The state government has moved to substantially toughen protection for environmentally sensitive areas, with fines of up to $5 million proposed.
The state government has moved to substantially toughen protection for environmentally sensitive areas, with fines of up to $5 million proposed.
Landowner groups have complained the proposals will have a similar effect to the government’s controversial Swan Coastal Plains Wetlands policy, which Environment Minister Mark McGowan scrapped last month.
The protection of wetlands falls under the Environmental Protection Act of 1986.
Proposed changes include civil penalties for certain serious offences, and providing the Environmental Protection Authority with the power to use reasonable force when entering a property.
Penalty increases of up to $1 million and/or five years’ imprisonment are proposed in the case of individuals, while corporations could be fined up to $5 million for damage to environmentally sensitive areas.
WA Pastoralists and Graziers Association spokesman Geoff Gare said he believed the proposed penalties and environ-mental safeguards were excessive and posed a serious threat to those making a living from the land because of continued encroachment on landowners’ rights.
The PGA had welcomed the scrapping of the wetlands policy.
“It is wrong for anyone to believe that, with the removal of this one policy, the situation would be easier,” Mr Gare said.
He said there was increasing regulation such as clearing bans, which affected the use of the land.
Mr Gare said the PGA was aware of cases where farmers are not being compensated by government for the resumption of land they own, despite having to pay council rates and mortgages on land they cannot touch.
The wetlands policy may also be returned in another form, according to WA Property Rights Association chairman Leo Killigrew.
Mr Killigrew said the government was preparing a wetlands register, and he believed the implications for landowners, particular farmers, should not be ignored.
He claimed the government was using satellite photography to indicate seasonally inundated wetlands through colour differentiation.
“What constitutes a wetland if there are no real definitions being provided,” Mr Killigrew said.
“Government regulatory intrusion in land use has become so great as to undermine all previous notions of landowner rights,” Mr Killigrew said.
“People’s wealth is reduced by legislation which restricts their ability to invest in and make proper use of property, assuming that proper use means they adopt sensible environmental safeguards.”
Mr Killigrew accused the government of applying double standards in the city and the bush, saying he would be surprised if the government halted its residential development push through the Swan Coastal Plain over wetlands such as those removed by a Harvest Lakes style subdivision at Atwell, north of Mandurah.
