Michael Duffy wrote about ‘property rights’ in his regular column for the Sydney Morning Herald on 7th January 2006.
Michael Duffy began:
I’ve been surprised in the past year by how many stories I’ve come across that have involved property rights. It’s a subject I’ve always regarded – to the extent I did regard it – as dusty, indeed boring. Yet from the devaluing of thousands of Sydney homes in the name of heritage preservation, to arguments over Aboriginal land rights, to major problems with foreign aid and tsunami relief in Indonesia, flawed property rights have emerged as a common thread.
He did include some comment about property rights and vegetation management, an issue that has come up in comments following my recent blog post on salt.
Michael Duffy wrote:
The rural equivalent of heritage is native vegetation legislation. Again it sounds innocuous, even noble in its intentions, but its effect on the many individuals involved has been devastating. It is now illegal for a farmer to remove even a branch from a (native) tree. As long-term land use flexibility is essential to many farms, this has had huge financial consequences.
One example: a study by the University of New England estimates that in Moree Plains Shire, land values have been reduced by 20 per cent on average. Incomes on many farms have plummeted.
As with heritage listings, there is no compensation to those whose assets have been attacked. This has been criticised by the Productivity Commission, in a report into native vegetation laws some years ago, and in its draft report Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places, released last month. The commission’s chairman, Gary Banks, says: “It’s important in regulation to look at the costs and who should bear them. Both native vegetation and heritage are wider community values, but these laws intrude on the property rights of individuals.”
State governments have decided they can appease environmental and heritage lobby groups with solutions Banks tactfully describes as “off budget” (that is, daylight robbery).
Michael Duffy goes on to suggest that people should be compensated when their property rights are reduced by government, and concludes,
Property rights have been inherent in Western society for so long we have forgotten how important they are. This is causing a lot of harm for a lot of people. It’s time we re-acquainted ourselves with the poetry of property.
A good book on the subject is ‘The Mystery of Capital’ by Hernando de Soto. It was given to me a few years ago – but I must admit I haven’t read it cover to cover. The chapters I did read where a bit tedious, but informative.
By-the-way, I will be on Michael Duffy’s radio national program Counterpoint this afternoon at 4pm, talking about my review of Jared Diamond’s chapter on Australia in his book ‘Collapse’.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
In his article, Michael Duffy is attempting to focus people’s attention on what is an important issue.
He is asking the question of whether govt encroachment on property rights is always justified, and if it can in fact have a net negative effect. He thinks we need to take a good look at this, and not lose sight of the benefits brought to western society by private property rights.
In covering this topic, he does try and explain that sometimes govt encroachment on private property rights may be justified, and that it is a complex issue, for example when an individual proposes an activity on their property that will impact on the wider community.
All true, and good to cover the other side of the story.
However, I can’t help but LAUGH at his choice of examples.
He talks about vegetation management and heritage when providing an example of the hardship that can be caused by government encroachment on property rights.
But then, instead of discussing the rationale behind government regulation of vegetation management eg for greenhouse reduction, catchment management, salinity, bushfires, erosion, security of water supply, etc, or for heritage protection, he switches examples!
and uses the examples of wind turbines to demonstrate the potential need for government regulation to control the impact of the individual on the wider community.
This kind of biased example selection encourages cynicism (or amusement) in the reader, and devalues the point of his story.
Perhaps Michael Duffy doesn’t actually give a damn about the hardships faced by rural landowners, or even so much about discussing property rights, and instead is USING their plight to indulge in some good old fashioned greenie/urban elite bashing.
In the UK there are many examples of the ‘community’ having the right to access others’ property.
One such example is the “Historic right of access” Act. Ramblers access are not unrestricted; they cannot go near houses, ploughed fields or quarries and must keep their dogs on a lead.
On the surface it seems innocent enough, a bunch of ruddy cheeked poms on a ramble, but there is a subtext;
“All who visit and enjoy our countryside must respect those who live, work or depend on it for their livelihoods. We must remember that the countryside is a workplace and a haven for wildlife as well as a wonderful place to walk.”
So we all own “the countryside”
Link;
http://www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk/
Steve, the rationale behind govt decisions should always be to serve its constituents. At present they see the need to “balance the demands of a growing economy with a quality of life which is attractive and beneficial to the people.”
Read it agreed with it, stupidity reigns and ordinary people suffer.
If its urban its not the wild and it’s not a wild life preserve its a house block.
When did the greens in this country ever win real life elections to rule.
Stuff them and tell them to leave other people’s propety alone.
Thankyou Jennifer for this post.
I asked for it, didn’t I? Now I am thinking: Be careful what you ask for.
I believe that secure property rights are the way forward for positive and co-operative conservation management across the whole of rural Australia.
Each land title is a budle of rights of usage attached to ownership of that land, and the reources and stuctures on it. The rights contained in title deeds and leases vary from State to State, as do the kinds of title.
Security of ownership gives titles a value that can be realised at market. Or used as collatteral for raising loans. Secure Rights in property (and goods and patents) underpins our economic, financial and social systems. At market, lawful activities add value to the title and are treated as a property right.
Think about it. If the title to your house was not rock solid secure, you would not be able to raise capital on it.
Occasionally, public interest requires that private property be resumed by the Crown, for public works – freeways, etc. The law requires that landowners be compensated (or the land purchased).
A secure property right is one which if diminished or extinguised in the public interest, automatically triggers compensation.
Now a quick tour through how many of Australia’s conservation laws have been set up. I am taking this from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and heritage inquiry into Public Good Conservation. Interim report September 2001.
Briefly, the big problem for Governments was how to pay for the wider community’s conservation aspirations. Then someone very smart worked out how not to pay. It goes like this:
Make a previously lawful practice, (eg tree clearing) unlawful.
Create a statutory obligation on the landowner to maintain the trees remaining on his property. (This statutory obligation is often badged as a ‘duty of care’.)
Governments have no obligation to help people meet their statutory obligations. So no compensation.
Such land use controls have had huge economic impact. In a number of cases, these controls have economically sterilised land, making it valueless at market. With bankruptcy for the landowner.
Similar legilsation has been passed to cover soil, water, bidiversity, threatenned species, etc.
By creation of statutory obligation, conservation activists, politicians and administrators have had one hell of a free feed on the asset values and earning capacity of rural Australia.
No wonder rural Australia is reeling. So what to do? First, the economic and social assault on rural Australia in the name of conservation has to stop.
We need to determine, urgently, a bundle of rural property rights which if diminished or extinguished automatically attract compensation.
That is, a bundle of secure property rights.
The first thing that would happen would be that the feeding frenzy on farm asset and economic values would cease.
The second thing that would happen is that with secure property rights, appropriation of control of land for conservation will cost. but Governments will still not want to pay.
That will force conservationists to really start talking to rural landowners about setting mutually agreeable and cost effective conservation goals.
With rights come responsibilities. Do you think the urban bureaucrats have a prior assumption that the farmers profited by screwing up the land therefore they should now bear the cost of ‘fixing it’? (I’m just asking a question, I’m not saying that’s my own opinion).
It seems this problem is not with property rights in an absolute sense, but the way in which rights are now being partitioned: the ‘command and control’ nature of the uniform solution, the form of the obligations on farmers and the burden of the cost.
It’s a stretch to compare Australian farmers’ PR’s with PR’s in developing countries where the problem is frequently a complete absence of PR’s, or a system that doesn’t acknowledge or enforce PR’s that are informally recognised within subcultures. eg, large numbers of women in Africa who raise a family on their own, can’t get a microloan on their homes because their PR’s are recognised, hence the economy is highly inefficient (undercapitalised).
Thinksy
My post is specifically about what is needed to put conservation management onto a long term, sounder and more co-operative footing in Australia.
No amount of command and control legislation will deliver the conservation outcomes desired by city people. That needs the willing coopeation of rural people, who have been taking a right belting from a plethora of conservation laws and how they are administered.
Our current laws are fine if the aim is to continue the belting. But for those who consider sound conservation outcomes more important than defaming and legislatively disadvantaging rural people, a new direction is needed.
Do you have a better way to go?
