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Towns like Boulia, Bedourie and Windorah are not just gateways to the vast & magnificent cattle production region of the Channel Country, they are tourist hubs as well. The Big Red Bash, Birdsville Races and the Outback Golf Masters are just a handful of the events which bring tens of thousands of people instead of cattle moving about our roads and into and out of our production region. There is a significant surge of people moving about and spending money in the tourist season, bringing benefit to regional communities and I’m not just talking about Birdsville.

Did you know that businesses from Charleville to Quilpie and Longreach to Winton report that the week preceding the Big Red Bash, is their busiest period of the year? You see, these major events draw people to and through our wonderful state.

In our written submission to a recent Queensland Government roads inquiry, we’ve highlighted the problems, along with a number of possible solutions including recommending that the Queensland Government improve the trafficability of the existing road network through investments in bitumen, including appropriate overtaking lanes and causeways to ensure we can use our roads 24/7.

Outback tourism, the resources industry and the cattle industry have outgrown the existing road infrastructure.

Our road infrastructure and road maintenance programs are not growing at the same rate as Queensland’s economy, under the Palaszczuk Queensland Government. The onerous maintenance programs to maintain these unsealed roads has outgrown local Government’s ability to respond.

Birdsville is the only iconic town in Queensland without bitumen access. Our road infrastructure, quite simply, is being left behind.

When a livestock truck carrying a load of 132 head of organic cattle weighs around 100 Tonne, it puts a huge strain on the existing unsealed roads (compare this with a standard SUV that weighs 1.5 Tonne).

There is no-where else in Queensland where you put the same number of cars on dirt roads with trucks.

Heavy vehicle drivers who utilise the Birdsville-Windorah road are disadvantaged compared to their peers with regards to fatigue management & running costs. On an unsealed road, fully laden, they may only proceed at around 40 – 60kms per hour, compared to 80 – 100kms per hour on a sealed road. It means it takes longer to reach their destination, its more difficult to meet their fatigue management obligations, its more costly to maintain their equipment and they are less profitable.

In another example, properties in the Channel Country can’t get poly tanks delivered from Dalby anymore, because they don’t have anyone trained to drive on dirt roads. The tanks now have to come from Townsville. In business circles like these, dirt roads are dirty words.

Now we’re not suggesting that trucks cause accidents on dirt roads like ours. There were 50,000 new caravan registrations in Australia last year & there are no licensing or testing regimes for owners, which adds a larger safety risk on our roads.

When a car accident happens out here, as was case in June 2023 when a car rolled near Betoota, on the Windorah Birdsville Road, injured passengers are retrieved by the Royal Flying Doctor Service & airlifted to Mt Isa, Townsville, Toowoomba or Brisbane. At an estimated cost of $30,000 per retrieval, it makes sense to try to reduce accidents where possible. The Queensland Government paid the RFDS $50Million in FY22 for their services.

Wet weather events on the Birdsville roads are becoming more frequent, as is their severity. As detailed in the TMR Annual Report 2021-2022 pg 19  “Climate change is one of the greatest environmental and economic challenges facing the transport sector and Queensland is already the most at-risk Australian jurisdiction from extreme weather. It’s imperative TMR continues to work to improve the sustainability of Queensland’s transport infrastructure and services to deliver more resilient assets”.

We gave an example in our written submission, stating that subsequent rain events in Queensland in 2022, led to wet & closed roads. It cost our business $3M in lost export revenue for the year. To put it simply, just 10 mm of rain can close the Windorah – Birdsville road. When you can’t truck cattle out of this Country, you can’t get them to abattoirs near Brisbane and turn this unique resource into an export commodity, to benefit the Queensland economy.

In its 2022 Annual Report on page 55, TMR demonstrated the 20km and 9km sealing projects in this area have delivered important improvements in safety, reliability and travel times for freight and agricultural industries that use this central link to access markets in major centres across Australia and the world.

Let’s finish it.

A sealed road would support the Queensland Freight Action Plan. It supports Queensland’s freight system as a key enabler for the vital components of our economy, including production, distribution and trade. Through collaboration with industry, it provides the opportunity for businesses to be efficient, keep shelves stocked.

