This post flushed out the usual metrocentrics, who fine tune their anti-rural bigotry. Any minor bit of safety net for farmers is seen as some sort of urban largesse but they forget their own heavily subsidised public transport. The urban safety net is not available to farmers.

There is a war against farmers, the truth died long ago and the spin merchants rush to bury the post with ignorance and derision. Knowledge of the death of truth went right to the top. The first clearing measures in NSW, SEPP 46, was justified on the basis of a claimed 150,000ha of clearing. The estimate, provided by John Benson of the Botanic Gardens, extrapolated to the entire state, from regrowth clearing on the north half of the Moree plain. Subsequent satellite scans revealed actual clearing between 8,000 and 12,000ha per annum, a 12 to 19 fold exaggeration.

When this came to light it was suppressed. And there was no appology from anyone. A government obtained a right, power or privilege over land by misrepresentation and deception. Later measures removed exemptions for minimal clearing etc despite the complete absence of evidence that these exemptions were being abused.

But don't expect a show of regret or compassion for the consequences of this gross malgovernance. The fact is that regional economies, regional communities and regional ecosystems will continue to decline for as long as the whims and fiat of metropolitan political elites can determine policy for regional areas. They simply do not, and will not, to make the time to be even partially informed on regional issues because they cannot even manage their own environment.

Name the issues, sewerage, congestion, marine ecosystems, transport and law & order, they have stuffed the lot. They spent billions on an olympic display of narcissism while the fish in their own front yard were drinking dioxin from the same location.

Regional economic and environmental decline will not be fixed until we have a state, or states, of our own. Nothing will succeed like secession.

Perseus: Yes please, go and succeed - to the Tanami Desert or somewhere else where you can claim to stand above the attempts to stop the rot in this country.

The facts remain:

1. Rot. Eg Problems with dry-land salinity in Australia affect 25,000 km2, with 170,000 km2 of the 300,000 km2 likely to be destroyed by salinity by 2050 based on current trends.

2. Assistance. Year after year there are claims for handouts when the inevitable drought hits (and no payback). Go and stand on your own feet like the rest of the country. Accept it costs more to live in the country and if you cant hack it, go and join the rest of the country.

Tree clearing laws only punish those who still have trees, they aren't a problem for people who knocked them all down long ago.. So people who have cared for the land are punished, and those who have exploited it to the hilt are rewarded - brilliant!

And to those whinging about rich farmers and government handouts, why don't you get out there and get yourselves some of those handouts? No-one's stopping you, get off your lazy butts, take responsibilty for yourselves and make yourself rich like all those farmers!

Vinny

“extreemist”. I love your spelling. In you case it should have about another five e’s!

“the plan is simple, introduce draconian and unworkable laws to prevent farmers properly running their properties…..”

“all designed to bankrupt the farmer and drive him off the land”.

“the process taking place around oz at the moment overseen by extreemist leftist gov and communist greenies……”


It was good for a laugh when I first read it. I thought, here’s a silly joker, hiding behind a pseudonym, chucking in some real claptrap just to see if some drongo will respond. But then it became apparent that he was indeed put this stuff forward as serious comment.

Hell’s bells!

I need make no further response (but see my next post)

Ludwig L.
(the drongo)

I remember, when talking to a friend of mine who had done some work in the Nationals in NSW, when I was explained the destination of taxation revenue in Australia. Since then, I have felt drought assistance to be the least we can do.

Every person from the city who pays taxes gets, on average, 1.2 times their tax dollars worth of things. This rises dramatically if a family member with children and an income below $50,000 a year. A person in a rural centre gets .7 times their money back. A single farmer gets .15, as he rarely accesses services in towns. In drought years, they get a product of recompense similar to that of a 3 child family from a city with their children in public schools/universities. Remember, these were rough figures worked out a guy who studied statistics, politics, political economy and economics at university.

Having a drought ever ten years and giving out drought assistance is allowing farmers to get their tax dollars back, nothing more, nothing less.

On the comments that Australian soil was not "made for agriculture" or that we're farming too much should remember that Europe was not "made" for most of the things grown there, things imported largely from the middle east, asia minor and the Americas, and most things growning in the USA were also imported. If we just farmed what we found on lands then Italy would not have American tomatoes on its pizzas.

Whilst very, very few farmers are on land which is unsustainable. With smarter technology, enough maintenance of waterways to allow natural sequestration (in unirrigated farms, or dry-land farms), fixed-up irrigation canals, a return to single export desks, maybe internal ones too, removing anti-clearing legislation for regrowth, and having better government funding with less red-tape... and so on and so on... our farms would not be in many of the troubles they are in.

Some learned agriculturist friends of mine has started referring to themselves as 'Kulaks'... because the Watermelons from Party Central will drive them off the land in whatever way they can.

Just wondering, Peter, if you have looked into (you probably have) these things. If you have, what response did you get from the authorities?

(I was told of these three potential "loopholes" in the Native Vegetation Conservation act of 2003 by a mate who's looking into using them on his property in the New England region.)

1. Claim a rotational policy will be enforced, or begin one, and thus be permitted a certain amount of clearing each year.
2. Argue that environmental outcomes will be improved by the clearing, especially referring to the streams, the loss of water to the regrowth, and the potential beneficial effects of water seeping from traps/pools/dams and being sequestered in the surrounding pastures, but also for the wellbeing of native animals.
3. Claim Routine Agricultural Management Activities, like pest control, and buffer zones around fences and buildings (perhaps build a shed in the middle of some regrowth). The problem is, it must be shown to be a routine thing.

I don't know the actual sections of the legislation on which you could base these claims, but i'll seek to find them in good time. In any case, I doubt that it your claims would be allowed, because although by the letter of the law you could clear much of that regrowth, the true environmental damage you would claim is dismissed by pseudo-science and Theory.