Helen I’m actually very interested to read your and Ian’s specific criticisms and suggestions. In fact I meant to ask if anyone can recommend a good article/book/paper that deals comprehensively (and objectively) with these complex issues given that I can only glimpse bits and pieces from the comments here.
If you think that I was condoning command & control instruments, be assured that I wasn’t. I was just concluding that PRs by themselves aren’t the problem, it’s the way they’re being dealt with (unilaterally). I agree wholeheartedly that people on the land need to actively participate in developing the solutions, not just in table talks, but involved in developing and revising the instruments. I don’t agree that PRs mean that farmers have carte blanche to do whatever they want under the sun (Helen I’m not saying this is your position).
From the limited understanding I have, it seems that some misguided or outdated policy-making practices (ignorance perhaps) are a problem. Another problem seems to be strict regulation on the *method* (eg blanket bans on activities such as clearing native trees) rather than focusing on the *objective* in a way that allows farmers some leeway in how they meet the objective.
Considering the directions in which markets are moving, I expect that policy-makers will try to partition property rights more, eg different levels of rights and duties for different types of land uses and assets. This would replace command policies with incentives, perhaps new markets, but too late for many farmers as you say.
Thinksy, we spent 2 years examining all sorts of trade-offs and threshholds etc in the Regional Veg Planning process only to have the Wentworth Group come over the top with the outrageous claim that any clearing (of a single tree) would exacerbate salinity. So all the RVMP’s were thrown out and replaced by a total ban that had never been even mentioned, let alone debated.
So the sick bastards have now given us total clearing bans in catchments that still have 95% remnant veg cover. And in others there was as much regrowth, that would convert to remenant over the next 20 years, as the remnant itself. But these will never make it to remnant status now because the farmers, once bitten, will never let it get that far.
Jennifer may have an electronic copy of “Property rights in paradise” which covers some of these issues.
Causing landholders to suffer injury to their interests
for conserving natural heritage values deserves the strongest condemnation.
Punishing protection as a conservation strategy it is absurd. It dares landholders to illegally destroy conservation values to protect property interests or suffer injury to their interests without compensation.
If conservation is the objective demanded by the overriding public interest, then where is the conservation economy that will drive the change of use? From where will the income be derived to put food on the table and clothing on children’s backs?
If, for conservation purposes, a cattle station is resumed through a strategic refusal to extend a pastoral lease that had been held for generations; then gazetted NP, you can bet the family of the ranger deployed to manage the new reserve would have food and security, not derived from the sustainable income-earning capacity of the land, but through a budgetary allocation.
It is not that the land cannot sustain a family, but that they must be employees of the ever-increasing public service. Taken to its hypothetical endpoint, all off-reserve lands with conservation values would be occupied by bureaucrats which of course would be impossible in terms of budgetary requirement.
Why not allocate these same dollars to the rightful landholders in exchange for conservation managment of their lands as a supplement to sustainable income generation?
I have a very deep and well founded distrust of any contemporary attempt to “review” the bundle of rights that attach to freehold land because such a review will be subject to contemporary interpretation and political agendas.
What we do need is a detailed examination of the public records, local and state minutes etc, to determine what rights were attached to freehold land when the freehold title was granted. Only then can a subsequent review determine which still prevail and which should reasonably be surrendered, why they should be surrendered, and at what price.
At the moment, the green/left bureaucrats are using an extreme hypothetical harm to justify the taking of any right that takes their fancy.
It is all very well to argue that there must be a limit to a freeholder’s right to nuke his land and harm his neighbours. But it is another case altogether to use any small adverse impact, even fully reversible impacts, and purely imaginary ones, as a blank cheque for granting every predatory whim of second rate minds.
And above all, every other option for dealing with the problem must also be examined before the option to cancell rights is taken. This has never taken place, despite the fact that it is the core of the regulatory impact assessment process.
We need to remember that secure property rights in a context of the crown’s obligations to it’s subjects go to the very core of the westminster system. WITHOUT PROPERTY RIGHTS WE DO NOT HAVE A WESTMINSTER SYSTEM.
So all this discussion is nothing more than an indulgence until we have a state constitution that compels the government to respect the rights and liberties of individuals.
So either show me how and why the urban public will support this move, or show me where the new state boundary will be.
It doesn’t have to be big. Norfolk Island (pop. 1850) has greater powers of self governance than any state in Australia. They’re doing OK for themselves and they are certainly not in any hurry to chance their future with the Morris Iemmas of this world.
The latest GRDC magazine Groundcover February 2006 arrived today with lots of stuff relating to salinity. One article “Profitability the foundation of successful salinity” by Rebecca Thyer, caught my eye. Although property rights are not explicily mentioned much by Rebecca, various asset related fundamental common law rights such as freedom to farm by best available practices are intimately tied in with profitability. These basic freedoms are obviously being infringed in many ways by regulations that are the direct result of political activities by people who have no sympathy for farmers’ profitability (or loss)situation. The magazine is on the GRDC website as most people know.
Of course it’s not that urbanites have a free go at everything they like – there are town plans, covenants, building standards galore, limitations on height, proximity to boundaries, what trees one can remove, what business level you can run in a residential area, noise restrictions, restrictions on animal numbers, where you can run you stormwater etc etc.
In terms of seceding – I think the SE Corner generates some 70% of the Gross State Product.
And Phil, the rest of Qld would be more than happy to spend their 30% share of the GST revenue on their own priorities based on the decisions of their own parliament. Ergo, more doctors, fewer monuments, tunnels and spin meisters.
That is an interesting point, David. We have a ruthlessly policed competition regime which penalises anything less than current best practice but which allows regulations to be put in place that are not anywhere near best practice. Indeed, they also act in the same way as a tarriff or subsidy in that all incentive to improve is not only discouraged but may also be illegal.
A good example is the requirement to maintain trees with nest hollows in managed forests. If there are no tree hollows then one must set aside the 12 largest trees on each hectare and wait the 120 years for the first hole to appear.
These 12 largest trees will usually be the best sawlogs, valued at stumpage at circa $300 each or $1200 with on-site milling. So the forest owner is asked to forego $14,400/ha to deliver a house for a possum in 120 years time. We can build a better one that they can occupy next week for about $30 each. And we know that the possums actually prefer some designs over the natural, randomly shaped, oriented, and spaced ones. And we know why they prefer them.
But the codes of practice will continue with the delusion that a tree waiting 120 years to produce a hole is satisfying our duty of care to the animals that cannot use it.
And when we do a discounted cash flow analysis of these trees, the cost effectively doubles every year at 7% cumulative interest. So our non-performing $14,400/ha is worth $29,000 in year 10, $58,000 in year 20, $106,000 in year 30 and it soon becomes apparent that it would be cheaper to build a 3 bedroom bungalow with ensuites etc for every damned critter in the forest. And the bloody possum would still only spend its time up in the roof.
..and you could rent the cabin to city tourists.. . .
It seems that urbanites are slowly realising that they too need to plant natives, particularly secondary canopy, for their spreading cities to act as urban wildlife habitat, fire refuges, save water, minimise invasive threats, etc. Hence more councils are restricting the types of trees that can be planted. (Not that this compares to the farmers’ plight). There is general ignorance – some cityfolk vaguely think the ‘bush’ provides all the necessary trees etc and they don’t think much further. City-bush exchange visits might help. Otherwise, you can imagine that the woes of the bush just don’t penetrate the frantic stress of the ratrace.
As for creating habitat, all well and good but feral pests need to be eliminated.
Phil, most of the retrictions placed on urban dwellers are made prior to purchase and the vendor is required to make available this information. I doubt if urban dwellers would appreciate having restrictions retro-fitted eg in NSW after the death of a woman who ate a contaminated oyster they tried to have septic systems removed or updated to an onsite sewage system but this was met with strong opposition and failed. This was despite considerable body of evidence of the pollution of waterways from malfunctioning septic systems. Only new dwellings are required to have a modern system.
But there is no problem telling farmers what to do.
