Adam Marshall may be happy with the outcomes of the witless antics of his leader, but the majority of the nation is still reeling in disbelief at the stupidity.
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He has now climbed down off the fence and onto the side which will protect his job; what else would you do if your party imploded and your only job has been as a politician since you were 19. His credibility for many in the bush has crashed along with that of the National Party.
Our agriculture minister is not pretending that the charade was just about Koalas; for him it is about a "back door, stealthy attempt to strip 'farmers' of their property rights and 'manage ' the vegetation on their property".
But it is not really about regular farmers or on property management of vegetation either. It is more to do with agribusiness, corporate profits, increasing export markets, real estate values and trees being an impediment to further business expansion.
It is about limiting rules and regulations that would prevent exploitation of the environment for vested interests. Land clearing has increased 60 per cent since 2017 when the coalition relaxed native vegetation laws. Export markets increased along with corporate profits. So too, has species extinction, soil degradation, enormous dust storms changes in rainfall patterns. and use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers which are polluting our waterways and killing our wildlife. The balance between the environment and the economy is sliding down a slippery slope.
Adam Marshall has used straw man fallacies to construct strawman arguments in order to justify his current stance; straw man fallacies centred around costs for farmers building fences to contain cattle, what Councils can do with the stroke of a pen, what constitutes a koala habitat, farmers having to "fork out between $30,000 to $80,000 to prove there aren't actually any koalas on their property and "a couple of trees on a dodgy map that can't tell the difference between a eucalypt and a rose bush". His strawman argument: Why should farmers have to pay to prove councils wrong.
He is not fooling farmers who are in farming for the long haul, who know that for the very same reason we need traffic infringement rules we need "rules" to protect the environment on which our future viability and sustainability depend.
Now more than ever we need politicians who can do more than announce government grants and organise photo opportunities.