The State Government’s 2022 State Infrastructure Strategy would also be achieved with sealed roads – its strategy includes objectives around connecting Queensland’s regions digitally and physically to ensure families, communities and businesses can live, work and socialise across often vast distances.

Investments in bitumen would also align with the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, (Federal), which funds projects that improve the productivity and safety outcomes of heavy vehicle operations in Australia.

In its June 2023 report, the Queensland Government Statisticians Office provided unemployment rates across its 19 districts.  The “Outback”, which is where we are today, had the highest unemployment rate of 9%.  At June 2023, youth unemployment in the ‘Outback’ was 23.6%, the highest in any region in Queensland by a long way (2nd highest 14.6% in Ipswich)

A project to seal these roads would provide much needed employment to local communities and would allow the movement of people to attain and maintain employment more efficient.

On a similar theme, the Australian Bureau of Statistics produces Socio-Economic indices for Areas around Australia (SEIFA).  Whether it be socio, economic, employment, resources or education,  this part of Queensland scores in the ‘most disadvantaged’ on a 1-5 scale consistently.

We’re mindful of the challenges the world faces to feed a rapidly growing population expected to reach nine billion people by 2050. For over 25 years, we’ve been developing competence and expertise in the management of a global organic beef supply chain that originates in the pure heart of Australia.

In July 2023 we took the opportunity to provide a submission to the Queensland Government public works inquiry into the state-controlled roads between Birdsville, Bedourie and Windorah.

About OBE Organic

OBE Organic® produces the world’s best organic beef. We began in the 1990s as Australia’s first and only premium meat exporter 100% dedicated to the production of organic beef. Our mission is to help people lead better, healthier lives.

Formed by a group of far-sighted pastoral families in Thargomindah, QLD, our company was founded on century old traditions – raising cattle exactly the way nature intended. No chemicals, no pollutants, no hormones, nothing, except a whole-hearted commitment to letting the most enriching natural forces and environment produce the very best grass-fed organic beef.

OBE Organic contract processes fresh, chilled and frozen organic beef at a modern processing facility on the east coast of Australia. Our certified organic beef is available to grocery retailers, butcheries, restaurants and food service customers in the USA, Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Our Production Region

Our cattle are sourced from the pure and remote heart of Australia. It’s a place where logistics and connectivity are challenging, given the remoteness of the area and vast distance to reach regional hubs.

Outback towns like Quilpie, Windorah, Birdsville, Bedourie and Boulia are small but vital staging posts into our production region. Our free-range production operation is staggering. Together, our family farmers own over 8 million hectares of grazing land. That’s almost 20 million acres – about the area of Tasmania.

OBE Organic supplies beef to consumers 52 weeks a year and we need roads that are passable after a little bit of weather. We export much of our product to 15 different countries. Last financial year, wet, unsealed roads meant we were unable to move livestock to the processing facility on multiple occasions. This example reduced OBE Organic’s, and therefore Australia’s exports by around $3Million. By extrapolating our example, across multiple exporting businesses, there is a significant lost opportunity for Queensland and Australian exporters on the world stage.

Our Business Considerations

Our Sustainability Report 2023/2024 provides a snapshot of our efforts to deliver on our mission. The report shows that we take our commitment to people, animals, the environment and our product seriously. Whether you are responsible for moving cattle or people or goods or resources about the remote Outback, businesses have common needs.

Compliance: We need to comply with State and Federal Government Legislation like Chain of Responsibility (COR) as outlined within the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), Work Health & Safety Regulations (WHS Regulation), Animal Welfare Standards & Guidelines – Land Transport of Livestock and relevant codes of practise.

Paper-based National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) are used to declare necessary information about the food safety status of the livestock we purchase.

Traceability: The ability to trace livestock from property of birth to slaughter is critical for businesses like ours, which are compliant to the Export Control Act. We use technology like RFID tags to identify our animals.

Transparency: Internationally agreed upon frameworks like the Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef and the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), recognise transparency as key to meeting our social license to operate in years to come.

