About
Dr Libby Connors has been involved in human rights, environmental and community politics for three decades now beginning in high school when she first took up the land rights and anti-uranium causes.
She is a co-founder with her husband Drew Hutton of the Queensland Greens which first formed in 1991 and has been a state spokesperson since 2009.
In professional life she is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Southern Queensland where she teaches Australian history.
She is well-versed in the history of this state and its capital, with several publications on Queensland history. She is the co-author of three books on aspects of Australian history and is currently working on a fourth on early Queensland.
Libby has played a leading role in the Lock the Gate campaign in Queensland, getting arrested alongside wildlife campaigner Bob Irwin at the Tara Estate in 2011 and bringing the Queensland Greens into this grassroots movement.
‘The boom in coal and gas is not being managed well. It is placing sustainable long-term industries such as agriculture and tourism at risk.
‘With only 4% of Queensland soils defined as suitable for cropping we should not be allowing mines to destroy our precious food bowls and shipping of coal and gas to harm the Great Barrier Reef.
‘Nor should the coal seam gas sector be allowed to put at risk our precious water resources.
‘We must protect the Great Artesian Basin and local aquifers - gas development should only be allowed in areas where water, soil and environmentally sensitive regions are not put at risk.
‘You can’t eat coal and you can’t drink gas, but there are many energy alternatives that this state could develop and promote internationally ahead of fossil fuels.
‘The Greens will continue to fight for a responsible mining policy for this state.’
Contact Libby via email at libby.connors@qld.greens.org.au
Policies
Queensland is now falling victim to coal seam gas wells and coal mines which are putting at risk the Great Artesian Basin – one of the continent’s great natural wonders.
Already much of the great grazing lands in northwest and central Queensland have been lost to coal. Now the farmlands of the south as well as the Great Barrier Reef are threatened by further industrialisation by coal and gas.
Enough is enough but the major parties have shown that they cannot and will not take on the mining industry.
Responsible Mining is the only way forward, and the Queensland Greens have the policy, the knowledge and the political will.
