Mick Keogh from The Australian Farm Institute had a piece published in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review titled ‘Getting a balanced perspective on salinity’. It reiterated what some scientists have been saying since late last year, that they got it wrong with their salt predictions.
Keogh wrote:
Conduct an internet search using the terms “salinity” and “17 million hectares” and you can access almost 500 references explaining that Australia could have 17 million hectares of salinised land by the year 2050. Websites providing this information range from the ABC and the CSIRO, to Parliaments, the BBC, the Australian Academy of Sciences, major Australian and international media groups, educational organisations, environmental groups and even sites containing speeches by the Prime Minister and the Governor General.
With such an impressive list of organisations, anyone from school children through to senior policymakers could feel comfortable that the figure is credible, and represents an authoritative estimate of the potential scale of the dryland salinity problem in Australia.
Unfortunately, the comfort is ill-founded.Increasingly, researchers are concluding that many of the assumptions and much of the data used in generating this estimate were wrong, or should not have been used. There are suggestions, for example, that some State salinity assessments used to calculate the national estimate overstate the current extent of salinity by factors of between three and seven times, let alone the projected future extent. Several of the state reports had no reliable data to base estimates on, and many made assumptions about future groundwater levels
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The real story was always there for anyone who wanted to see it. One example was a property that was mapped as having a serious salinity problem. This came with an automatic assumption of an expanding threat because of on-going clearing. The 2002 photo showed the actual scald was about a quarter hectare in area but when we went back to the 1948 photograph we discovered a number of interesting features;
1 The scald in 1948 was close to 3 hectares,
2 there had been a substantial increase in forest area in the catchment over the past half century,
3 the non-forest area showed a major increase in both the size and number of paddock trees over the past half century despite on ground evidence of timber harvesting in both the forested area and the paddock trees.
That is, the salinity threat was not only getting less, it was actually disappearing. And it was disappearing without any input from a departmental workshop, advisor or guideline.
So this prompts another rule to ensure that environmental issues are not misrepresented. No list of “threats”, or map of “threats” or any other representation of, or in respect of environmental “threats” should be made or accepted UNLESS IT DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN WORSENING THREATS AND DIMINISHING THREATS.
The current practice of simply listing all threats allows, and indeed, encourages, the reader to assume that all threats are worsening ones.
We are in a limestone area, with ph of about 8-8.5. And low rainfall. For the past two decades we have been blitzed with the creeping salinity message. And encouraged to plant trees, etc to combat it.
Pointing out that our soil type was naturally saline, that the samphire flats have always been there and were not increasing, and that some of the areas indicated for tree planting had always been plains, was not listened too. Local knowledge has been ignored. It would appear that local knowledge has been discounted right across Australia.
So the saline problem areas are now recognised as much smaller. Good. This has two potential benefits.
The first, more money can be diverted into developing salt tolerant crop varieties. Better adapted to the huge areas of naturally mildly saline soils in Australia.
The second, as the area with real salinity problems is much smaller, it does not look so impossibly daunting to address the problems.
The problem is that the propaganda damage has already been done to farmers. It was the big lie that performed the modern equivalent of Adam and Eve’s Original Sin. This fall from grace was then used to justify the imposition of urban will over the legitimate interests of the farming community.
It would seem appropriate that no further state or federal co-operation with farmers should take place untill a full and very public appology is forthcomming from;
1 The PM for the excesses of Kemp, as our worst ever Minister for environment,
2 Beattie, for his “zero tolerance of denial” statement to farmers on salinity,
3 Every other Premier who has trampled the interests of farmers on the basis of state sponsored defamation.
OK Ian – what’s the way back/way forward then?
What’s required?
Ian, I was shocked by your term ‘State Sponsored Defamation’. But that’s because I realised how appropriate it is. That sustained criticism has been an incitement to hatred or contempt, of rural communities and particulary farmers.
Trouble is, our dimishing numbers are the main conservation front line troops. In campaign terms, the military strategy is badly flawed.
The ‘front line’ have been continually harrangued about the job to be done, but are expected to do that job, – using their own resources – for the wider community benefit. And no matter how much they do, it is never enough. The cricism just never stops.
Shot troops in the back like this, and they will desert (the cause), sulk in the trenches, or shoot back.
