The making and implementation of environmental laws in Queensland : the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (Qld) and the Land Act 1994 (Qld)

Abstract

Land policy and law are fundamental to the development of the State of Queensland; and instrumental in wreaking disastrous environmental consequences on privately held rural land. Such policy and laws have been indelibly shaped by prolonged political cycles and ideologies of successive State administrations. In the second half of the 1950s, a non-Labor government took office and held power for 32 years. This era encouraged, and often legally required, unsustainable land management practices. The demise of this conservative regime came in 1989: Queensland Labor took office and enacted a raft of environmental laws as part of a general shift towards biodiversity conservation. This research was undertaken primarily during this latest Queensland Labor administration. Two environmental statutes were examined. The Vegetation Management Act 1999 (Qld) (VMA) was a new statute enacted to redress the effects of broadscale land clearing on freehold land. The Land Act 1994 (Qld) (LA) was an existing statute upon which requirements for sustainable management on leasehold land were grafted. The aim of this thesis has been to advance understanding of natural resource legislation and contribute to the body of knowledge on State environmental laws. Each law is examined in the traditional doctrinal manner, adopting a conventional positivist approach and accompanied by socio-legal research. This methodology brings an insight into environmental law and the reality of the Queensland legislature and legal practice. This is achieved by analysing the circumstances which led to the creation of each law, including the political and parliamentary setting within which the laws were made; and by exploring the process of implementation. To assist the focus of this study, the thesis explores a series of research questions. Each designed to elicit an understanding of the making and implementation of environmental laws and to effectively link each component of the thesis to provide an integrated work. Both environmental laws aimed to rectify the degradation of rural land caused by unsustainable policy and law. Notwithstanding this common environmental endeavour, the making and implementation of each statute differed. The VMA has been one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to be made and implemented in the last decade of the Queensland parliament; conversely, amendments to the LA, never reached the same level of controversy. This thesis ultimately asks why the statutes differed and advances a range of explanatory reasons. By exploring this question, the thesis aims to show that the public environmental good, and long-term sustainability of rural land, can be more readily achieved with leasehold title. The concern, as discussed in the concluding chapter, is that leasehold tenure might be facing its own expiry in Queensland.