If any of you have the time and inclination, http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/qjudgment/QCA%202002/QCA02-120.pdf#xml=http://courts.qld.gov.au.master.com/texis/master/search/mysite.txt?q=bone&order=r&id=00000000f0298801acf12e90&cmd=xml makes for some very interesting reading.
Very interesting Neil, see the order was issued 1992 and was not until 1997 that the Council noticed it had been cleared.
A synopsis of QLD environmental law
http://www.qccqld.org.au/resources/qld_env_legal.pdf
From Neil’s link (on land under Brisbane council):
Except
with Council approval, there is practically nothing he can do with it except continue
to grow vegetation and perhaps walk on it. His refusal or failure to recognise that
this state of affairs now prevails has already cost him $20,000 in penalties, to say
12
nothing of legal costs, his own as well as those of the Council. For this severe
limitation on his rights as owner, he has received and will receive no compensation,
although he continues to enjoy the privilege of paying the rates that the Council
levies on his land. The action taken by the Council was no doubt undertaken in the
public interest, as it claims, of the citizens of Brisbane; but it is not they who will
bear the financial disadvantages of the action taken in their interest.
He retains unimpaired, for what it is worth, his estate in fee simple
absolute in the land. He has been stripped of virtually all the powers which make
ownership of land of any practical utility or value. There is, as is attested by an
affidavit from the valuer provided at the hearing, no doubt that the value of the land
has been greatly reduced. But the law provides no remedy for this action or its
consequences when it is the result of legislation validly passed under law-making
authority that by its terms or nature authorises or permits such an outcome.
..deprived of property rights by a State
Law; it must follow that there is no such right where the loss is occasioned by a
local authority by-law.
[36] In many instances statute law provides for compensation in such cases. Where a
change in a planning scheme reduces the value of an interest in land the owner has a
right to compensation; ss 5.4.1 and following of the Integrated Planning Act 1997.
But there is no equivalent provision with respect to ch 22 of the Brisbane City
Council Ordinances.
In this case, Mr. Bone is a farmer a whose interests in his land have been injured for the greater public good. How familiar!
And as Thinksy reveals, at the heart of the matter, but it is not they (the greater public) who will bear the financial disadvantages of the action taken in their interest.
Reference to the Intergovernmental Agrement on the Environment (IGAE) in previous threads identified its non-compliance status despite its binding provisions on all governments in all of Australia’s territories and waters.
It establishes policies that ackowledge the environmental values having to be factored into the property values of the landholder. It also requires the users of goods and services should pay prices based on the full life cycle costs of providing goods and services, including the use of natural resources and assets and the ultimate disposal of any wastes.
In this case, the greater public uses the preserved amenity for implied altruistic purposes and as such should pay the full costs for the provision of the preservation including loss of income-earning capacity of the lands as a result of the ordinance.
Another stipulation of the IGAE is that environmental goals (in this case the preservation of native vegetation), having been established, should be pursued in the most cost effective way, by establishing incentive structures, including market mechanisms, which enable those best placed (Farmer Bone) to maximise benefits and/or minimise costs to develop their (his)own solutions and responses to environmental problems. One this basis, the preservation was clearly inconsistent with the policy principle.
What a pity the IGAE has no compliance provisions, just a collection of critically important environmental principles that would have otherwise served to protect Australia’s environmentalism into the future.
Mr. Bone is a farmer a whose interests in his land have been injured for the greater public good
translated:
Mr. Bone is a farmer a whose interests in his land have been sacrificed for the common good.
Or it could merely be an illusion. If the cumulative consequence of such, injuries/sacrifices/erosions brings about a Pauline Hanson-like backlash at the polls, the environment could suffer a dreadful setback – in the name of the greater public/common good.
I have a question for Michael Duffy,will you Michael Duffy,write something about Dandenong,the city that you were the elected member for,when the ALP was in office,it will be nice to know your opinion,has it gone downhill or uphill,your comments will be very very very welcome
Mr Bone’s property is close to the Gateway Arterial, around which some very significant clearing has taken place for public purposes of late. Essentially the right to clear, and the reight to benefit in any way from clearing, has not been banned. It has just been nationalised.
In combination with the SEQ Regional Plan, all future benefits from clearing and or development have been reserved for State or Local Government entities, and their corporate partners.
The entire thrust of public policy is the ‘exclusion’ of ordinary men and women from any significant benefit from the development process. The policy started with measures of ever increasing complexity and cost that weighted development in favour of large scale projects with high impact and visibility. And this resulting visibility and impact was manipulated, with full government funding for the Brisbane Institute, to produce an uninformed mandate for further development restrictions. But these restrictions only applied to small scale developments because the big boys were all in partnership with government.
Welcome to neo-serfdom in the brave new green utopia.
I agree with Neil, the IGAE needs a compliance component. But don’t expect much from the NFF, they were only recently trying to flog a new (toothless) intergovernmental agreement on property rights to overcome the problems created by the toothless IGAE.
Another irony in the IGAE is the principle of Intergenerational Equity that has been applied in a way that virtually guarantees that family farms will not even make it to the next generation, let alone any in the more distant future.
In the draft Catchment Action Plan (CAP) for the Hunter Valley the Catchment Management Authority (CMA) have identified areas that require action to conform with State and Federal Policies.
The CMA is to comply with all relevant state and federal policies and legislation eg water, soil, salt, vegetation, air etc.
The CMA is the primary means for delivering natural resource funding from State and Federal Governments.
The CMA has allowed to spend $18M per year for 10 years.
My understanding is that the CMA’s are filled by appointed positions chosen by shonk central, not elected, like the Rural Lands Protection Boards.
It is also my understanding that their budgets are nothing more than a direct transfer from the old DLWC/DIPNR budgets. (smoke and mirrors)
And I dont think I have ever seen an appointed committee where the “community reps” actually reflected the voting patterns of the local community. Most were additional green reps in mufti to stack the outcome, but hey, surprise me if you can.
Lets wait for the regulatory impact assessments, the proper assessments, the proper exercise of powers, and the respect for existing uses, but don’t hold your breath, or they will charge a user fee on the basis of abandoned use.
Yes, the Board is accountable to the Minister only. Administration of the CAP may be a significant cost.
Except of course that the Minister is accountable to bureaucracy.
How often have I seen Ministerial wisdom overridden by administrative stupidity. What a pity these moments of glory are trampled by bureuacratric counter-interest.
This may be a more inclusive administration; from the Hawkesbury/Nepean;
What Catchment Management is NOT
It is important that Catchment Management not be seen as another tier of government. It is not the function of Catchment Management to govern. Its tools for positive action flow out of the existing agencies and local government; not out of its own powers. Its own powers should be limited to those necessary to ensure that the existing agencies and Local Government are indeed doing their job. However those powers need to be strong !
Catchment Management has always been hated by those agencies which have been underperforming because of the light it shines on their lack of performance.
Community Base
Any Catchment Management must have the broad support of the general community of the Catchment. It needs to be based on leading, and then meeting, the expectations of this community. The general community provides the eyes and ears and conscience of any catchment management body.
To achieve this closeness with its community the catchment management body needs to have strong community representation. This is achieved in the Catchment Management Act by providing for a majority of community members on any Trusts or Catchment Management Committees. We believe that this is a good base to build on. Having said that, we still support the importance of having community members who can demonstrate expertise and involvement in catchment mangement issues. In a catchment of 1,500,000 people it should not be difficult to find appropriate people.
We do not support blind adherence to the doctrine of representation for Government Agencies and Local Government. We feel that the old Trust was diminished by having so much dead wood around the table. We would strongly agree with the Minister’s view that only one agency representative is really necessary. We also lean towards the view that Local Government should be represented by its professional officers rather than its elected representatives.
http://www.hncf.org.au/cma.html
When you think about it, all we need is Super Shires (like the CMA) and Federal Govt, State Govt is superfluous. Works well in Switzerland.
The Minister is accountable to bureaucracy?
You’ve seen ministerial wisdom overridden by bureaucratic stupidity?
Jeez, either you work in a government i’ve never heard of, or my understanding (both in theory and practice) of how government works is completely wrong.
Can you give us some examples of where ministerial wisdom was overridden by bureaucratic stupidity? My experience with government is limited, and i’m interested in hearing of specific examples of how it might be done differently to how i think its done.
