State needs to be a good neighbour

I have had the theme song from a popular soapie going round and round in my head all week. “Everybody loves good neighbours” is an ear-worm on auto-repeat. I know what caused it but that’s not helping. It is driving me mad.

Driving along the Midland Highway near Conara a few days ago, I noticed that fire had destroyed a fence on the boundary of the highway verge and farmland.

That led me to think about the fire in January 2009 that was believed to have started from crossed power lines to the Tasmanian Feedlot at Powranna. It spread, literally like wildfire, down the overgrown verges of the Midland Highway to Antony and Eve Gunn’s property at Epping Forest.

The fire destroyed nine kilometres of their fencing along the highway; another nine kilometres bordering their property and the railway on the other side of the highway; and another 22 kilometres of internal property fences.

The fire also destroyed productive pastures and crops, internal and boundary fencing on other properties, and rendered thousands of hectares of land unusable until it could be re-fenced.

Antony Gunn estimates it cost his family more than $150,000 to replace their fencing.

If the next-door neighbour had been anyone but the state government, they would have had to pay at least half the cost of replacing the fences and other damage. If it could be proved the damage resulted from their negligence, the government would have had to foot the whole bill – and maybe even cover the cost of lost income.

So how much compensation did the Gunns receive from the state government? Not one cent. That’s right – zero, zilch, nothing.

TFGA fought hard on behalf of the Gunns for financial assistance to replace the fences but, in the end, we got nowhere.

Treasury denied responsibility on behalf of the government, even though the tall grass on the roadside verges fueled the fire. If the roadside verges had been mown, the damage could have been mitigated.

Did the state government act as a good neighbour in this case? We don’t think so – and that’s not fair.

Being a good neighbour is not just about minimising the fire risk that your property poses to the place next door. The boundary fence doesn’t stop the spread of pests and diseases, wildlife or weeds.

In these instances, a problem shared is not a problem halved – it simply represents shifting costs from public to private landowners.

Wildlife and weeds spreading from public land result in huge impacts on farm businesses. Studies have shown that Tasmanian farmers spend, on average, almost $40,000 per 1000 ha each year on weeds, pest, land and soil activities. On top of that, they spend around 137 person days each year working on these issues. And that’s without even beginning to look at the impacts on the environmental and productive significance of private land.

Private landholders have the right to expect that they will not be adversely affected by risks created on adjoining properties.

However, you’d be wrong if you expected the government to be bound by the same rules that apply to everybody else.

We have argued for years that governments should commit to meet half the cost of materials to replace or repair fencing or other assets on private land where these are destroyed or damaged by bushfires or other activities that originate from roadside verges, national parks, state parks and forests or other state-owned landholdings.

The Victorian state government set the benchmark after the devastating Black Saturday fires in 2009 when it agreed to pay for half the cost of fire-damaged fencing on its boundaries.

The case for a good neighbour policy in Tasmania is even stronger than in other jurisdictions. More than half of the state is now in various forms of government ownership. That represents a huge risk to all adjoining landowners. Yes – all adjoining landowners. This is not something that just affects farmers in rural areas – there are houses alongside roads and parks even in Sandy Bay!

To their credit, the state Liberal government has listened to our arguments. As part of their election policies when they came to power earlier this year, they committed to work with TFGA to develop a charter that details the rights and responsibilities of all landowners – including government – when it comes to the management and spread of fire, wildlife and weeds across property boundaries.

We believe that is fair play; neighbourly even. And we’re looking forward to progressing this in the new year.
TFGA chief executive Jan Davis