Environment
How PAL is taking over Tasmania
Barnaby Drake
Meander Valley Council, Wynyard Council, Central Coast Council, Break-O-Day Council and many others in all rural areas have already taken action at the behest of the Premier to impose these new laws on a largely unsuspecting public. Minimal information has been disseminated and the public is largely ignorant of what is about to happen. This has not been helped by a virtual news blackout. It was left to the public-minded initiative of the Deputy Mayor of Meander Valley Council, Bob Loone, to let the public know about these actions in a private, but strongly worded advert, paid for at his own expense. The response was tremendous, and within a few days, the council received over 1200 objections. This has obviously caused them some embarrassment, for they have since hinted at ‘extending the timeframe’. It has become a wait-and-see game for the first council to make the moves that will set the precedent for all the others. This was to be the Meander Valley.
RICHARD Flanagan, in his exposure of corruption and the takeover of the State by Gunns, only tells half the story. ( Gunns: Out of control )
It goes far beyond that at the grassroots level, and virtually every council in the state, if not all of them, have been pressurised by the government to apply the new Protection of Agricultural Land Act laws to their communities — basically without consultation or local input.
For two or more years these councils have been working in secret on their amendments to this act which virtually drives all rural dwellers and small communities off the land and into the Council designated urban areas, thus leaving the land free for the huge MIS companies to buy in cheaply at artificially depressed prices and turn what is still good agricultural land into plantations of e.nitens.
Once done, this is for ever, as the land then becomes useless for any other application. Only now are these plans emerging, when the time for public comment has been restricted to just a few days before these draconian acts are voted into law by the councils.
In one way or another, and to a greater or lesser degree, everybody in Tasmania will be affected.
In the north there is a strong groundswell of public resentment growing, where certain councils have already published their intentions and people are starting to organise themselves into action groups to tackle these wayward law-givers. The effect is to bring us all one step closer to total control and dictatorship by one large company whose objective is to own and control entire forestry and land assets of the state. ‘Building futures in Tasmania’ takes on a whole new meaning, and it is not to anybody’s advantage!
The PAL amendment law specifically targets new development and puts impossible restrictions on any building application.
… Firstly, no new planning permission will be given for properties under 40 hectares. (100 acres) So all those people who bought themselves a small piece of land in a rural area and intended to build on it and retire, or leave it to their children, now find that they are holding a virtually worthless piece of property with the only prospect of a sale being to an adjoining farm or an MIS company.
… Secondly, even if your land is above the 40 hectare limit, then you can only build on it if there is enough room for a set-back from each boundary of 300 metres. This is an enormous distance, and most properties cannot comply with this rule. This is to facilitate neighbouring farmers who aerial spray their ‘crops’ to have a built-in three hundred metre drift allowance. This implies two things, that firstly the drift is potentially harmful or toxic and needs to be kept away from dwellings and people. If it were not so, then there would be no necessity for this rule. It also implies that the council is prepared to condone what it believes to be a hazardous practice and is aware of the dangers of the material. This could leave them open for large compensation claims and class actions if there is proved to be a connection between the chemicals and the cause of cancer, for instance, any time in the future. Secondly, this gives the polluter an unwritten lean over his neighbour’s property, thus completely inverting the common law rights of the citizen, under which, if something on your property damages something on someone else’s property, you are liable for that resulting damage. Here, you have to roll over and accept any damage that is done, for pollution is definitely damage. This alone could be a cause for class action or damages in that this clause has devalued your land and restricted your building rights. There is no such restriction on the polluter, where plainly, if this drift IS considered dangerous, then it should be restricted to within his own boundaries and not be allowed to drift over someone else’s domain. There is no safeguard either if there is a waterway, well or pond within 300 metres of a plantation boundary, and there is no regulation to keep this drift away from the public domains, such as roads and existing properties.
… The killer clause is one that says development will not be allowed if the value of the property is less then $1 million! Which undeveloped property even approaches that value? At 40 hectares, this puts the price at $10 117 per acre. Even the top class land in category 1,2 or 3, and possessing river frontage or high permanent water access, only sells for an absolute maximum of $8000 per acre, and this bill lumps all seven categories of land under this single clause, regardless if they are suitable for agriculture or not. The ‘discretionary’ principle has been removed and replaced with ‘undesirable’ at any cost!
… The Bill does not recognise that land areas below 40 hectares can be profitable or support agriculture, and makes no allowance for high intensity farming, such as berry growing, market gardening, orchards or any other productive activity. Nor does it allow you to just retire in the country. In all this, plantation is king and may not be refused.
… For reasons best known to themselves, maintaining existing forest is not classified as agriculture.
