Contest and consent : the legacy of the Wild Rivers Act 2005 (Qld)

The Wild Rivers Act 2005 (Qld) ('WRA') seems to be not long for this world. Put in place following an election commitment by Peter Beattie in January, 2004, the first comparatively uncontroversial Wild Rivers areas were declared in February, 2007, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, southwest Cape York and on the southeast coast. These were followed by three Cape York areas in April 2009"” the Lockhart, Stewart and Archer River areas"”and another in June, 2010, over the Wenlock catchment. In December, 2011, three areas were declared in the Lake Eyre basin in the southwest of the State. The central restriction of a WRA declaration is its designated High Preservation Area ('HPA'); (typically) a one-kilometre buffer zone around designated waterways intended to insure that 'the natural values of the rivers declared wild are not impacted'. In practice this means no mining or intensive aquaculture within an HPA, though grazing and other activities are allowed.1 After vowing, in late 2011, to 'axe' the Act, newly elected Premier, Campbell Newman, has taken the first step by releasing a scoping paper towards a new Bio-Regional Management Plan for Cape York Peninsula. This will, in turn, inform part of a forthcoming Regional Management Plan. One function of this process is effectively to rebrand some aspects of the WRA and remove others.