In the lead up to the state election, I ask you to commit to better protection of the rivers and floodplains of the Channel Country in your party’s election platform.

The Lake Eyre Basin's rivers are among the last free flowing desert rivers on Earth. The Channel Country is the site of one of the planet’s most spectacular natural phenomena. For years at a time, the rivers may not flow, reducing them to a series of pools. But, when the rains return, the water winds through hundreds of iconic braided channels, spilling out and submerging millions of hectares of floodplains. Channel Country floodplains are renowned as some of the best cattle-fattening country in the world supporting a profitable organic beef industry. The Channel Country rivers, waterholes, and wetlands are rich with sacred cultural heritage for the region’s traditional owners. This extraordinary natural river system, and the unique historical and cultural values it supports, attracts visitors from across the world supporting a growing tourism industry. 

As a constituent in your electorate, I am concerned about threats to the health of the rivers and floodplains of the Channel Country from the impacts of industrial scale unconventional gas activities (fracking) and from other mining and large-scale irrigation interests.

I ask that your party demonstrate its support for the people and existing industries of the Channel Country by committing to implementing stronger legislative protections for the rivers and floodplains of the Channel Country within the first 12 months of a newly elected government.

This election I urge you to make a firm commitment to better protection for people and nature in Queensland’s Channel Country - home of the last major desert rivers in the world - before it's too late.