Future focus: In 2023 and beyond, improving supply chain resilience, growing and diversifying export markets, mitigating risk and harnessing opportunity will be key for OBE Organic, as the world collectively looks to recover from the business impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

OBE Organic has committed to the following:

• Encouraging State & Federal Governments to adopt policy supportive of our industry
• Contribute to the sharing of best practices across our industry
• Provide informed opinion to encourage constructive debate on industry matters
• Nurturing existing and developing new relationships with stakeholders
• Committing to capability development and training at all levels in our organisation
• Maintaining positive working relationships with relevant Peak Industry Bodies to influence policy positions.
• Participate in relevant trials of new technologies.

We’re mindful of the challenges the world faces to feed a rapidly growing population expected to reach nine billion people by 2050. For over 25 years, we’ve been developing competence and expertise in the management of a global organic beef supply chain that originates in the pure heart of Australia. It’s why we’ve taken this opportunity to provide a submission to the public works inquiry into the state-controlled roads between Birdsville and Bedourie and from Birdsville to Windorah.

But before we start. Let’s be clear. It’s not all about beef.

Towns like Quilpie, Windorah and Boulia are not just gateways to the vast cattle production region of the Channel Country, they are tourist hubs as well.

The Big Red Bash, Simpson Desert Ultra Marathon, Birdsville Races, Boulia Camel Races, Channel Country Ladies Day, Bedouries Races & Rodeo, Betoota Races, Windorah Yabby Races and the Outback Golf Masters are just a handful of the events which bring tens of thousands of people instead of cattle into and out of our production region. There is a significant surge of people moving about and spending money in the tourist season, bringing benefit to regional communities.

The problem

• Hundreds of kilometres of the Windorah – Birdsville Road remains unsealed.
• A portion of the Birdsville – Bedourie Road remains unsealed.

  ○ 15mm of rain to the region on a sealed road, is unlikely to close it or close it for as long as 15mm of rain on an unsealed road.

• Rain events lead to road closures which impact the movement of people, animals and supplies. Impacts can be significantly worse during the tourist season. Here are some media articles about the impact of rain events on our roads.

  ○ Birdsville Track closure leaves South Australian Big Red Bash goers stranded in outback town – ABC News

  ○ Outback Queensland towns Bedourie, Birdsville cut off by floodwater, groceries flown in – ABC News

  ○ Birdsville currently accessible only from the north | Queensland Country Life | QLD   

• There are several creeks and gullies which, when they are running, hold up the movement of people, animals and supplies during rain events. It depends on where the rain falls, for how long and how much, as to how long the creeks run. In wintertime, there is less certainty as to when the creeks will dry out and become passable again.
• Some vehicles don’t want to share the road with trucks.
• There is limited mobile-phone coverage, a patchy UHF network and unreliable sat phone coverage on the state-controlled roads between Birdsville and Bedourie and from Birdsville to Windorah.

The solutions

1. We recommend the Queensland Government improve the trafficability of the existing road network through investments in bitumen, including appropriate overtaking lanes and causeways to ensure we can use our roads 24/7.
2. Additional, significant and timely investment in road maintenance (on roads which are currently unsealed) immediately after major events like the Big Red Bash and the Birdsville Races, should be an immediate priority.
3. Regard should be given to communications for stakeholders using the Windorah – Birdsville Road & Birdsville – Bedourie Road. Consideration should be given to more rest areas, providing mobile coverage, like the stop at The Dreamtime Serpent, where mobile coverage is available.
4. Better signage is required to educate motorists about sharing the roads with trucks. (Refer Case Study 1)
5. Better signage is required to educate motorists about overtaking on outback roads. (Refer Case Study 2)
6. Whether you are in the business of beef or tourism, resources, disaster management or Local Government, the business case for investment in our road networks should be broadened to consider the perspective of, or impact on, products and animals, as well as people. (Refer Case Study 3 and Refer Case Study 4)
7. Improved maintenance of UHF Repeaters (Refer Case Study 5)
8. A more localised road reporting system is required for Western Queensland.
   (Refer Case Study 6)

Future Opportunities with Better Regional Infrastructure & Connectivity

• Safer roads which are more accessible to more people and businesses, more often.
• More efficient supply chains.
• An increase in Australia’s export volumes
• Better performance reporting at a business, Local Government, State and Federal Government level.
• More and better use of CCTV for safety purposes.
• Better monitoring and compliance to manage biosecurity risks.
• Improved ability to selectively activate ‘surge’ capacity across digital infrastructure for major events or major disasters.
• The ability to move animals, products or people from one place to another with more and better compliance, safety and transparency.
• Decreased risk of Animal Welfare issues caused by the inability to move livestock off property when flooding rains further north in the Lake Eyre Basin Catchment, causes flooding to southern areas, that have not received local rain for pasture growth.
• Increased security of income for contractors and service providers that are unable to operate when roads are impassable.
• Improved health outcomes as communities have more and better access to Specialist services like the Heart of Australia ‘Heart Bus’ and the RFDS Dental Service.

