Deliberate disproportionate policy outcomes and regulating deforestation in Queensland, Australia

Abstract

This paper analyses the strategic interests that inform deforestation policies in Australia, and the variance in policy selections over time. A theory of deliberate policy disproportionality is used to analyse 20 years of regulatory reform in Queensland, focusing on the Vegetation Management Act (VMA) 1999. Application of the framework to this case suggests that political executives were prone to deliberately adopt (dis)proportionate policies as a strategic response to either manage or capitalise on stakeholder support or opposition to any proposed legislative change. The high variance in (dis)proportionate deforestation policies is attributed to how political executives respond to claims made by competing constituencies regarding the costs versus benefits of successive reforms. During key reform phases, policy under-reaction was the norm, and political executives intentionally limited the scope and effectiveness of the VMA 1999 due to perceived impacts on the agricultural sector. Political executives were highly responsive to the emotional investment of rural constituents and averse to introducing policies that required difficult trade-offs. Elections offered strategic opportunities for delivering more proportionate policies that balanced public environmental benefits with economic impacts, as evidenced by a conditional deforestation ban introduced between 2004 and 2012 and reinstated in 2018.

Points for practitioners

• Variance in Queensland's deforestation policy over time can be attributed to the intentional decisions by political executives to limit or expand the scope of regulations as a strategic response to stakeholder expectations.
• Political executives were responsive to the costs versus environmental impacts/benefits of any deforestation reforms, but prone to policy under-reaction when the priority was managing the emotive reactions from rural constituencies.
• More proportionate regulations, such as the partial deforestation ban of 2004, aimed to balance environmental benefits with compensation for landholders but were only implemented when electorally beneficial.
• Stakeholders have a significant influence on disproportionate deforestation policy design and governments will need to manage competing claims to deliver more durable policy outcomes.