The Minister relies on his department to advise on the formulation of Govt policy and then on the implementation of Govt policy – nothing could be clearer than that.
Ministers arrive in their posts as empty vessels. everything that goes into that vessel is shaped by the initial briefs that are prepared by the Department. All issues are defined by the terms used by the department and by the time they are actually brought up to speed on issues other than what the department wants, he will be moved to a new ministry.
Ditto for departmental officers, any officer who allows himself to become fully advised of matters that the process must, by law, consider in full, but which are inconvenient for the corporate objectives, will be moved to a new position so that any subsequent failure to consider those matters can be explained as “an unfortunate consequence of staff movements”.
A case in point would be the staff turnover in DNRM Policy of late.
Roq, Shires are not recognised by the Commonwealth constitution so the process of creating even one such entity would need to overcome the opposition of all the existing state oriented interests who would be in no hurry to extinguish themselves. And it would then need the approval of a majority of all Australians and a majority of the States.
And some places, the existing capitals, don’t need autonomy because they run their states like a city state already. Fragmenting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane into smaller units would be counter productive and there goes the majority vote in a referendum.
The essence of a super shire can be achieved by producing a smaller state, or states, under the existing constitutional provisions. And they would only apply to those places that actually want them.
The super shires option is the classic “muddy the waters” trick of the metrocentrics. It is the least likely to succeed because it hand all the discretion to people who oppose the change.
“Ministers arrive in their posts as empty vessels”
It might actually be nice if this were true, but it so isn’t. Even if in truth they know virtually nothing about their new area, Ministers come loaded with political biases, their own personal contacts, their egos, their past knowledge and education, and their belief in their own brain capacity, and – most importantly – their own beliefs and prejudices about the department.
If you think that ministers (even brand new ones) just parrot what their department tells them to the letter, and never challenge, modify, reject, ignore or dispute what their department advises then you really need your head read.
Here’s a simple breakdown of some of the important roles in government.
THE DEPARTMENT
“The department” consists of public servants, and appointed executives.
The public servants do the work, and draft the briefings for the ministers office. They are at the coal face of govt, are meant to have expertise, and are meant to work with the outside world to hammer out effective draft policies. They generally have a pretty rigid framework within which to work – like an electrician in a small space in the roof or under the floor.
The executives, well, they have a complex job, don’t they?
The department as a whole provides briefings to the minister’s office, and gets ministerial and/or cabinet approval for action.
THE MINISTERS OFFICE.
This consists of:
1) a minister
2) a gaggle of staffers.
3) admin
HOW GOVT WORKS
Filtering down from govt, the ministers office, cabinet, and past policy, the public servants get a framework within which to work.
When a public servant does a bunch of work, they draft a brief, which is honed and perfected then sent to the executives, who
1) send it back with suggested modifications or questions
2) sit on it for a while
3) vet it is useful/worthwhile/??? before sending it to the ministers office.
The executives may or may not make decisions based on the advice in the brief. They may or may not actually trust the public servants. They may seek to eliminate the angles that a public servant may have put on the brief, or they may seek to have their own angles added.
The ministers office staffers then get the brief and either do some or all of
1) send it back with suggested modifications or questions
2) sit on it for a while
3) write their own ‘meta-brief’ about the brief with their own angle on the brief, and then hand both the original brief and the ‘meta-brief’ to the minister.
4) give the original brief to the minister along with their own vocal opinion and advice
5) give the original brief to the minister with no comment (i’m not sure this ever happens)
6) go and talk to some of the mates and contacts to find out what they should tell the minister re the contents of the brief.
Staffers are picked by the minister and presumably trusted by the minister. They do a lot of work on research and liasing with stakeholders to develop an understanding of a particular issue that is to some degree independent of the department itself.
The minister then makes decisions which may or may not agree with the original brief. S/He may or may not ask for further info, challenge, reject, dispute, ignore the brief, s/he may ask for further advice from cabinet, from the cabinet office, from other departments or colleagues or friends, and of course the staffers.
————
If your political view is to refer to ‘the government’ and ‘the bureaucracy’ without having the capacity to distinguish the varied roles within these groups, then you are woefully uneducated about how to engage usefully on important political issues such as eg. vegetation management.
Yep that’s about it. You just forgot the 4 layers of managers and deputies between the science groups and the Minister’s office in-tray.
People want accountability – you got accountability – lots of it – so much that everything bogs down in treacle like sludge. Then rewrite so no nasty FOI stories.
Ask internal journalists to consider spin factors. Check news of the day to consider to release or hold.
Respin to label Ian as a firebrand – calculate voting impact – minimal – so we’ll ignore him and describe him as a colourful industry personality. Unless we can can pin something on him – check files.
It’s the government you voted for folks. Oh – you want to talk to the actual science staff – not possible – they might tell you something.
Put your request in writing and we’ll consider it. And anyway it’s more a policy than science question really we think so we won’t bother them.
Steve obviously works in government. I was wondering about this wonderous virtual government he tells us about. Just look up the web site and find all the high principles proudly displayed for the punters. See the warm and fluffy visions of consultation, partnerships and community values. Why, you don’t even need to go outside. And opinions? We have all the opinions you will ever need. And you don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of voicing opinions that don’t get accepted. Because every one of our opinions has been personally veted by Aila Keeto or Jeff Angel so you know they will be acceptable. Gosh it is all soooh inspiring.
I have always understood that the idea of the
Westminster system was that public officers were employed to administer the laws of the State, and they were required to perform their duties in a lawful manner, ie within powers And that Ministers were entrusted with overseeing those laws, and be accountable to Parliament for their proper implementation.
The primary purpose of appeal mechanisms are as a check to keep administrations within the powers of their Act. To help protect the Crown from the financial consequences of unlawful implentation of the State’s laws. Nice theories.
Over the last two decades they have been seriously undermined, expecially conservation legislation. Take the South Australian Native Veg laws as an example.
In setting up the first Act, in 1985, decisions were to be made by the Native Vegetation Authority, consisting of Ministerial appointees. A conservationist, a botanist, a farmer who had won a conservation award for planting native vegetation on his fully cleared farm, a rep from the SA Farmers federation, and an independant chairman.
No appeal lay against a clearance refusal or a condition attached to a consent. The NVA was completely dependant on the material – and recommendations prepared by the Native Vegetation Branch.
During the life of the NVA, over 95% of applications were refused. I am not going to into those. I want to go into the conditions attached to consent.
That Act was unique in that it recognised that it was not fair that landowners should carry the whole cost of the community’s conservation aspirations. It made provision for limited compensation following clearance consent.
The State deemed that landowners should support native vegetation covering up to 12% of their property without assistance. Above that, assistance was available if the landowner placed his ‘clearance refused’ native vegetation under a heritage agreement. The 12% had to be inculded. A heritage agreement sterilised the land of all economic use, including grazing. The compensation was for diminution value of the land resulting from clearnace refusal. Foregone income was not to be considered.
Of the less than 5% of applications given part or full clearance consent, the NVA secured a heritage agreement from nearly every one!
The tactic we experienced was as follows: Clearance consent recommended for 40% of the application (all regrowth) on condition that the balance of the application, plus all land south of that to the boundary be placed under a heritage agreement. We had to object so consent was refused.
We were asked by the Dept, on behalf of the NVA, to negotiate a clearance consent /heritage agreement compromise. We agreed. But it seemed that negotiations could not proceed until we had submitted a ‘clearance application’ over all of our undeveloped country south of the regrowth areas. In good faith we submitted that application, and it was duly refused consent as intended, opening up the way to place under a heritage agreement much of the land demanded as the condition for clearance consent.
The NV Branch (not, to our knowledge the NVA) immedately withdrew their support for clearance consent for us. The dispute then centered on whether we had to right to continue with, and maintain the grazing value of our regrowth country. Eventually a conciliator’s report stated that we had the right to maintain grazing, and that delays in recognising this right had resulted in subtantial income loss.