This one has not deserted the cause yet, but is certainly sulking in the trenches and occasionally shooting back.
Helen Mahar
Phil,
There is a whole lot that needs to change. But just to mention two issues:
1. Change the way science is funded, for example, see http://www.ipa.org.au/files/review554%20Science%20is%20not%20a%20consensus.pdf
2. There needs to be more tolerance of different points of view and much more honesty within government, for example, see http://www.ipa.org.au/files/Review55-1%20Deciet%20in%20the%20name%20of%20conservation.pdf .
Thats a very interesting point, Helen. It has been my conclusion for a while now that the only way to make sure the wider public understand our role in maintaining and protecting the environment is to STOP DOING WHAT WE DO. If there was a way to ensure that farmers were insulated from the consequences I would be calling for a total boycott of all the environmentally beneficial acts that we do without even thinking in the normal course of our days. But ultimately it is our environment, not theirs, and it is our children that would suffer most.
But we will shortly be kicking off an inquiry into options for civil disobedience and protest that will examine all of these issues. It is a discussion the farming community should have had a long time ago, covering things like;
1 at what level of injustice is the social contract void?
2 What existing voluntary contributions to the community are no longer justified because of the community’s treatment of us?
3 Should the withrawal of these contributions be across the board or be limited to actions that will not adversely effect our own local communities?
4 What are those contributions? (ie Rural Fire Brigades, on-farm habitat protection, watering points used by wildlife, destruction of feral predators, etc)?
5 What level of personal exposure to injustice would justify unlawful retaliation measures? (ie, what constitutes justifiable provocation, or cruel and unconscionable treatment by government?)
6 What obligations do the rest of the farming community have to victims of injustice who may be pushed over the edge? (ie, do we still have a duty to dob in a firebug who, a)torches his own forest, or b)torches a national park?)
7 How do we maintain our own standards in the face of persecution by an ethically debased society?
There will obviously be a range of views but once these are reviewed then we should be able to develop a consensus, amongst our own kind, on how to respond.
There are a number of situations where the simple withrawal of our existing positive contributions (that are completely taken for granted) will inflict some very serious ecological damage to the wider community while enabling us to protect our own. And it it that very same wider community that has already defined the extent of the lack of empathy or compassion that we, in turn, should show to them.
Do you not think that the urban community’s generosity to rural Australia in terms of drought is some sign of empathy? Do not many urbanites have relatives on the land.
Is it all the urban community that is up for criticism or just the ruling elite?
As I have posted before is the plight of the rural community soley as a result of actions of the urban community. e.g. rangeland degradation, weeds and ferals, salinity (however big it is), soil acidity, drift of youth to the cities etc.
And as for the anecdote about Mr Smith dynamiting his bilbies – does that not further confirm the concerns any green leaning urban voters may have about responsible land management ?
The property rights issues, land clearing and salinity debates, fire and forestry issues – seem to have one common thread – attitude of the community and scientific understanding about trees and tree cover.
I also can’t help but smile at suggestions of civil disobedience and protests that may inconvenience some – yet very inverse attitudes previous with whaling.
Educate me !
Your are right, Phil, my beef is not with urban people as such, but with, as you put it, the ruling elite.
Ian, I am not in favour of civil disobedience.
We are a rule of law society. We are all obliged to abide by the law and to try to follow due process. And we are all entitled to due process in return.
The last sentence is where I have had the experiences that have forced me to change my views about some administration conservationists.
I have campaigned for a long time for appeal rights under South Australia’s Native Vegetation laws. To help keep that administation within powers.
We are a rule of law society, and it suits the largely conservative rural communities to believe this. But to keep that belief, we need to ensure that the tradional ‘checks and balances’ on the ruling elite are firmly in place.
I too would (genuinely) like to hear Ian’s suggestion of a way forward (ie assume that greenie urbanites and bureaucrats had an epiphany and said ‘oh so sorry, please tell us how to fix this situation’). Helen too, what’s the solution? How could these issues be moved forward?
Jennifer’s point 2 ‘more tolerance of different points of view’ is something I’d agree with but this is not an attribute that Ian has displayed on this blog. My eyebrows also jumped at the justification for civil rebellion on issues that Ian holds dear v’s denial that whaling protestors are justified in far less provocative activities.