Moving livestock in the tourist season

With thousands of vehicles, many of which are towing large caravans, on regional roads during tourist season, livestock transport is impacted by way of transit times.

During particularly large events like the Birdsville Races and the Big Red Bash, it is necessary to try to avoid hauling livestock on regional roads during the periods when vehicles are bumping into Birdsville and bumping out. Livestock movements must be coordinated to either cancel, delay or divert movements, to avoid interactions with vehicles attending major events, on unsealed roads.

Case Study #1 – Cars & Trucks on roads

Some cars don’t want to share the road with trucks.

We’ve heard of one circumstance where a truck and vehicle pulling a caravan came to a dead stop, facing each other, with the vehicle refusing to pull off the road to let the fully laden truck pass along the single lane bitumen. They were worried they would slide into the table drain and be unable to get out. The situation was only resolved when the truck driver negotiated that he would arrange to have the car and caravan pulled out of the drain, if they did slide into it.

For the vehicles with UHF radios, who do give way to the trucks on the Windorah – Birdsville Road, we understand that they communicate on Channel 40 by way of comments to the truck driver like, ‘It’s all yours. We’ll get out of the way.

Local Governments, Safety Bodies and concerned individuals have attempted to educate caravan towers on road etiquette, however, there is no guarantee that they are aware of the Best Practice when sharing roads with Heavy Vehicles. This increases the risk of accidents in remote areas.

Case Study #2 – Overtaking on dirt roads.

With a full load of cattle, livestock trucks will typically move at around 60km/hour or less, on unsealed roads. This is frustratingly slow for tourists, leading some to sit behind the truck and proceed inefficiently on their journey. This creates a long queue of traffic, which is held up due to their inability to overtake on the existing gravel roads.

Others will attempt to overtake the truck, leading to a high risk of an accident. When the wind is blowing left to right across the unsealed roads, vehicles attempting to overtake the truck on the right-hand side will be driving into a wall of dust. Essentially, they will have zero visibility as they overtake at speed. If a vehicle is coming in the other direction, there is a high chance of a head on collision.

To provide an overtaking opportunity in these circumstances, the only solution is for the truck to move to the right-hand side of the unsealed road, allowing the vehicle to overtake on the left-hand side of the road, to ensure a clear line of site during the overtaking maneuver. This is only possible when all drivers have UHF connection with the road train. Bitumen roads will provide safe overtaking opportunities.

Moving supplies in the tourist season

The Queensland Government must prioritise the movement of essential supplies on unsealed outback roads, which can be severely impacted by wet weather events.

Case Study #3 – Fuel logistics

Fuel supplies to Birdsville are typically hauled from Quilpie via Windorah to Birdsville. During tourist season, the fuel trucks haul more fuel, more often. During the Big Red Bash, they pull 3 trailers at time, each holding 30,000 Litres of fuel. It’s about 130 Tonne, per movement. During the Big Red Bash, approximately 5000 vehicles need to fill up in Birdsville.

To cater for the fuel needs of tourists during the Big Red Bash, approximately 300 000 Litres of fuel are needed in Birdsville and another 700 000 Litres are needed in feeder towns like Windorah, Bedourie and Boulia. 300 000 Litres would typically be delivered to Birdsville from Quilpie in three truck movements.

Last year, when rain closed the Windorah – Birdsville Road, the fuel truck had to travel from Quilpie up to Winton, across to Boulia and down to Bedourie and then Birdsville, to deliver fuel to the Birdsville community. That’s an awfully long round trip and at significant costs to business. Had the Windorah to Birdsville Road been all-weather & open, this detour could have been avoided.

