sure the message is clearly sent that our society does not tolerate this kind of terrorism and intimidation on our hardworking farmers.

I am talking about operators of feedlots. These are family operations of piggeries and feedlots who work very hard. They are primary producers in the literal sense; they create something from nothing. In doing so, they employ people, they grow wealth and they pay taxes to pay for people like us, politicians, as well as nurses, doctors and police. We need to look after them and we need to make sure their rights are respected because they pay a great deal to be compliant with biosecurity. It is a great affront to them financially as well as to their pride when protesters come on to their properties, and I want to see something done about it.