The Great Land Grab

If drought, fire and pestilence were not enough, the man on the land is now facing a larger threat -- a run-away bureaucracy attempting to nationalise his land.

Not satisfied with locking away an ever-increasing proportion of the nation's land in national parks, governments have turned their attention to private land.  They have passed a plethora of overlapping and inconsistent regulations, administered by a multitude of government bodies, to regulate native vegetation.  The net effect of this has been the nationalisation of sizeable proportion of farms.

Take the example of Jim Hoggett, who runs a small cattle and goat farm in central NSW.  As documented in a recent submission to the Productivity Commission, he faces a gauntlet of no fewer than 26 separate pieces of legislation and 10 different government bodies governing the use of native vegetation on his property.  Moreover, the legislation is vague, inconsistent, subject to frequent changes and wide ranging.  The government regulators have immense power, limited resources and little knowledge of, or concern with, the commercial use of the land.

Despite being logged repeatedly over the years, the timbered areas which account for over half the property, including regrowth forest, trees in pastures and cropped areas, and trees along the creek, have all been quarantined from commercial use.  These trees are not unique, indeed there is a national park nearby which contains thousands of hectares of them.

The Hoggetts are also required to make a detailed inventory of the native flora and fauna on the property, develop a native vegetation management plan, submit the plan to multiple agencies for approval, submit to regular inspection and are legally liable for damage done to any native vegetation on their property.  In short, they have been turned into unpaid national park rangers.

The Hoggetts conservatively estimate the cost of the native vegetation legislation to be $35,000 per year in outgoings and forgone income.  This is a sizeable proportion of the potential farm income and is not fully tax deductible.

The Hoggetts, being keen conservationists, would like to plant more native vegetation on the more marginal pastures.  However, because this would result in the land being excised from commercial use, they have decided not to do so.

One of the most perverse aspects of these regulations is that they discriminate against the farmers who have done most to preserve native vegetation.  For example, the Hoggetts' neighbour is little affected by the native vegetation laws because he long ago eliminated most native vegetation on his property and has prevented it from regenerating.  Since the law only focuses on preserving remnants, his farm has nothing to preserve or protect, nor is he interested in doing so.

While the Hoggetts' farm is in NSW, Victorian farmers face a similar morass of laws and regulators with a similar result.

Australia's farmers, thorough voluntary processes, such as Landcare, have led the world in regenerating native vegetation.  They are now getting punished for their efforts and their land is being stolen.

This time, Hanrahan's lament, "We'll all be rooned, before the year is out" is on the mark;  not through drought, fire and pestilence, but through needless legislation.

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