Meander Valley Council, Wynyard Council, Central Coast Council, Break-O-Day Council and many others in all rural areas have already taken action at the behest of the Premier to impose these new laws on a largely unsuspecting public. Minimal information has been disseminated and the public is largely ignorant of what is about to happen. This has not been helped by a virtual news blackout. It was left to the public-minded initiative of the Deputy Mayor of Meander Valley Council, Bob Loone, to let the public know about these actions in a private, but strongly worded advert, paid for at his own expense. The response was tremendous, and within a few days, the council received over 1200 objections. This has obviously caused them some embarrassment, for they have since hinted at ‘extending the timeframe’. It has become a wait-and-see game for the first council to make the moves that will set the precedent for all the others. This was to be the Meander Valley.
They have yet to explain to the public the benefits of these actions. None are obvious or visible. Their silence and secrecy in the matter rather indicates the nature of this sell-out. Plantations are already given 100% tax break, and it has not been stated if this also qualifies for rate exemption, which means that in effect, with the loss of rates, the rest of the community is obliged to subsidise these plantations for their new owners, most of whom will be out-of-state corporations.
In this rush to appease the Premier and his backers, not only common law rights of citizens have been over-ruled but also the International Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, has been trashed. All those clauses that refer to democratic rights, freedom of speech and individual rights have been treated as though they don’t exist and the councils have assumed a degree of control over the citizens that they are supposed to be serving that beggars belief. The people that elected them are now treated to all the respect of cattle that need to be herded into conformity with council members’ wishes. In that, their actions are sanctioned by the belief that they have a mandate for control simply by being elected, and in this belief lies the grave of Democracy.
Biodiversity is now recognised as being essential to the continued existence of the planet, and to human life in particular. Systematic destruction of the environment has been on the agenda for several years and many knock-on effects have been well documented. Life on Earth is poorer for the passing of over 30 000 species a year, and this trend is set to escalate.
The same thing applies to human diversity and the ability for community survival, yet here we have the local councils passing laws to drive people out of rural areas and into their approved townships, and then turn what was once a diverse and wonderful environment into a green ecological desert. In so doing, they are destroying the very essence of what makes Tasmania, Tasmania. Past experience has shown that without this diversity of population, the economy of whole areas collapse. Man is not an island, and needs multiple services to survive, and this fuels the economy of the towns and villages. Vets, builders, plumbers, nurseries, garages, farmers and a whole host of other livelihoods are dependant on this agrarian population. Retirees who come to build and live in rural areas bring with them a substantial amount of wealth, which reflects on the well-being of the whole community. As opposed to this, land that is locked up in plantation is non-productive, sterile and reduces the amount of wealth and employment in the area. Not only this, it is land locked up or destroyed forever, and is incapable of being returned to productive farmland ever again. After three croppings, the land is useless even for this application, but in the meantime, this thirsty crop depletes our already low water supply, and removes from us one of our much-needed assets, as well as clogging our waterways and dams with excessive silting. And this at a time when the Murray-Darling basin has all but closed to food production due to the drought, and here are we, with great tracts of prime agricultural land, squandering this opportunity to produce high value food crops and add to the economy of the State and country. Instead, we tend to believe the publicity put out by the government and Gunns that our future is dependant on a dubious pulp-mill, and for this, we are being forced to sacrifice everything.
The draft for these new laws has been before council for more than two years, and everything has been done in secret. It is their obvious intention to present a fait accompli, with minimum participation and the in-built power to overrule public opinion. It must be noted, that the consultant lawyer in preparing the draft is the same one that advises Gunns. No further comment is required!
Despite this long planning period, these laws are seriously flawed in many aspects, both in concept and detail. The interaction between rural and urban dwelling has grossly been underestimated. There is an inter-dependency that has willfully not been recognised in this process, and human habitation outside strictly council designated areas, has been defined as ‘Sensitive’. They then go on to state that ‘Sensitive areas are to be discouraged and removed at all cost’, as they interfere with the broader objective of the Protection of Agricultural Land (PAL) They then go on to change the definition of a plantation to that of an agricultural crop, which it plainly is not. Under this new definition, this ‘crop’ is then given precedence over all others, and ‘cannot be challenged’. Further to this, it also carries this 100% tax break for investors — an advantage that no other form of agriculture enjoys. By defining this plantation material as a ‘crop’, it effectively destroys the whole intention of the PAL Act. Far from protecting agricultural land, it has signed its death warrant.
In this area, as in the whole of Tasmania, tourism is still the largest industry, and in Meander Valley this is estimated at being worth $70 million per year. Where does this act leave the tourism industry, when shortly all there will be to see is an ever increasing horizon of sterile monoculture plantations?
My wife and I have just bought an area of 65 acres of old woodland on Quamby Bluff, simply to prevent it falling into the hands of would-be loggers and to preserve the unique amenities of this area for ever. It is a conscious decision, for we know that under this new law, we will never be allowed to develop it and the value will probably go down. It is our own personal contribution to Tasmania of the future, a legacy in memory of all the wonderful times we have spent here and a small pocket of what-used-to-be for future generations to see and experience.
An oasis in an otherwise desert.
Barnaby Drake