From memory, Prof Suri Ratnapala (Univeristy of Queensland Law School) makes some suggestions for reform in this paper that can be accessed here: http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume17/v17chap2.html .
OK Thinksy
You want this brief?
The troops on the front line need secure property rights and the enforcable right to due process and rule of law.
Helen
But what if activities on your properties affect another. And what if the property is leasehold not freehold?
If we want to monitor salt and changing water tables 500-1000 monitoring bores (per state) on telemetry to the internet with supporting simulation studies and projections running real time is feasable. In NSW there are already many monotoring sites but not on line real time like flood hydrographs. It is feasible to know what is happening and the direction of trends if we spend the $ on good monitoring rather than on endless CSIRO studies, community meetings run by new graduates that seem to know little real hydrology and have even less knowledge of local conditions.
Phil,
Activities that may affect others are properly dealt with under Common or Satute laws. We have plenty of those.
My views on the need for secure property rights apply to both freehold and leasehold land, but are more suitable to another post.
I am pleased that the salinity problem has been recognised as much less than originally hyped.
That means we can look to concentrate research on understanding the real problems, and develop crops that will help those in the naturally slightly saline soils live with, and make them most of their land.
Commonsense and wins all round, I hope.
Helen – do property rights as you would like them allow you to deal with the vegetation you have on your property as you wish; and to graze, crop or irrigate your property at any intensity you wish.
Phil,
Few are suggesting there be no regulation or codes of practice and that landholders do what ever they like.. you are diverting attention from an interest idea that could be build upon.
Why don’t you, Phil, give us an explaination of your concerns about ‘property rights’ and how governments might find the right balance.. be positive about Helen and Ian’s suggestion rather than just attack it.
There is a literature that suggests if governments were forced to compensate when property rights were taken they would be less inclined to just confiscate. What about some solid information from you, and something constructive.
An urban analogy would be where a property owner seeks to change or stop construction on another property as it would effect their view. I have seen property owners cutting down trees on other properties so as to improve or preserve their view.
In these instances the property owners believe they own the property and the view outside the property.
I have always thought that property rights should finish at the agreed boundary however many others believe that property rights extend over property that is not theirs despite any agreement.
Very unfair Jen – the rampant IPA spin is leaking through. Who said it’s an attack.
You allow Ian to make an irrelevant Property Rights Australia soapbox post. Is not some of the difficulty for salinity management how groups of landholders in catchments manage (clear/not clear/plant) their vegetation and use irrigation water. Collections of landholders together can cause effects greater than the individual. I was attempting to pursue how landholders themselves proposed to manage these issues. I was also trying to see how they viewed different forms of land tenure – in urban rental situations the landlord or rental agency normally checks the property condition 2-3 times per year. So this was an attempt to understand how they see leasehold vs freehold ownership.
And in terms of landholders doing what they like – I reckon if Ian were Premier he would repeal the tree clearing laws as his first act. So don’t bung it on about landholders saying we’re not suggesting there be regulation when the stated aim for many is self-regulation which you well know. The oft quoted aim is for free market to rule and get out of our face.
And you guys wonder you are suffering declining sympathy from the urban electorate. After enduring Ian’s tirade’s about what a bunch of arseholes we all are in the ‘burbs – now we aren’t even allowed to ask what you guys want and to more understand your perspective?
Unimpressed and now sulking.
I think that the pendulum is swinging a tad; in the NSW draft CAP (Catchment Action Plan) prepared by the Catchment Management Authority for the Hunter they say that while the “CAP is prepared under legislative requirements”.. ..”the involvement of the community underpins all targets in this CAP” and that “without the support and involvement of the community it will not be possible to fulfil the aims of this CAP”
Phil,
You are asking the wrong questions again. You seem to pre-suppose an exploitive mentality on my part.
Governments have always legislated to control the activities of individuals on the justification of wider public interest.
Right across Australia Governments have used a cute method to meet the community demands for conservation regulation, while shifting the cost of those demands onto landowners. Causing huge social and economic injustices, and growing resentment. That is not good for the future of conservation.
I believe that the way to move towards fairer conservation laws, better conservation outcomes and happier front line troops, is to address the issue of secure property rights. And just what, on the bottom line, constitutes security. But this is really an issue for another post.
Ian,
Some of the points you raised merit further comment.
