Mark Phelps - What is going on at the Queensland Country Life?

What is going on at the QCL?

G’day Agmates,

The photo is of Mark Phelps, Editor of The Queensland Country Life.

We really have a question about the editorial standards at the Queensland Country Life.

The QCL and it’s NSW sister paper The Land (both owned by Rural Press) seem polls apart when it comes to covering the really important issues to farmers in each state. Let me show you what I mean.

Last weeks issue of The Land News Paper page 6 ran a full page on just 2 articles. The first by Journalist Alan Dick was a half page
Veg cops ‘invade’ at Moree

Alan Dick and his editor Andrew Marshall did a terrific job covering the story of the farm invasion of QLD farmers John & Lyn Hudson (who are accused of illegal land clearing on their Moree property “Yarrol”). Their home was invaded by 8 goons from the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change on the instructions of NSW minister Phil Kopenberg.

This story has shocked and frightened many farming families in NSW, QLD and Vic. Agmates has been contacted by a number of farmers who have CMA approved weed clearing programs in place as the Hudson’s had, but are now not game to proceed with them.

The next 1/3 of the page was devoted to a story by Rural Presses Canberra reporter Lucy Skuthorp

Make the Govt pay for those trees: Barnaby 21/06/2007 Lucy Skuthorp

This story alone could have been front page news. QLD senator Barnaby Joyce calling for a Senate enquiry into farmers property rights. The opening paragraph is sensational –
The disregard for property rights in Australia by all levels of Government could soon resemble communism, says QLD Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce.

Both of the above stories involve QLD’ers, one a farming family and one a Senator, yet QCL’s editor Mark Phelps did not consider them important enough to QLD farmers to run them.

Perhaps he was just to busy defending himself at the Australian Press Council against charges of bias reporting brought by the producer group Australian Beef Association (ABA).

Then this week we see the Land Newspaper front page story –
Chop-Chop.
Meet the rebel crusaders who are leading hundreds of farmers in an illegal tree-chopping protest claiming their carbon credits were robbed – p8-9

The story is so important to NSW farmers that Editor Andrew Marshall put it on the front page with pages 8 and 9 devoted to it.

Now if Native Vegetation Laws and Tree Clearing Bans were just restricted to NSW then you might understand QCL editor Mark Phelps lack of interest in it. But that’s not the case just ask Ashley Mackay or the 1,000 plus farmer members of QLD’s Property Rights Australia.

Also you could ask the hundred’s of QLD farmers who plan to take part in one of rural Australia’s largest ever acts of civil disobedience.

But the story does get a mention this week in the QCL. Page four in an article by Lucy Skuthorp –Carbon case still on.

So Andrew Marshall Editor of The Land devotes 3 full pages to the story, now remember it’s the same issues here in QLD as in NSW but QCL’s editor Mark Phelps could only manage to print one 5 line paragraph at the bottom of that article. – Here it is

“This weekend the CPPA will take the radical step of proceeding with threatened civil disobedience, instigating a “national chop a tree day” in retaliation against land clearing laws on freehold land.”

Apparently QCL editor Mark Phelps thinks that devoting the front page of the QCL to this headline “END of Exemption NLIS mandatory July 1” is far more important news to QLD farmers than

1. Farmer Peter Spencer of CPPA winning the first round of a case in the Federal Court on behalf of all Australian farmers against the Commonwealth that has put The National Emissions Trading scheme on hold. With a win meaning that farmers will win back the ownership of 1.85 - $5.18billion dollars worth of carbon credits.

2. Federal treasurer Peter Costello admitting that it was the Coalition Gov that stopped tree clearing in NSW and QLD.

3. QLD Senator Barnaby Joyce lobbying Rural and Regional Affairs Committee chair Bill Heffernan for a Senate enquiry into Property Rights for farmers.

4. QLD, NSW & VIC farmers chopping trees down in protest over draconian Native vegetation laws in each state.

One has to wonder what the QCL’s editor Mark Phelps motivation for running this seemingly ho hum head line was (I mean it’s hardly breaking news).

Perhaps it’s got something to do with the retraction that the Australian Press Council forced him to run in highlight on page 6 of this weeks QCL after ABA’s complaint of bias toward them by him was upheld. ABA after all has been loud and strong in it’s criticism of the NLIS system.

It’s an odd way to treat a group that has 1,300 producer members who graze 16.8% of the nations cattle.


Cheers,
Your Agmate Steve