The NVA recognised our legal right to maintain grazing, and recommended a ‘hardship payment’ in recognition of part of our income losses. Then determined that the ‘hardship payment’ should be part of a package involving a heritage agreement over part of our land. There were some other pressures put on us.
So after 5 years of negotiation run-around, we signed a heritage agreement without the clearance consent we needed. Sadly, had we had been given that clearance consent, our property would still have had over 80% native vegetation cover.
Compensation for heritage agreements was supposed to kick in – voluntarily, following clearance refusal. To demand a heritage agreement over land that had not been refused clearance consent was “putting the cart before the horse”. Exceeding powers.
There were many complaints about the ‘virtual blackmail’ tactics of the NVA, met with flat Ministerial denial, and a Ministerial ‘hands-off’ approach to the NVA and Branch.
Compensation under a heritage agreement ceased when the SA State Bank went belly-up in 1991. Here, a Royal Commission determined that Ministers (in this case the Premier / Treasure) were responsible for the proper implemtation of the Acts passed by Parliament, and that a ‘hands-off’ policy was no excuse for failure to perform their duty.
According to the above posts, the ploys enabling Ministers to evade accountablitly have evolved into Byzantium complexity.
If Ministers are not to be held accountable, and citizens cannot access appeal rights, then we have lawless law.
Ian,
You still seem bitter, and pining for some idealised situation that doesn’t exist. While my post might have made you cynical about government, if you had a good think you would realise that what I described is not unusual, and every workplace, market, network of people is probably pretty similar.
The point in posting that was that you seem of the view that it is farmers vs bureaucrats. I was startled to see that post from Neil that seemed to assume minister good, department bad.
This simplistic, good vs evil approach is responsible for getting you nowhere. You are just happily settling on a scapegoat for your problems (“the bureaucracy”), even though such a scapegoat doesn’t exist in the way you think it does.
Some ministers are very good.
Some are not.
Some ministers have good staffers.
Some have staffers who are manipulative, well-connected jerks, or who are power-mongering no-nothings.
Some departmental executives are very effective managers, leaders and have an excellent understanding of policy, people, and their department.
Some departmental executives are lifer public servants with no talent other than climbing the ladder, scratching backs and stepping on people to get up high.
Some public servants are hard working, experienced, motivated and open minded. Some are lazy. Some are hard working but clueless. Some are very smart but are hampered by pathetic management. Some struggle in vain to see good policy put in place, only to be thwarted by a political decision based on ulterior motives somewhere up the chain that puts their work in the toilet. Some struggle and succeed.
Some public servants are just there for the flexi-days and job security. Some public servants are temporary employees on contract, and have been that way their entire public service life, with no job security but enormous value to the department.
You need to get better at distinguishing the good parts of govt from the bad parts. The good public servants from the bad, the good executives from the bad, the good ministers from the bad. And its not just good and bad, there are all sorts of varieties and types. You need to see where a department is failing, and where it has managed to come up with something new and innovative. You need to support the good, and criticise the bad. Cynicism – assuming it is all worthless and bad – is not true, and not helpful to anyone.
I know that you know what I’m talking about, because this kind of understanding of an organisation is required for anyone in a professional job. These kind of politics and organisational nuances are present in any workplace or industry.
I’m even tempted to think that is not such a bad thing. This big, ugly web of ideas, scheming, competition, clash of ideas, etc, is perhaps a good filter of ideas.
So let go of this castles-in-the-air regional state malarky, forget your bitterness and cynicism, and, if you want to do something, start working out how to interract with the complex, many-headed, ever changing beast that is government. If you haven’t had any luck in the past, maybe it is your attitude that is the problem, rather than a corrupt government.
I would have thought the only good govt is one that leaves us alone.
By popular request we now have catchment authorities controlling the “environment” (govt defintion; “The total surroundings and conditions, both physical (such as climate and geology) as well as living organisms that share habitat.)
Not satisfied lefty academics are we calling for a “cultural policy”, one that protects cultural diversity in the face of deregulation, globalisation and all the other evils of the capitalist world.
Really!
http://www.currencyhouse.org.au/pages/pp_issue_07.html
Rog: But left alone to do what and to whom ?
And what if those left alone have divergent opinions? On say dams & roads & Australian content on TV .. ..
reread Steve’s excellent analysis !
I knew you would be in favour of a “cultural policy” Phil, only the intelligentsia know what is good for the masses.
One good reason to seceed would be the opportinity to write a constitution that reinforced the traditional checks and balances designed to ensure that the Executive and Administration stayed within the powers granted to them by Parliamentary legislation. And the Executinve be made accountable to Parliament.
If a person or group is a Ministerial appointee, then we all need that they be made accountable to the Minister for the proper exercise of the powers they have been entrusted with. And Minsiters be accountable to Parliament.
Across Austraial, Ministerial non-accountability to Parliament, the source of their powers, is a disgrace. Bringing Parliament, the Executive, and the Administration into increasing disrepute with the community.
It is just not good enough for Ministers to delegate powers conferred by Stature Law, then take an ‘arms length’ approach to overseeing the proper application of those powers. And claim to Parliament ‘I am not responsible’.
I don’t have a link for you Helen, but from what I remember reading, Australia ranked very well – near the top, on some index of corruption in government. Ie we had one of the least corrupt governments in the world.
Does anyone have a link to the index i am thinking of but can’t quite recall?
9th as seen by business people and country analysts
http://www.transparency.org/policy_and_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2005
transparency intrntl is reputable.
Steve,
Australia can be proud of ranking near the top as one of the least corrupt Governments in the world. That does not mean that corruption is not there.
The coruption of due process that I have experienced does not involve cash going to public officers. It is the corruption of undermined process.
Where public officers and Ministerial appointees with strong views, especially allow their views to over-ride their duty to stay within powers. A ‘whatever it takes’, activist mentality.
If we want to keep Australia’s very good name as one of the least corrupt governments, then Ministers need to be required to be accountable to Parliament for the conduct of all to whom they delegate their powers. It is fine to trust the delegated bodies and appointees, but if that trust is abused, or powers exceeded, then the Minister needs to explain why he/she was asleep at the wheel. Ministerial disregard of evidence, coupled with flat denial of questionable conduct, is not good enough.
Rule of law depends ultimately upon the checks and balances that hold the Executive and the administration within the powers of the laws they administer. Accountability to Parliament, and appeal provisions for the aggrieved,have been the traditional means of achieving this.
With our conservation and environment laws, we are seeing Ministerial accountablity eroded. Couple this with diminished or extinguished rights of appeal, and you are seriously eroding rule of law and the right to due process, two of the planks that have made Australia one of the least corrupt countries in the world.
Property rights cannot exist without a robust rule of law structure. As is shown in many third world countries, without secure property rights, you can forget rule of law. Corruption tends to reign supreme. And with it, poverty.
Governments have the right to pass whatever laws they like, and in the Conservation and Environment fields, they have been doing so. But we need the checks and balances that help keep administrators within their powers, especially if they hold strong views about the aims of the laws they are entrusted to administer.
We are all bound by rule of law, and we are all entitled to due process. Many landowners across Australia are questioning whether they have received due process under our conservation laws. With good reason.
You really are a treat, Steve. The naieve way you assume that my opinion of the bureaucracy is simply a product of it not being explained to me properly by someone (yourself) who supposedly knows what is going on. So lets get this clear buster, my contempt is based entirely on familiarity. You have the gall to dish out these motherhood homillies to someone who has wasted 15 years on assorted networking, consulting, back scratching exercises with all sorts of “nice” “affable” and “helpful” people who have then proceeded to trash all the principles on which honorable men and women abide.
My opinion of the ordinary hard working urban public servant is similar to my opinion of the guy that drove the freight train to Auschwitz. He may not have committed any crime but, never-the-less, he played a crucial role in the commission of a crime.
I have a high level insiders knowledge of both the city business community and the ALP, and your boorish little lectures on “what I need to do” to make the system work are pathetic.
In the past I have been paid some very big fees for my capacity to read an organisation and find the jewels in the sludge. And my reading of government in both NSW and Qld is that the organisations are designed to deliver urban government and are simply incapable of delivering the standards that regional Australians still expect from government.