We are all obliged to abide by the law. But none of us are obliged to do a tap more than the minimum needed to meet our statutory obligations.
It is any person’s right to withdraw their voluntary services. Across the board, or selectively.
Helen Mahar
Some thoughts:
When Helen writes “community demands for conservation regulation”, well some of this demand has been driven by:
1. Campaigning after solutions were put in place to solve the problem i.e. salinity and the Murray River,
2.Is based on a mythical problem i.e. water quality and the great barrier reef (here the problem was in the catchments, but the reef represented an icon and was better for campaign purposes, see http://www.ipa.org.au/files/wwftext.htm )
3. While other community concerns are real and not being addressed, i.e. need for better management of rangelands and protection of northern hairy noses wombat.
At the moment there are so many myths, it is difficult to get to the real environmental issues and because the ‘community’ have limited understanding of the true magnitude of the problem they think use of the term property rights is just an excuse for business as usual?
You all seem to assume that I was sponsoring unlawful retaliation. If you look back at what I said, it was to the effect that the farming community needs to develop its own consensus on the nature of the social contract that is being continually revised, not by agreement, but by the whim and fiat of the dominant urban elite.
This is not an attack on urban people per se. But those who remain silent in the face of injustice can rightfully be regarded as condoning injustice. I am often accused by supporters of Metrotyranny of being extreme or hysterical. But my views are very much in accord with my community of interest.
And there is no point shooting the messenger for making the point that these continual arbitrary revisions of the social contract are doing serious damage to the very fabric of Australian society. For example, I was with one gathering who expressed profound regret and anger at the pictures of ACT farmers being burnt out in 2003. But they all cheered when the footage of burned out Canberra bureaucrats houses were shown. They didn’t get that way by substance abuse, cultish brainwashing or any underlying anti-social roots, they were all stable, active community builders who feel deeply betrayed. And justifiably so.
And I would like to ask Phil and Thinksy how an aggrieved farmers failure to dob in a firebug, especially if the fire gets rid of a burdensome forest that the community claims to control but will not look after, is any different to a persons failure to dob in a neighbour who has a few dope plants up near the boundary fence?
As a resident of the Byron Shire hinterland, and earlier 15 years in inner city Sydney, I have lost count of the number of times I have declined to report that sort of crime. And interestingly, there have been cases where a local farmer has spent years ignoring the drug crimes of neighbours but those very same neighbours dobbed him in the first time he took out a tree without a permit.
So what is the test of “reasonableness” here? And what is the test of lawful obligation? Is reasonableness a concept that is only defined by the urban majority? Or is this a sleazy old double standard for a targeted minority?
You see, I don’t know what sequence of injustice and persecution would tip me over the edge to torch the Lamington Plateau. And the last thing I want to do is to find out. But only a few months ago we saw a farmer who was hounded by DNRM to the point where the only way for him to protect the value of his kids inheritance was suicide.
And that level of persecution is only possible when the subject has been completely demonised in the eyes of the tormenters. And this is where all the exaggerations, the extrapolations to extremes and the self serving departmental spin leads to.
The first step forward, without which no other steps are possible, is a very public apology from all the people who have taken part in this salinity defamation.
Lets have a public apology from the Wentworth Group of boorishly ignorant sleazbags. Lets have a public retraction of their letter to Beattie that claimed that ANY clearing will exacerbate salinity.
Lets have a public apology (followed by resignation) from the entire senior executive of the Murray Darling Basin Commission for obtaining a massive funding benefit by deception.
Lets have a public apology from all the Phillip Toynes, the Wendy Craiks and all the other professional staff who were paid very good salaries by farmers organisations for their assumed capacity to distinguish between unsubstantiated opinion and fact.
And lets have the resignations of all the DNRM and EPA spivs who deliberately censored information on salinity to maximise their unjustifiable corporate objectives. They obtained a power or priveledge over land by deception.
And lets get this clear, we have had an occupational class (public sector science) with high levels of educational, income, communication and socio-political advantage who have singled out an occupational class (farmers)with high levels of educational, income, communication and socio-political disadvantage for a campaign of villification for personal gain. Make you real proud to be Australian, does it?
But, please, forget another apology from Beattie. No-one would believe a word he says anymore and the last thing we need is him trying to fix anything.
Ian – I hear what you’re saying.
