Land Use Zoning.

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Michaelangelica, Feb 19, 2010.

  1. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    . . . . . .
    . . . They (The Oz government) began writing to farmers who had paid good money for their land and had been working hard to make a living from it. They said roughly this: “Your land has been designated as a carbon sink in the name of Saving The Planet. You must stop farming your land at once. You will not be allowed to make your living from it. Because it is now worth nothing, you will not be able to sell it. You will not be paid any compensation. Good afternoon.”

    Farming is not something you do. It is something you are.
    The farmer has an intimate relationship with the land from which he earns his substance.
    Take away his right to farm his land, and you steal not only his earnings but also his very self.

    This is not merely shatteringly unfair. It is unconstitutional.
    Yet that is what the Australian Government, conspiring with the administration in New South Wales, has done to Peter Spencer, a farmer who was told his land could no longer be worked because it was a “carbon sink”, and who is now on hunger-strike halfway up a mobile-phone mast on his land.

    When Mr Spencer tried to take the State’s Minister for the Environment and Water to court in 2008 to get his land back, the judge in the State’s Supreme Court told him the courts could not intervene in political decisions. Mr Spencer will challenge that finding on appeal this spring, if he lives long enough.

    But the judge added a stinging rider: “It is an extremely disheartening and sad occasion that a person whose life and resources have been placed into rural property for the purposes of conducting a grazing and farming business has been required to resort to this action.”

    Article 51 of the Constitution of Australia lists the 31st of 39 legislative powers of Australia’s Parliament as follows:

    “The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to the acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws.”

    The principle, therefore, is that if the national government (or, a fortiori, the government of a State or Territory) takes over a person’s land, it must pay just compensation, or else.

    “Aha!” say the hated climatocrats and smirking Ministers, “but we haven’t actually taken Peter Spencer’s land. It’s still his. All we’ve done is to regulate his use of it, just as we do - for instance - with the zoning laws.”

    In Scotland, such poisonous artifices to circumvent the plain intention of a law, and particularly of a constitution, would be regarded in the courts with the gravest disfavour.
    Yet in Australia, according to the judge in Peter Spencer’s case, the governing class can do pretty much as it likes, and to hell with the mere Constitution.

    So the government is using Peter Spencer’s land as a “carbon sink”.
    Peter Spencer is not using his land at all.
    He is not allowed to. And he can’t sell it.
    The governments of New South Wales and of the Australian Commonwealth have exercised eminent domain over his property, making it - in all but name - theirs and not his. And they have not compensated him, on just terms or on any terms.

    And why? Purely as a duck, dive, dodge, dibble-dabble or device to allow Australia to claim that she is complying with the Kyoto Protocol. Not that one should single out Australia for blame. Everyone else is fiddling too. The European Union’s emissions-trading scheme fell apart twice as the price of emitting a ton of carbon collapsed, and is now falling apart a third time because a very high proportion of the “trading in hot air”, as the boys in red braces on the dealing floors of the Square Mile call it, has turned out to be fraudulent.
    https://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20102901-20550.html
     
  2. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    While I empathise with the individual in question, check out the author of the above diatribe, ring any bells?

    On the wider issue of land ownership:

    Governments (of all persuasions) have been depriving people of their ability to steward the land for their own needs for hundreds of years. One only has to look at the example of the colonial regime's attack on the Indigenous peoples of this country to be reminded of this. Pity his Lordship does not put his propaganda skills to good use and offer to help in this cause.

    If anything, Monckton's above piece of pop-journalism merely highlights again the fact the anyone, anywhere in this country can be deprived of the use (and sometimes even occupation) of 'their' land. Further, this piece of right-wing conservative clap-trap serves (at most) to remind us all that we never can really 'own' the land, for the land will always own us.

    Don't like the fact that with the stroke of a pen the government can acquire your land (albeit, in most cases compensate you for your 'loss')? Well, time to think about changing the way we are governed, yes?

    Don't blame the government, BE the government!

    Marko
     
  3. dannyboy

    dannyboy Junior Member

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    correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the new law about land clearing restrictions. As I understand it Mr Spencer wanted to clear more bush from his land but is now not allowed to so he went on a hunger strike to demand compensation or change of the law. He can still farm his land. I'm sorry MA but the above story reads like a load of bollocks. Leave the trees where they stand.
     
  4. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    Apologies not, or ever, necessary.
    Media Watch did a good job of debunking this guy's credibility on Climate Change.
    However just because he is a rabid right winger doesn't mean he hasn't got something to say.

    I am not fully informed of the situation here but I have seen very bad cases in the past. A friend had her father's farm taken by the government for the snowy scheme. That's fine, but the way it was done was criminal. He waited about 15 years for his money. In all that time he could not make any improvements or even fix fences. Why bother? So too, the attitude of his neighbors. He lost heart in everything.
    So when final payment time came the Govt said "O well land prices have dropped considerably here now so you only get $. . ."
    It broke him, he died shortly after. The ironic thing is the farm was never flooded in the end.
     
  5. ppp

    ppp Junior Member

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    This is absolute bullshit. Can someone please show me a letter which says this "They said roughly this: “Your land has been designated as a carbon sink in the name of Saving The Planet. You must stop farming your land at once.".
    Dannyboy is right, he was prevented from further clearing.
     
  6. Jonathan Byron

    Jonathan Byron Junior Member

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    A similar debate has arisen in the USA related to wetlands protection and property rights.

    In most classical conservative political theories, the rights of the individual end when their actions infringe the rights of others. I submit that destroying wetlands can clearly infringe on the rights of others - wetlands buffer and clarify the flow of water, and destroying wetlands means that a land owner will export much more flooding, sediment, and pollution. If the landowner were to establish a system that perfectly replicated the functions of the wetlands, then they wouldn't infringe on the property rights of their neighbors. But from a practical view, they usually can't or won't build such a system.

    Likewise, actions taken with respect to carbon sinks affects everyone. It is less immediate and less visible, but certain carbon related land management practices do affect the rights of others.

    We are all connected by the flow of air and water.
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    yes i agree we need to stop this land grab clearing policy of delevopers, farmers, etc.,. i'm no tree hugger as such but surely common sense comes into play? that we can't keep going along this trend of trees being little more than weeds. i don't know where to go to find out how many new home become available in south east qld alone, we ahve a massive development up here north lakes its been happening for more than a decade now ans still rolling along, the amount of new homes that appear in a year surely can't be sold and or occupied(these are all what is termed 'zero development' developments, that is the homes ahve no eaves and very minimal space between hous and fence, a young fellow in the communication industry said there are streets where he can walk the street over the roof tops they are that close), and if so by whom? the developer has as scorched earth approach the clear everything green before them yep trees, weeds & grass the lot. the regulaters should be saying they can't remove certain copses of trees(the greasy palm at play), and near by industrial land development completely clear felled levelled then seeded with grass.

    we need to get smarter. and sadly of course regulation is not the answer, communitites should have more say, to stop the land grab and destruction that is in current practise.

    len
     

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