There is a continual sequence of systematic failures here that must end. You and your kind blew it big time and you will need to live with the consequences. And given that we have only just begun to focus on the structural shortcommings of both the political and administrative arms, your suggestion that this approach is not working is just a bit premature. Ask me about it in 30 years time when people will re-read your web site bullshit and burst out laughing. What is so threatening to you about us getting the government we actually want? My guess is that a non-metropolitan model would only highlight the extent of the city state’s failures.
So Ian – how long do you think the average public servant would survive – geeing up the system?
If you shoot everyone you may also get the result you deserve. All you will have left will be accountants, hairdressers and spivs. There are a few public servants perhaps still holding that thin blue line.
The politicisation of science has reached a crisis point. Add managerialism and Harvardism as well. And the electoral cycle is too short for formulation of adequate natural resource policy.
And it is a phenomenon that affects both sides or politics.
And Ian – isn’t the whole tirade just come down to trees essentially – you guys don’t like to be told what to do with your native vegetation? Whether it be clearing, conservation, salt, fire or whatever.
(just asking!)
I’m not threatened by your regional state model. I just ridicule it because I think it is something that will never happen. Do you honestly think that it will some day? I don’t think i am premature for suggesting that the regional state idea is no good.
You might think you have me and every other govt employee and urban greenie down pat, but i’ve seen dozens of people who mean well, are passionate, and that don’t know how to communicate and engage with government effectively, and you are nothing new either.
You have probably spent 15 years screaming for someone to listen to you, but your aggressive bitterness, and apparent lack of need to hear and respond calmly to anyone elses opinion when it differs from yours has ensured that nobody cares what you have to say. I can just imagine QLD public servants thinking “dammit, that ian mott is on the phone again wasting my time and abusing me. I’m going to spend my limited time finding more constructive people to consult with, and i’ll fob him off.”
You say that you are good at reading an organisation, and that the QLD and NSW govts are not capable of delivering the standards expected of rural australia. That’s fine. I’m not here to dispute that – what would i know of regional expectations?
My criticism is over what you seek to do about that problem. Your solution of a regional state is a dream. Your attitude turns people away.
You can only think about the way things should be, instead of spending your time on thinking about the way things are and how to realistically change them. In that respect you are very much like many deep green environmentalists. Big on problems, appallingly idealistic and unrealistic on solutions, not interested in any form of compromise or debate, and therefore doomed to inaction. Quick to find someone (usually the government) to blame so that you can give yourself something to do (vociferously criticise them). Eventually you’ll get frustrated and try a stunt.
If you weren’t so handicapped by your attitude, you would realise I’m trying to help you. Yes I have the gall – sounds like you need more people with the gall to confront you and tell you when you are talking rubbish.
Good luck. I’m going to pull my arrogant head in. I hope that in 30 years, people will re-read my web site comments and laugh from the pleasant confines of their own regional utopian State and that all will be well. But i’m not putting money on it.
Ian,
I am curious. Are you trying to imply that landowners with native vegetation on their property, if they had the ‘right’ conservation attitude, would not criticise flawed implentation of the Native vegetation laws?
Helen, I don’t disagree with you.
I think it would be great if Ministers were accountable to parliament (and then to the people) for their conduct and ALSO the conduct of all those working in their office and their departments.
but as we’ve seen time and again throughout the Howard years through such cases as children overboard, the iraq war intelligence, the current AWB inquiry etc, ministers are only to willing to claim ignorance, reject any responsibility, and blame the public servants when things go wrong.
And it seems the current trend is for an increase in this behaviour.
I agree that accountability is a problem. How to fix it and reverse the trend?
Sorry Ian,
My questions above were intended for Phil.
Helen – happy to respond to you. No I just think that we’re having a very lofty debate about government in general – but what seems to eating people is the appropriateness of vegetation laws for regulating land clearing and ameliorating future salinity; and also the ability of serious resource managers who know how to manage forests for conservation and fire risk. So if it is about vegetation laws essentially – can we improve the situation, adapt or learn.
But sounds like from Ian we’re about to build a Berlin Wall demarcation zone around SE Qld and the rest of the state will secede. i.e. sorry too late for any more discussions.
But if you did want to revisit the legislation – what would you change or would you advocate a free-for-all anarchistic situation.
(just asking)
Bureaucracy is a living, feeding, competitive entity. It is self-serving in its structure that rewards growth (the number of staff) and seniority (the number of staff under the command of an officer in particular).
If a Royal Commission into (say) Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommends increased employment opportunities into natural resource management and a componenet of the $440million allocated to implement the recommendations is assigned for that purpose, rest assured that the salary of the departmental head will increase with a commensurate seniority, as a result of increased staff under responsibility.
Bureaucracies grow and most significantly in the face of crises. Where natural resource management is the portfolio responsibility, bureaucracy interprets one calamity after another to justify special purpose allocations that allow for bureaucratic growth.
There is another survey, the Ease of Doing Business report that analyses the degree to which various elements impact on doing business around the world.
These are some of the findings in this year’s report:
*Increasing the regulatory ease of doing business is associated with less unemployment and informality.
*Nordic countries, as well as others in the top 30 for ease of doing business, do not have to choose between making it easy to do business and providing social protection.
*Every country in Eastern and Central Europe reformed last year, with Serbia and Montenegro and Georgia leading the way.
*African and Middle Eastern nations continue to impose heavy burdens and enact only piecemeal reforms.
*Poor countries levy the highest and most complex business taxes in the world.
*Administrative barriers to importing and exporting (such as getting signatures on customs forms) can be even more costly than transport costs to and from the port to the factory gate.
The rankings are available from http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/
and the site is; http://www.doingbusiness.org/
I have no doubt that someone will live in the house that I built.
What infuriates me so, is that they would be politically and adminstratively welcome, if they were paid to do so through budgetary allocation, but intolerable in any other context.
Helen,
I live at Australia’s conservation epicentre and rely solely upon an ecotourism (conservation) economy.
Bureaucrats once threatened my existence with fully-subsidised duplication across the road unless I signed a Cooperative Management Agreement (CMA) with a default clause allowing liquidation of my assets.
Upon refusal, they announced the construction of a fully-funded free-entry public facility.
Federal Environment Minister at the time, Senator, the Hon. Robert Hill, acknowledged the conflict with competitive nuetrality and persuaded the peak authority, the Wet Tropics Ministerial Council, to direct QPWS to proved me with the necessary authorities to conduct guided tours into the adjacent NP in consideration of the duplication.
(Steve), QPWS responded, that the Ministerial Council has no authority to fetter the discretionary desicion-making authority of its chief executive.
QPWS threatended to relocate the proposed facility across the road immediately adjacent ot our freehold portion.
Queensland Minister for Environment at the time, the Hon. Brian Littleproud, acquiesced on the condition that the boardwalk articulate onto a rainforest restaurant on our portion. The bureaucratic counter-proposal was withdrawn on the pretence that the forest; complex mesophyll vined rainforest type 3b(Tracey & Webb) was without fan palms (Licuala ramsayii), the dominant species.
Of course the Philskys of the world want to increase the regulation of the *environment thereby decreasing and restricting man’s business and employment in the *environment – in fact they may well ask, just what legitimate business does man have to do with the environment?
Increased regulation in trade, in business, in development results in an inefficient economy and a reduced available wealth for (research and) development, employment, growth, health and standards of living.
*official definition – the total surroundings and conditions, both physical (such as climate and geology) as well as living organisms that share habitat.
Not necessarily Rog – most Australian’s would like an environment in good shape. National expectations of such are high. Clean and green is a differentiation aspect of our food production and tourism. If you want cheap crappy and brown from degraded 3rd world systems .. ..?
It’s a pity government and self-actuating rural groups can’t sensibly make agreeable policy in this area. Current goverment attempts appear to have “stuffed” the process despite perhaps good intentions and alienated the rural community. See sentiments this thread. Probably has put things back 20 years.
Many idealistic students have studied agricultural science thinking they could improve agricultural production and leave natural resources in good nick. This has now expanded to having some native vegetation and a few echidnas running around as well (Biodiversity – conservation on-farm). The dream is still alive. Does everyone want a wall to wall cleared wheat belt like western NSW or SW WA (well it was before they started putting some diversity back in).
