Oh dear. I’d better put my photos of Uluru and Booderee away, never to be seen again!

I was wondering what that big ugly grey warship was doing anchored in Jervis Bay as I took photos of plants along the edge of the beach in Booderee National Park. Spying on me for taking unlawful botanical photos??

And I felt decidedly uneasy about taking photos of the Rock when there were signs around suggesting that you shouldn’t. I was fearful of a traditional owner jumping out from behind a mulga bush while I was out on the walking track apparently by myself and accosting me, or of my camera being snatched and the memory card erased if I took photos openly in the presence of other people!

I became quite angry about the absurd restrictions on photography at Uluru, and that was just for normal tourists taking normal touristy photos, not for any commercial purposes. I certainly didn’t feel very welcome in my own country at that point.

I appreciate your concerns Ross.

You’d think, given that our country is basically run by lawyers (see this current thread: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10655) that we’d have more sensible rules and an overall considerably better rule of law in this country!

Thank you, Ludwig. As mentioned I was in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park quite recently (June 10th-15th) and saw two instances of tourists being "told off" by tour guides for trying to take pictures merely in the vicinity of areas where all photography was forbidden.

One of these instances was near the sacred site called Mala Puta and the tour guide yelled out "No Photographs" to a poor woman who was taking a snap about 10-20 metres away from the actual site - which is quite tiny anyway. (It's a small cave.) And I could tell by the way that the woman was holding her camera that Mala Puta wasn't in frame. I was walking past the group and said to the tour guide that the woman wasn't taking a photograph of Mala Puta but her response was, "well you're not allowed to take pictures anywhere near it."

The other time happened less than half an hour later when another tour guide stopped some tourists from taking a picture of the rock wall that included the sacred site called Warayuki. This sacred site was only a small part of their picture - it at all - and at that time of the day was largely obscured by shadow.

Sadly, even tour guides have now become part of the "thought police" who control how we see and interpret our best-known and our most rock-solid natural icon.

- Ross Barnett

What price on getting caught bogged-down with the assistance of a copy of the environmental regulations behind a spinifex clump?
It’s part of the penalty for a “big Australia”; herd control.

I left North Queensland in 1954. A vast number of interesting natural places there, which could be freely visited then, are now either vastly restricted, developed, destroyed, or totally out-of-bounds.

But, even without the ratbaggery of inappropriate administration of woolly legislation, the pressure of numbers on fragile locations needs to be curtailed. Ever-increasingly so as growth continues, pushed along by political dictate.

"Political Correctness"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236#

is a Mental Disease that even infects the Conservative Coalition, because the Bureaucrookracy is riddled with it.

So whatever party is in power, Federal, State or Local the "Thought Police" are in power, writing the detail in every piece of legislation.

No Australian child will be safe, until we repeal, every law, rule, regulation or policy, introduced since the early 1960's.

What Australia desperately needs now, 5 decades too late, is joint parliamentary committees, on Un Australian activities.

Lets "Politically Cleanse" the Red/green/getup/labour coalition of all the CARS, Communist, Anarchist, Radical, Socialists.

After ASIO has identified them, we can deport them, re-educate them, or execute them for Treason.

The "proceeds of crime" acts could also be used to strip them of all their property as they have been engaged in a criminal conspiracy to bankrupt our nation.

Have a little lie down and a bex, Former-snag. You will feel so much better in the morning. In the meantime, some of us commie types including photographers will keep pushing for freedom of expression and speech without putting anyone up against the wall.

I generally agree with Ross Barnett on this, with some reservations. I wasn't aware of the apparent plethora of restrictions on photography in National Parks and Commonwealth Reserves, and on the face of it they sound excessive. Mind you, I go to lots of National Parks and always obey the regulations, but I can't recall any prohibition on photography displayed in brochures, signage etc.

The mere fact of photographing anything (or anybody for that matter) does nothing to the subject, but I suppose it's the uses to which resultant images might be put that could be a problem. In Ludwig's example of Jervis Bay, last I heard it's a military base and I could understand why one's freedom to take happy snaps might be reasonably curtailed.

In the case of Uluru, if these are indeed sacred sites I think that their owners are quite within their rights to forbid tourists from photographing them. The tourists only have access to Uluru by virtue of it being leased back to the Commonwealth, and I would think that respecting the owners' wishes is quite reasonable. Aboriginal sacred sites are just that to their owners, and I don't imagine they'd be too keen on images of such places being plastered all over the Internet on Flickr or whatever.

As a keen and frequent user of national parks, I accept that a certain amount of regulation is necessary in order to maintain and preserve the special qualities for which they were created, particularly in high use areas. However, I agree that it shouldn't exist for its own sake.