Ahead of the Big Red Bash in July 2023, the first movement of 94,000 Litres of fuel was hauled to Birdsville from Quilpie. The Windorah – Birdsville Road was subsequently closed due to wet weather. This necessitated a significant change in arrangements, as the next two lots of fuel had to be hauled from Townsville via Bedourie to Birdsville. These examples come at a significant cost to business.

Case Study #4 – Essential Supplies

A fortnightly freight run currently operates out of Townsville, usually with two trailers. This service provides essential food supplies to towns enroute, including Longreach, Jundah, Windorah, Birdsville, Bedourie, Boulia and Winton. It also backhauls everything from broken down vehicles to recycling out of these small communities.

Last year, during the Birdsville Races, the Windorah – Birdsville Road closed, following local rain. The freight truck was enroute to Birdsville ex Townsville, to deliver essential supplies to racegoers. It was stopped in Windorah due to the road closure. On this occasion, it was necessary for the truck to divert north to Winton and further north to Mt Isa, before it could travel 685kms south to Birdsville.

In both these examples, the operators could have simply cancelled their runs, returned to base and restarted a week later after the roads had dried out. Fortunately, for the thousands of racegoers and bashers who were stranded in Birdsville, they found an alternate route into Birdsville.

A bitumen seal on the Windorah – Birdsville Road, plus higher causeways would;

• improve trafficability in wet weather
• reduce wear and tear on tyres and trailers for vehicles and trucks
• reduce pressure on truck drivers with regards to fatigue management
• avoid the pressure on stretched local operators to serve tourists who are stranded in the outback, due to wet weather and inaccessible roads.

Communications

There is limited mobile-phone coverage, a patchy UHF network and unreliable sat phone coverage in the Channel Country. When you don’t have the connectivity you need, operational decision-making is hindered, and lives can be lost, especially in summer when it’s hot and there are not many people about.

Case Study #5 – A car accident, 2 kms on the Windorah side of the Cadelga turnoff

In June 2023, a livestock hauler, fully laden with certified organic livestock, came across a single vehicle rollover on the Windorah – Birdsville Road. Unable to get a signal on his sat phone or connect with anyone via UHF, he could not call emergency services. His only option was to sit with the injured driver next to the wreck of her car and wait. When another car came across the accident, he left her in their capable hands and jumped back in his truck heading towards Betoota.

Down the road a bit, travelling in the opposite direction, heading west towards Birdsville, was a local station manager. He flagged him down and ask him to turn around and travel as quickly as possible back to Betoota, to raise the alarm. He knew that he would get their quicker than a truck fully laden with livestock.

We recommend the Committee consider the data and information which flows between stakeholders who use the Windorah-Birdsville and Birdsville – Bedourie roads and whether the communication infrastructure is adequate and maintained. Could this data and information be useful for safety, compliance, traceability, biosecurity or disaster risk management purposes, if it were more accessible?

Agricultural supply chains like ours contribute millions of dollars to the nation’s economy each year. Unfortunately, we have more real-time information coming to us from temperature trackers sitting in our boxed beef in a warehouse in Los Angeles or Jakarta, than we do from our supply chain in Australia.

The maintenance of UHF Repeaters is a shared responsibility between Local Governments, State Government and Private Landholders depending on the location and what agreements have been reached. It is not acceptable that private landholders or a remote Local Government should be responsible for maintaining a network that is essential for public safety.

Road Reporting

The current mechanism for reporting road closures is not always accurate.

Case Study #6 – Road Condition Information – QLDTraffic

In early July 2023, during the Big Red Bash, the Queensland Government’s traffic website www.qldtraffic.qld.gov.au listed the Birdsville – Bedourie Road as closed to all traffic. In fact, this was the only road that was open into Birdsville. When you have 5000+ tourist vehicles heading to the Big Red Bash, road users need accurate information on the condition of roads in order to make informed decisions. A more localised road reporting system for Western Queensland would solve this issue. The Queensland Government Department of Transport & Main Roads should ensure that, within all remote Local Governments, there is an approved inspector of Main Roads to avoid having to rely on an employee being tasked from other areas such as Toowoomba.