Goodness, look away for a moment and the rail moves on. Sorry for late response. Phil, my secessionist preference is based on the simple examination of all the rights and expectations that we all believed were ours but which we are now being told were never there at all. Clearly, the existing state is unwilling to maintain those rights so we must focus our efforts on forming one that will.
And it is not just vegetation, although for me it was the trigger. All the so-called reforms, of water, planning legislation etc have all evolved with a dominant theme of exclusion. They maximise the discretion of the state or council while maximising the exclusion of ordinary people. It is not only unsustainable but also, in the long run, sinister and dangerous.
It is coupled with a fetish for centralisation that is destroying the emenity and quality of life of the Capital regions themselves by concentrating growth at a rate that takes normal incremental problems and multiplies their complexity and cost.
And the ones who suffer most from this mess are regional communities. For example the scrapping of regional health boards centralised health decision making and imbued it with an unsympathetic metrocentric culture that didn’t take a moments hesitation to label people complaining about the death of their loved ones as “racist hillbillies”. This is not shroud waving, it is evidence of systematic failure of the political structure.
Furthermore, the urban voters now watch separate news coverage to regional voters. And while the country voters might think the entire community is being fully informed on regional issues this is not the case. City viewers have their news shaped by what they regard as newsworthy items and that means the regional stuff is left out or only gets coverage if it is sensational. The net result is that the people who hand out the so-called mandate for government action in the bush are doing so without informed consent. They will always be illinformed and it is entirely enreasonable to expect the regional community to endure it or make the prohibitively expensive investment in trying to change urban biases.
We have no future under the existing arrangements and the longer we piss around the shorter that future will be.
You have hit the nail on the head Philthy, there are national expectations of “clean & green” reinforced by negative rhetoric such as “wall to wall cleared wheat belt”.
Another overused stereotype is that of the “rape and pillage farmer” and “unsustainable”.
Clean and green was a succesful marketing campaign for produce and is now being used in politics.
Most people rely on these images as they never visit these areas.
Its easy and cheap to mount a political platform on clean green imagery, just point to the opposition and say “environmental rapist”
National expectations are notional not factual.
So the NSW wheat belt is not cleared wall to wall – check a veg map !!!
Yes Rog-ered – you’re big free market supporter – the market wants clean & green & sustainable production systems – so give it to them.
I’ve decided that you bastards are too negative (said affectionately Ian – you appreciate). There has also been a failure of rural leadership in support organisations to take up the fight and produce a decent compromise – if not better solution. You need your own R&D outfit. When the veg laws came in you should have shut George St down for a week – but nothing. You should be much better organised, informed and have seen this coming. Your rural organisations have not lined up together – AgForce has taken the Blueprint for the Bush dollars and run. Some serious property planning going on which will leave property owners better informed than government. Why – coz you bought the staff. Better compromise solutions can be reached. While some of you are crying in your beer switched on outfits like Hetyesbury are gunning in maxing out production, resource management, and conservation outcomes. Exceeding expectations ! Small farms without the organisational and economic clout will find that difficult – but where’s your NFF, QFF, and Agforce support. How many people are on regional bodies to represent their constituency or climb a political ladder. Where’s your own Research Foundation, where’s your monitoring data, where’s some serious lobbying and dialogue with the cities. Pretty bloody average effort – so while you’re taking a baseball bat to us lot grubbing a living in the burbs – give your own bunch a bloody big serve as well. Certainly the cotton industry wouldn’t find themselves done like dinners here. So get off your arse and get much better organised and plan for a different future. And stop swearing and get a bloody haircut too.
Thanks Phil, I agree, especially on the non-performance of rep bodies, but that non-performance has been the result of too much reliance on the paid staff (Jen excepted) who put more store in their relationship with the government than the intersts of their constituency. We were also under the mistaken impression that our own R&D was what DPI was funded to do. Pity about the political intimidation, of which Sir William Burrows was just one example.
And I couldn’t agree more on the need for planning our own future. It is called a new state, or states, where we can be sure that the person who is supposed to argue our case at COAG is actually arguing OUR case, not Brisbanes’s case.
You would be most welcome in the real state of Queensland, you know. Then we can work on a real blueprint for the bush.
You are mixing your metaphors, apples and oranges Phrilly, Heytesbury are graziers not farmers.
Yes Rogue – I know – I am using agriculture generically for rural industries broadly – horticulture, irrigated cropping, broad acre cropping, dairy, piggeries, poultry, pastoralism and mixed enterprises.
Cotton industry are not graziers either.
I am simply saying while some are bemoaning the state of things – others have gunned it and accelerated away with a future view to even exceed expectations. Corporates can find it easier – but as I suggested the rural support groups should be assisting smaller operators. You need to take the argument right up to government and suburbia. And strangely too that sons and daughters from quality rural families are sent to school and universities in the “big bad towns” to get qualified in whatever their chosen vocation is.
Anyway my point is the quality and advocacy of your rural support groups needs a ream out as well. And with government abandoning agricultural research, rural groups might be well advised to form their own formal Research Foundation and aspire to international quality science for that organisation.
That is simply not true Philthy, the govt have not abandoned research, they support R&D on a $1:$1 basis via a specific industry levy on the proviso that producers have a majority support for the levy, are properly represented on the admin of levy funds and that it is conducted through a third party eg RIRDC or HAL.
The govt will not support industry that is fragmented and disorganised and will only deal with one peak body providing it can demonstrate transparency and accountabilty and also be able to demonstrate that they have the support of a majority within that industry.
You would be surprised at the activity that goes on behind the scenes.
Gee is that so Rogger – yes I know – and it’s getting you a long way according to Ian ! Gee fancy Rog supporting the guvmint. Would you say that govt research & extension support for agriculture is what is was? Wonder why all those people have left and not been replaced?
What exactly do you mean Prattle-on?
You say that rural people are not getting organised, the govt is not investing in R&D, rural people are not taking the argument up the govt – Bull!
The govt is controlled by the vast urban clean green sustainable recyclable mantra and they call the shots. Urbans are concerned that greedy farmers are spoiling their environment without looking at the long term costs to the environment.
In the main farmers are conservationists, if the country was so degraded where does all this produce come from?
Yep – your reps have let you down. And it’s your fault for not demanding better and getting better. Poor effort Rog the Whinger. Read this thread so far. What’s Ian been telling you. And while you’re whinging and whining (as usual) more dynamic units are moving forward. A dynamic industry perceives its changing circumstances, innovates and goes on the offensive.
Cotton industry – gotten rid of chemical drums, GM cotton, precision spraying with GPS, chemical testing of field workers, tailwater retention, environmental monitoring – and all the knockers said it could not be done! Bull !
Rog – Australia produces excess food to export. How many people. How much land. Your last statement doesn’t prove anything. For example in rangelands you can flog it and make good money right up to the point the A horizon is gone and you’re down to the B horizon. Have a look at the Gascoyne ! Maybe 20% of northern Australian rangelands degraded beyond repair.
http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper6/bionsw.html
And Rog this is what we are talking about in terms of land clearing in NSW. Pretty well if you can crop it – it’s been cleared. Queensland has a few more trees left.
Ok then. Lets go on the assumption (fact for Ian) that nothing more can be done with the present system to ensure that regional australia gets the care and attention and self-governance it needs.
What are the main obstacles to establishing a regional state? and what can be done about them? How to get this to happen?
Philbluesky your (pathetic) link is 1995 – hey! breaking news! Guess what!! the apocalypse didnt happen.
It has been postponed – again. Personally I blame it on the government.
Quote: “due to lack of public support for apoaclypse #63,497 it has been postponed to a future date (to be advised)”
Serious yawn time.
You need to move on Philonsky, you are sounding more like my mother-in-law.
Rog has done the nana – out of facts. Hard to suggest a way forward isn’t it Roghan Josh – easy to just blame the greens and grizzle. THEY did it to me Mummy. Sniff sniff.
