David Kempton the LNP Member for Cook, said he supports the findings of the Crocodile Committee late last week, which rejected Katter’s proposal to cull crocodiles and encourage trophy hunting as management tools.
For a LNP Member who owes his seat of Cook to Katters Australian Party preferences, he is not being helpful to Mareeba ratepayers about culling crocs or struggling Aboriginal and Islander communities on Cape York who expressed interest in hunting crocs for income.
Kempton said Mareeba posed a specific problem as its waterways are now home to estuarine crocodiles where none previously existed.
Crocodiles, some quite large, are found in popular swimming holes in creeks and rivers, as well as in channels and dams throughout the region, posing a significant risk to humans and livestock.
So far Mr Kempton has got it right but calling for yet another inquiry or survey is a typical Liberal and Labor ruse trying to diffuse community anger about the loss of their waterways.
“Notwithstanding the current crocodile management plan and the committee’s findings, I will continue to advocate for a comprehensive survey of all the tableland waterways, including the Barron and Mitchell Rivers and tributaries, to locate and identify all estuarine crocodiles and remove them pursuant to Zone F of the current management plan,” Mr Kempton said.
Got a problem? Let’s have a survey and at least people think the government is doing something. Tablelands have seen innumerable surveys, inquiries and polls about a new road access to Cairns for years by Labor and Liberal and no longer tolerate this subterfuge.
That strategy does not seem to be working these days as the lefty Liberals in federal parliament found out yesterday when Pauline Hanson forced the woke mob to show their hand on Net Zero.
Most Liberals supported the de-industrialisation of Australia.
During Mr Kempton’s last term in state parliament from 2012-15 crocodiles barely rated a mention but since then crocs have overrun North Queensland, the latest near miss being at Punsand Bay in the northern Cook electorate a week ago where a woman from Albany Island was nearly taken by a five metre croc.
According to locals the woman got into the tinnie just in time then huge croc tried to get into it while she was sheltering, but then the LNP says there is no croc problem, just a “people problem.”
Far Northern Punsand Bay Resort reports there are about 30 smaller crocs in their fresh water dam where a large female has been laying eggs which has now become another ‘no go zone.’
“I would also like to see changes to the regulations allowing landholders to be licenced (with conditions) to remove problem crocodiles where they pose an immediate threat to people, such as at irrigation pump stations.
“The problem with Katter’s Bill, as I see it, is by simply reducing the population of animals by culling does not solve the problem in the Mareeba district where crocodiles need to be removed not reduced in numbers.”
We ask what is the difference between shooting a croc or removing it to give someone else a problem? When it is shot there is no more problem to anyone. Wildlife rangers have been shooting numerous reptiles because croc farms no longer want them from the wild according to our sources.
Crocs over two metres in length have no commercial value say farmers.
Totemic or spiritual value of wild crocs for Aborigines lies largely in the imagination of dodgy anthropologists who have been trying to re-invent the Aboriginal wheel for decades to serve the financial oligarchy whose plan is to end up in possession of much of the vast native title estate.
Coming from NSW Mr Kempton obviously has no knowledge of the skin-shooting days of the 1970’s which saw in following decades much safer waterways in NQ where people did swim without croc attacks. It is only in the past 20 years that crocs have invaded these swimming holes, rivers and beaches in huge numbers.
The Northern Territory has licenced croc trophy hunting safaris which are making income for Territorians and this management strategy has been successful in reducing numbers of large animals from various waterways.
https://www.australiawidesafaris.com.au/crocodile-harvesting/
Mr Kempton poses a number of other questions about the Crocodile Control and Conservation bill for which it makes provision. He should read it.
“My position on Mareeba is that there should be zero tolerance for all estuarine crocodiles, and they should be removed,” Mr Kempton said.
At what cost and to where we ask?