Health & Wellbeing

The community of Birdsville is distinctly disadvantaged when compared to similar-sized communities with all-weather road access. Specialist services like the Heart of Australia ‘Heart Bus’ and the RFDS Dental Service cannot reach Birdsville due to the condition of the unsealed roads between Birdsville and Bedourie and Birdsville and Windorah.

The challenges with Queensland’s Regional Road infrastructure, for supply chains like ours, is not limited to the Windorah – Birdsville and Birdsville – Bedourie Roads

We recommend that the Queensland Government take this opportunity to consider the improvements which are necessary for safety purposes, to the Charleville – Quilpie and Quilpie – Windorah Roads.

• The width of the bitumen on the road is too narrow in parts, for the white line which has been painted down the middle. It is not possible for a truck and vehicle to pass safely, whilst both vehicles attempt to stay 100% on the bitumen. A reasonable person would assume that if they stayed to the left of the white line and the other vehicle stayed to the right of the white line, then they would be able to pass safely, whilst remaining entirely on the bitumen. This is not the case.
• On the Quilpie – Windorah Road, the width of the bitumen on the road is too narrow in parts, for a road which has been built up very high. When it gets wet, tourists do not want to move off the bitumen to allow the trucks to pass as they are scared that they will slide into the table drain.
• On the Quilpie – Windorah Road, there is a corner about 80kms from Windorah, which if you come around at pace, could be deadly.

OBE Organic is aware that the Queensland Government is currently undertaking consultation in relation to its commitment to work with Traditional Owners and other stakeholders to ensure adequate protection for the rivers and floodplains of the Channel Country and Lake Eyre Basin in Queensland. The principal rivers are the Georgina River, Cooper Creek System and Diamantina River. When there is sufficient rainfall in their catchment area these rivers flow into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, in South Australia.

The Lake Eyre Basin is unique. It is an arid zone river system. It is a low-gradient river system. It originates and terminates inland. It’s unregulated in that it does not have infrastructure which interferes or has altered the natural flow. It is one of the last remaining river systems in the world that is still in its natural pristine state.

OBE Organic is a farmer-owned, Queensland-based company with the privilege of supplying consumers in Australia, as well as customers in export markets in Asia, the Middle East, and the North America. OBE Organic is Australia’s first and oldest global exporter of organic beef. OBE Organic sources its certified organic livestock from family farmers across the Lake Eyre Basin’s Channel Country. Certified organic cattle production covers more than 8 million hectares of the Lake Eyre Basin. It’s larger than the area of Tasmania.

At OBE Organic, our story and our global reputation has been built on supplying some of the world’s best clean and green organic beef, sourced from a pristine environment – the naturally irrigated floodplains of the Lake Eyre Basin’s free-flowing rivers.

Position

• It is OBE Organic’s position that the Lake Eyre Basin’s rivers and floodplains are of significant environmental, social, cultural, and economic value and its pristine condition, along with the integrity of the natural seasonal water flows, must be protected.
• OBE Organic supports the current restrictions under the Regional Planning Interest Act 2014 (Qld) on broadacre cropping and open cut mining within the rivers and floodplain areas of the Lake Eyre Basin. It is OBE Organic’s position that these exclusion zones are maintained.
• It is OBE Organic’s position that the unique characteristics of the Lake Eyre Basin require a unique set of regulation for future oil and gas projects. This regulation may require exclusion of activities to particularly sensitive parts of the Lake Eyre Basin River system.
• Tourism is critically important to our region’s economy. Tourists witnessing the landscape during and immediately following a flood is a treasured opportunity to experience one of the world’s great natural wonders.
• OBE Organic believes that regulation should eliminate, so far as reasonably practical, adverse cross-border impact on river flows into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, in South Australia. It is important that the Queensland Government manage their portion of the Lake Eyre Basin with a whole of basin perspective. Everyone needs to be conscious of our obligations downstream.
• Current regulations which guide the activities of the oil and gas industry are largely self-enforced. Too often there is no consequence for non-compliance. Any new regulation needs to account for the cumulative impact of oil and gas extraction in the Lake Eyre Basin.
• OBE Organic has been formally managing sustainability through our FLOURISH sustainability program since 2015 to help us live our mission and to help us run a better business. We recently released a report showing how we take our commitment to people, animals, the environment and our product seriously.