It seems then there is no way back with current institutions or goverments. Therefore we have appear to have reached a crisis of confidence in vegetation management – which underpins policies in salinity, tree clearing, forestry, and catchment water resource management.
Can you see a path forward with another future administration(s) to improve the situation and to build a better contract between suburbia and the bush? Or are both sides of politics over some irretrievable threshold.
Phil,
A resignation or two, might help with confidence building.
Col Crighton oversaw the salinity audit, had a sort of CEO position, and Roy Green was the Chair of the National Land Water Resources Audit Advisory Council.
You tell me where the buck should stop?
POSTED BY JEN FOR NEIL HEWITT WHO WAS DENIED ACCESS BECAUSE OF ‘QUESTIONABLE CONTENT’, I SUSPECT IT WAS BECAUSE HE PUT THREE DOTS IN A ROW
“Many rural Australians are in the firing line of environmental activism, bureaucracy and politics.
Conservation values predominate outside of urban environs and nature deficit yearns for environmentalism. If (particularly) middle Australia can’t/won’t get into nature then at least it can take comfort from participating in its protection.
I would very much like to participate in Ian’s inquiry, but would argue against any strategy that sought to directly counter the overwhelming multitudes from urban constituencies.
The better approach would take the momentum of the urban environmentalism and steer it towards its objective in a manner the maximises returns and minimises costs for the people affected, that is the rural people in the environmental firing line.
Rather than opposing the action, rural Australia applauds the efforts of its urban communities with the stipulation that such activities are consistent with existing environmental policies and in particular the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment 1992.
If Ian’s inquiry could unite rural Australia in its demand for compliance with these already established policies, federal government would surely respond with a legislative mechanism that protected the rights and aspirations of rural landholders from urban-driven environmental over-enthusiasm.
At the very least such an approach would have a greater potential for success than the “the simple withdrawal of our existing positive contributions (that are completely taken for granted) will inflict some very serious ecological damage to the wider community..” which will only serve to demolish any shred of uncertainty on the part of the urban environmentalist. Neil Hewett”
POSTED BY JENNIFER FOR NEIL.
Is not the issue though one of vegetation management ? That’s where salinity affects on-property decisions and becomes the issue in court in alledged illegal clearing.
What is a reasonable level of vegetation retention for a region to have? Should we clear regional ecosystems down to levels of extinction or endangered levels? How much control of land clearing should the state have?
If you do have limits – how do you regulate it? What do you do with people who flagrantly break vegetation related law (assuming you have any).
As much as Ian (and I believe genuinely) decribes the plight of landholders caught up in bureaucratic nightmares I have also heard it said that some corporates regard the fines as cost effective.
Eighty-four percent of Queensland’s population lives within one-hundred kilometres of Brisbane.
On a per-party basis, electoral maps reveal relative equivalence between Coalition and Labour seats, except for two insets; Brisbane North and Brisbane South, which upon closer scurtiny contain the state electorates of Ashgrove, Aspley, Brisbane Central, Clayfield, Everton, Ferny Grove, Indooroopilly, Kallangur, Kurwongbah, Moggill, Mount Coot-tha, Murrumba, Nudgee, Redcliffe, Sandgate, Stafford, Albert, Algester, Bulimba, Bundamba, Capalaba, Chatsworth, Cleveland, Greenslopes, Inala, Ipswich, Logan, Lytton, Mansfield, Mount Gravatt, Mount Ommaney, Redlands, South Brisbane, Springwood, Stretton, Waterford, Woodridge and Yeerongpilly.
Almost half of the state’s population occupy these Brisbane electorates, which are so small in area they cannot be discerned without inset.
An unscrupulous government would furnish the interests of the metropolitant masses at the expense of rural well-being and in doing so achieve a de facto gerrimander.
Ethical government would apportion electoral boundaries on both a per capita basis and also land area, insofar as natural resources underpin the state’s potential.
So what would be agriculture’s contribution to the Gross State Product?
Sorry, I can’t agree with your electoral boundary (gerrymander) solution, Neil. For that will merely invert the existing system where urban demographics define electorate sizes in the bush which are so geographically broad that the electors are effectively denied the access enjoyed by urban voters. The alternative, to use the rural footprint of community of interest, or some compromise of both, to define urban electorates would be equally inappropriate.
