Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (14:52): We saw last year the devastating bushfires that impacted Central Queensland— The PRESIDENT: Senator Hinch on a point of order? Senator Hinch: Mr President, when I can't hear a senator four seats away because there's continual screaming, something's wrong. The PRESIDENT: Quite right, Senator Hinch. My pleas have fallen on deaf ears today. Hopefully, yours have not. Senators, can we please show some courtesy to our colleagues who'd like to hear the answer. Senator Canavan. Senator CANAVAN: As I was saying, Central Queensland, my area of the country, was devastated by fires last year. Indeed, I was down in Miriam Vale in the middle of the fires and almost everybody at the community centre came up to me and the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, and the local member, Ken O'Dowd, and complained about the Queensland government's land-clearing laws and their inability to manage their own fuel on their properties to protect their own homes and their own families. These laws in Queensland are putting average Australians and their families at higher risk from bushfire because they can't even manage their own land. The Labor Party, without any understanding of any of this, because they don't go to Miriam Vale, want to impose that on the whole of Australia. It is absurd, and it is an insult to the farming communities of this country that they have not consulted them before adopting this policy.