Join our call to protect Channel Country rivers and floodplains by;

1. Writing to Premier Palaszczuk & your local member of Parliament and
2. Adding your name to the Western Rivers Alliance Petition or
3. Adding your name to the 10,000+ signatures on the LockTheGate Petition
4. Adding your name to the Wilderness Society Petition

Background

The Lake Eyre Basin is globally recognised for its significant and unique environment. The free-flowing rivers that create this unique environment also support a highly productive sustainable beef industry. Floodwaters naturally irrigate vast areas of the Channel Country and cattle feed on over 250 species of native grasses and forbs. This is arguably the world’s largest, and most valuable region for organic beef production with livestock free to roam in an environment free from harsh chemicals or pollutants. Pastoralism continues to be the backbone of the local community and central to our way of life. Compromised water quality and/or the disruption of natural flows has the potential to have devastating and widespread economic and social consequences in addition to the environmental impact.

Tourism is also critically important to the region’s economy, a major direct employer following agriculture and services, and contributing millions of dollars to the economy.

The unique and spectacular environment of the Channel Country attracts thousands of domestic and international visitors each year- witnessing the landscape during and immediately following a flood is a treasured opportunity to experience one of the world’s great natural wonders. Proposed new developments, particularly industrial activities, must consider the value of this natural environment to what is arguably the region’s greatest economic growth opportunity in tourism.

Recent research (Kingsford & Walburn 2022) has confirmed that the footprint of the oil and gas industry within the Lake Eyre Basin is increasingly leading to greater risk of contamination incidents as well as increased cumulative impact of associated infrastructure on disrupting overland flows. The low gradient topography and unique hydrology of the Channel Country landscape leaves it vulnerable to significant alterations from infrastructure such as roads and pipelines. Loss of pasture productivity due to water diverted away by roads is unfortunately an impact experienced by some of OBE Organic’s family famers. It is of great concern that the cumulative impact of increased oil and gas infrastructure on the Channel Country floodplains is not adequately monitored or regulated.

Protecting our rivers and floodplains has been a matter of national importance for all Australians and has attracted international attention for all the right and all the wrong reasons. In 2014 the Lake Eyre Basin partnership won the National River Prize and then in 2015 went on to win the International River Prize, the world’s most prestigious water conservation award, for helping protect the Lake Eyre Basin. The Lake Eyre Basin was up against the Jordan River in the Middle East and the River Mur in Austria as one of three finalists for the annual international award. The award was the culmination of 20 years’ worth of collaboration, towards protecting our unique desert river systems. [1] Lake Eyre Basin partnership wins $500,000 International River Prize | UNSW Newsroom

But there have been some regrettable incidences too, particularly where mining activities have been allowed to occur within river and floodplain areas. These include the Lady Annie copper mine release of highly toxic wastewater into the waterways in 2009 and the Santos Zeus oil spill in 2013 on a floodplain which was fortunately not in flood at the time. Both events attracted international media attention emphasising not only the direct on-ground impacts but the significant reputational risk to the organic beef and tourism industries.

Oil & gas extraction has largely coexisted in a satisfactory way with the region’s major industries for many years. OBE Organic producers have seen the positive and negative of the oil and gas industry. It is clear to OBE Organic that the proposed expansion of exploration and potential production, with large numbers of wells and associated infrastructure, is likely to have a much greater negative impact on this sensitive environment. Exploration is often associated with single use infrastructure that serves no purpose after the exploration.

There is a need to ensure that necessary safeguards are in place to protect the Lake Eyre Basin rivers and floodplains.

On this basis, OBE Organic calls on the Queensland Government to act to protect this special part of our state. It is OBE Organic’s position that the unique characteristics of the Lake Eyre Basin require a unique set of regulation for future oil and gas projects. This regulation may require exclusion of activities to particularly sensitive parts of the Lake Eyre Basin River system.

The oil and gas industry are not dependent on a healthy environment, but all other stakeholders are.

Really, the environment should be the top priority.

Join our call to protect Channel Country rivers and floodplains by;

1. Writing to Premier Palaszczuk & your local member of Parliament and
2. Adding your name to the Western Rivers Alliance Petition or
3. Adding your name to the 10,000+ signatures on the LockTheGate Petition
4. Adding your name to the Wilderness Society Petition