Eurobodalla Shire Mayor Liz Innes said the announcement was “political pointscoring at the expense of rural land owners”.

“I’m so disappointed that Leanne Atkinson has decided to play politics with the Rural Lands Strategy,” Clr Innes said.

“We’ve worked for eight long years with our farmers and the wider community to get them some certainty about their land. Together, we created a strategy that will support rural production while maintaining all the existing environmental protections.

“And here’s Leanne jumping on the bandwagon at the last minute, using misinformation to attack our rural land owners and whip up fear in the community.

“She lacks credibility when she states the council is ignoring and dismissing state agencies. These agencies, including Office of Environment and Heritage and Department of Primary Industries, were around the steering committee table when we developed the strategy.

“We considered their concerns at that stage and we reviewed them again as part of the consultation last year. We have our professional view around these issues and they have theirs. These areas of disagreement are addressed in the planning proposal currently with the Minister. Reports responding to all the submissions, including the Rural Fire Service, have been available on our website since last July. 

“If Leanne was sincere she’d have taken the time to contact me to talk about it.

“Unlike Leanne, I believe in our farmers and our rural community and know they are genuine and caring custodians of our rural lands.

“The council’s job was to bring together a strategy that integrates social, economic and environmental benefits, and that’s what we’ve done.”