OPPOSITION Senators have blocked crucial elements in a new property rights inquiry, throwing out a clause to investigate claims the Howard Government forced State governments to ban land clearing.
While a proposed inquiry into property rights was supported and successful, amendments to look specifically at whether an Inter-Governmental agreement was the trigger for land clearing legislation introduced by the States so the Federal Government could meet its Kyoto commitments were not.
Despite previous admissions by both the former Prime Minister, John Howard, and Treasurer, Peter Costello, that there was Federal Government involvement in the bans on land clearing, that link and the subsequent impact it may have had on farmers and their property rights will not form part of the property rights inquiry.
Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, told Rural Press that blocking that part of the issue "puts a cloud" over the entire inquiry.
"The whole idea of an inquiry is to say 'let's find out what happened?" Mr Burke told Rural Press this week.
"I don't think you start consideration of an inquiry with an agenda.
"You open an inquiry on the basis that you want to find out exactly what happened.
"Now when farmers make allegations about their concerns about what happened with land clearing laws they refer to what happened in the States, what happened with a COAG agreement and what happened surrounding Kyoto.
"My view was let's investigate all the concerns that farmers raised."
Mr Burke said instead the approach from the Coalition was to say "we'll investigate all the bits except the bits we might be responsible for".
This is despite Mr Burke admitting he has his own concerns about the arguments put by farmers in relation to the Federal-State link.
"Some of the timelines don't quite match, but the fact that you disagree with something or you're not convinced of something doesn't mean you shut down all the inquiries.
"They had a chance for it to be an inquiry which investigated everything. They turned it into an inquiry that investigated everything except their record.
"I think it also shows how quickly Tony Abbott and Barnaby (Joyce) will go from saying one thing to farmers and another thing the moment they're inside the parliament.
"It took two days for Tony Abbott to move from being "at your side" to being in cover up.
"I think that goes to the heart of how sincere he was when he addressed the farmers."
Nationals Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, said there is still scope for those Kyoto concerns of farmers to be addressed, although he doubts how helpful it will be.
Senator Joyce told Rural Press emphatically that land clearing laws were State imposed, and States chose not to compensate farmers for the impacts from those laws.
He said while it may be wonderful to some to have a historical debate, it would not fix future property rights problems.
Details of the inquiry, which will hear evidence throughout country Australia, will be advertised this week.
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