The average country community of interest is about 10,000 people while the average urban community is closer to the 40,000 currently found in each electorate. And to have each electorate the size of a country community would mean a parliament with 360 MP’s which would have zero support.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that the generally accepted democratic standards cannot be delivered to both communities in the one system. The existing state is still working for the “city State” of SEQ but is clearly not working for the regions. Better to have one or two regional states with smaller electorates and a city state with the existing ones.
They couldn’t do any worse than the one we have now.
And Phil, I don’t think you got the point. Talk of a way forward is premature. Beattie & Carr et al have made the bed and the community that elected them must be given all the time it takes to repent at leisure. They won’t be allowed to simply flick the channel on this one because innocent people have been put under extraordinary stress. They have died of stress related causes, they have taken their own lives, they have been, and still are, being persecuted. They are still dying of medical negligence while volunteers are called out at 3am to deliver an unrelated community service that is already funded by a tax. So don’t imagine for a moment that the resonance of this won’t still be around in 30 years.
And that goes for the Liberals as well. They were more than happy to fall in behind the “turning Qld into wasteland” crap and slipped so easily into repeating anything bad about their supposed partners. And they would do it again tomorrow.
This goes far beyond simply changing a few faces. It isn’t getting mad, its getting even.
Ian I’m reading you loud and clear. You want some retribution and serious justice first. I was trying to ask you if you any views of another policy for tree management which underpins most of the issues I would have thought. But if we’re not at that point I’ll desist !
Oh, and Neil, I would have agreed with your post on the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment right up to a few weeks ago.
On the 7th December I finally received a reply from Federal Minister for the Environment, The Hon Ian Campbell, to a request for information on the actual status of the IGAE, and the nature of any compliance provisions. This was in respect of the core requirements for “thorough examination of the issues”, and “cost effective measures” that are “not disproportionate” to the nature of the threat. The “precautionary principle” is subordinate to these principles.
And the Minister confirmed that this “agreement” is nothing more than a crock of the proverbial. He wrote, “As such the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment is not a legally enforceable document and does not have any compliance programme”.
So we have an “agreement” signed by each state Premier and the PM (Keating) that outlined the principles under which environmental measures are to be applied but they are not binding on anyone. They are all free to breach those principles, and all have done so, whenever it is expedient for them to do so.
So the only way that will ensure that environmental measures comply with these absolutely essential principles is for them to be placed in a State or Federal Constitution. And the chances of this being added to any existing, urban dominated, constitution is zero. The only recourse for farmers seeking the simplest protection of these basic legal principles is to write their own constitution for their own state. Anything less is window dressing for the gullible.
We have also had confirmation that the vegetation Codes under the Qld Vegleg do not even constitute a statutory instrument under the Legislative Standards Act and so, are not subject to any of the community’s standards for drafting regulations that respect the rights and liberties of persons. The only reason any government would deliberately avoid those obligations is if they had a deliberate intention to deny those rights and liberties to certain persons.
This is inexcusable. There is no room for a negotiated middle ground with scum like that, nor any possible future.
See the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment at http://www.austlii.edu.au and the Legislative Standards Act at http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au
So Ian, let us call in support from the numerous representative organisations that have battled against environmental impropriety and lobby the Federal Government on a united front to legislate for compliance with the IGAE.
I would expect very strong support from a number of local groups and would take very great pleasure requesting the support of groups that are funded and identify as environmental organistaions/foundations.
Perhaps Jennifer could discuss the matter with the interim committee of the AEF, perhaps as a major theme for the upcoming national conference in Brisbane in May.
I tried to cooment earlier but was rejected automatically.
This all seems like the situation that caused the American reovolution. The colonies chafing at the injustices of the distant, ignorant Crown.
I hope everybody watched the repeat on Australian Story tonight
Interesting point, David (detribe). The actual preamble of the American Declaration of Independence lists all the fundamental failures of the Crown as the justification for their total secession. But on my reading, none of them pose anywhere as serious a threat to the rights and liberties of persons, as the fundamental failures of the existing State governments.
And the americans dumped the crown altogether to form a new nation. All we need is a new state within the existing commonwealth. Hardly a rash or excessive respose, especially as nearly all the key players at federation anticipated the need for new states and included express provision for their formation.
Good idea Neil