Who cares if its 1995 – you were complaining that clearing wasn’t wall to wall. Wanna see an update with a bit more red do you – might be hard to find a spot to colour in !
So Rog – for a change – you give us your considered assessment of the nation’s natural resources.
I think this habit of casting farmers as the villians of the piece for overclearing needs a bit of perspective.
When I was eight, my family shifted from the city to a farm. In my new school I noticed that country children were told different things to the city. I particularly remember one teacher telling us that farmers had a moral duty to clear the land to grow crops to feed a hungry world.
It felt good to know my parents, as farmers, had such a valued place in world. I think it’s called self esteem. Of course, that teacher was only giving the official line to us country kids to take home to our parents in case they had not already got the official message.
The farm advisers were pushing it, as were bank managers. For good measure backed up by tax incentives. Those farmers who did not clear enthusiastically were often dismissed as lazy by their neighbours, advisers and banks.
I married a farmer, and my children also went to a small school. But by this time the message had changed. Farmers had overcleared and were to blame for massive degradation. They had to admit their faults and mend their ways. No pride in their parent’s occupation for my children. For many it was a crisis in confidence. Either their parents were social undesirables. Or their teachers,whom they trusted, werelying. I remember one boy arguing with a teacher over what was being implied about his parents. The teachers were, of course only relaying the official message so the children could take it back to their parents, in case they had not got the message.
But when you examined the message, farmers were being lambasted for listening to and trusting past experts and advisers. They were expected to admit their faults and start to put things right by listening up to a new generation of experts. But by this time there were no positive financial incentives to back the message. The tax incentives had gone, and farmers were expected to bear the cost of repair themselves.
Many of my children’s generation have chosen not to go on the land. Instead, they have sought occupations of higher community esteem.
Blaming farmers for ‘overclearing’ is having cheap, ill-informed shots. Their big fault was trusting and respecting past experts and advisers whose message was backed by the Government and by official policy. And very strongly promoted. Now we have a new generation of experts, advisers and bureacrats criticising farmers for listening to their predecessors.
Oh yes, if past experts and advisers could not foresee the consequences of overclearing (salt, erosion etc) then how could farmers by expected to? Yet we are being blamed for not forseeing what the experts could not.
Spot on Helen. There is no doubt in my mind that a big slice of the rural teenage suicide rate of double the urban rate is due to the demonisation of their occupational/social class. They are getting hit with two entirely contradictory messages in a context that demands conformity and punishes the contrarian. Getting to Uni is even worse because they are then expected to answer on behalf of all farming kind for their supposed crimes.
I actually went the full metrocentric “disco duck” “chardonay quaffing” bullshit for more than a decade, believing everything the Sydney Morning Herald told me. And it stuck with me like a wet dog turd until I bought out my siblings share of the family farm. And it took less than 12 months to discover how badly farmers were really being treated. I now proudly proclaim myself to be a “born again hillbilly”.
The Teachers Federation (NSW) are very “pink” with the result that in general teachers have serious attitudinal problems that are passed onto the kids.
Plus the dreaded ABC where sport and other personal achievements are looked down on.
My promotion of the new states option is based on the assessment that it is the most direct and least costly means to get from where we are to where we need to be. It is, obviously an option with only about a 1 in 5 prospect of success. But the alternative, making the best of our existing bad lot in the hope that someone may take pity on us, has a 100% certainty of failure.
And trying to win over an urban public that is either too busy or too disinterested to understand our issues would require a huge investment in time and resources to have any prospect of success. It is a burden that the urban majority do not have to bear and it is an unreasonable, unconscionable burden to impose on us.
And frankly, I am sick of wasted time on lobbying efforts that will, at best, only buy time. It is time to fix the actual problem. And the problem is the imposition of a metropolitan mandate on regional issues and priorities.
It is now 30 years since the metropolitan government first intruded onto our property. Neville Wran, in 1976, vetoed a proposed woodchip export industry from the NSW North Coast. It was always going to be based on regrowth forests because almost all of the old growth had already been cut. But urban perceptions prevailed over regional facts and we lost the most important element of a high economic and ecological value forest. We lost a market for our bent stems and all the trees that needed to come out to make way for the 100 odd trees/ha that would grow to maturity. That decision cost the region $1 billion a year, and all for a whim and a political payback for 1975.
I have no intention of spending the next 30 years just making the best of a bad lot and handing the same problem to the kids.
STOP the horses. Whoa. Guys – was simply disputing Rog that there was wall-to-wall land clearing in western NSW for wheat production. Wasn’t “blaming” anyone. No analysis had been entered into.
Secondly Rog then implies agriculture and pastoralism has no land resource impacts or problems. And subsequently he has declined to give his own assessment of the state of the resource.
When driving in the outback the rule is ‘might has right’. It would seem the same must be said in democracy. Farmer Bone, for example, is a constituent of the Brisbane City Council, not an isolated property owner disenranchised by tremendous distances and out of sight of the metropolitan masses and yet he was made to pay the price of ‘the common good’.
I live 120 kilometres north of Cairns and while there is no doubt that the vast majority of paliamentarians determine policy and the allocation of resources in respect to the 84% of the Queensland population that resides within 100 km of Brisbane, establishing separate states that make, say Cairns capital would favour the population density of that northern city, which already happens. If Townsville were to become the capital city, then it would dominate against the constant bickering of Cairns and isolated communities from the smaller state would suffer in the same manner as the present.
In respect to Helen’s post, I couldn’t believe it in 1989, hearing Qld Minister for Northern development & Aboriginal & Islander Affairs, the Hon. Bob Katter Jnr, announce at the Hopevale rodeo, that the Aboriginal people had not only the capacity but the responsibility to save the Cape York cattle industry by removing all trees from the 110,000 hectare lands held(supposedly) in trust for the benefit of the aboriginal inhabitants. He supplied two D-9’s and chains and Aborigial Enterprise Establishment grants, which drove the Council policy to allocate portions for families to establish farms, fencing was supplied and historical ownership rights were established, which lasted until Native Title invalidated these rights in favour of traditional ownership.
I can’t begin to comprehend the burden of responsility carried by the chairman of that era.
I understand your perspective on new capitals lording over a new state , Neil., but it is a question of proportion and choice. In the North Qld situation the competition between Cairns and Townsville may result in a midpoint compromise for state capital in the same way that Canberra was chosen to sidestep the Sydney Melbourne competition at federation. Imagine a new capital at Tully or Cardwell?
And I think, once the community understands that the purpose of a state is to serve its people, not to create an ever bigger, ugglier and less sustainable metropolis, then this would become the favoured option. The Capital of Wyoming USA, (pop. 500,000) is Cheyenne, with population of only 50,000 and they like it that way. Other larger US states like New York and California have their capital well away from the largest city.
In Southern Qld the competition between Rockhampton and Toowoomba (assuming they opted in) would tend to suggest that another mid-point solution would be needed. In which case real estate in Gayndah would be a pretty good buy.
The point is, no city is indispensable. If Mt Isa decided it didn’t want in then there is no reason why it should be allowed to veto the aspirations of the surrounding areas. Ditto Cairns and Townsville who would have to decide whether they want to continue as a service centre for their hinterland or become an outpost of the Pax metropolitana.
One interesting aspect of a Nth Qld state is that the 600,000 population could have a 40 member chamber serving communities of 15,000 each. And this would mean at least 3 black fella electorates in their own right. No tokenism, no quotas, just taking their rightfull place in their own democracy. Something that will never happen in the existing city state.
Noel Pearson for Premier? Couldn’t be worse than the turkey we’ve got.
Ian I believe Gayndah was once in the running for the State capital !
I suggest therefore that we storm the state parliament – take everyone except Beattie and the liberals hostage (need to show some class) and play the rest duelling banjo music until they accede to our demands for the new state of Tropicana. The new capital would obviously be Muckadilla. We should call for UN peacekeepers to monitor the cease playing.
No, Phil, we’ll just get a Senator up with the balance of power and get him to make such a nuisance of himself that the whole country will gladly duplicate the Israeli’s new wall.
The odds narrow from 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 already.
how much do soil scientists get paid on average a year?