Luddy old mate, I think you'll find those signs are merely an insurance policy, & a money saving measure.

The signs probably mean you can not sue the said council should you injure your self in some drunken frivolity with your computer, while illegally camped.

Secondly I'm sure it would cost hundreds of thousands to make the necessary investment in sanitary facilities at the site, to allow legal camping. You are I'm sure, aware how any branch of government pays about 4 to 10 times the going rate for any building work of any kind.

I can remember the mayor of Hervey Bay showing us the quotes for a 4 seat & urinal septic toilet at the racecourse/sports ground at Torbanlea, about 30 years ago. When you could build a 3 bed suburban house fro $35,000 the cheapest quote was $280,000.

I'd suggest you keep quiet, before the site develops a 6Ft high fence, to protect the councilors.

Well done WmTrevor and Hasbeen.

Ludwig should not expect much support if he won't pay his way.

Waterhole

Banjo, I am sure that it is the role of the police to deal with council bylaws, or at least some of them.

Case in point – parking restrictions at the base of Castle Hill, Townsville. People flagrantly ignored the parking signs to the most ludicrous extent, year after year. The council never policed it. But the police occasionally booked people. I witnessed the situation there almost daily for many years as I went running up Castle Hill in the evenings. Now with a new council, it is regularly policed by council officers.

So the police clearly can issue infringement notices for council bylaws. Or at least, they can when it comes to parking and camping and the like.

Pericles…. wonderful. We agree! Yarhoo!!

[Well, as far as I can tell, you are genuinely agreeing with me, and not talking with tongue in firmly planted in cheek! It is so strange for us to agree that I had to read your post several times, searching for the sarcasm. But no, we do appear to have genuine conjugality! I’ll crack a coldie right now to celebrate this momentous occasion!]

Yes, just down the road in the next shire, or at other places in the same local government area for that matter, the policing regime could be entirely different.

Again, I’ve seen just this sort of thing in Townsville. Just a short distance from Castle Hill, in and around the Townsville CBD, the policing of parking restrictions is entirely different.

Local councils are certainly a big part of the problem, and the level of apathy in the community is an even bigger part.

I don’t know what we can do about it. But I would think that if the likes of our PM would simply express appropriate concern about the law not really being the law a lot of the time and about making it match reality as much as possible, then it would simply filter down through state and local governments and lead to a considerable improvement. I can’t see why this wouldn’t be the case.

It really is a piss-poor aspect of any government that purports itself to be half decent if it has any of this sort of legal duplicity going on under its watch.

<< You mean like laptop-enabled frugal beachbums who consciously make a decision to break the law? >>

No WmTrevor, you are missing the fundamental point. Not a conscious decision to break the law or to snub one’s nose at the law, but rather; a conscious effort to determine what the go actually was, after someone had told the laptop-enabled-frugal-beachbum person that the place was a traditional campsite of long standing.

Now, the next time you jump behind the wheel of your car and get out there on the public roads and exceed the speed limit by a couple of clicks, think to yourself; are you making a conscious decision to break the law or does it just come naturally?

It has to be one or the other, because every one of us who drives a motor vehicle breaks the letter of the law all the time.

So make sure you stick to your principles and don’t exceed the speed limit by 1kmh at any point. Make sure you don’t start speeding up until you get to the speed sign when you move into a higher speed zone and slow down well before you get to the speed sign when you are moving into a lower speed zone, so that you are not exceeding the speed limit when you pass the sign. Then see how other drivers react to you. See how often you get tailgated. Make a judgement as to how much more likely you are to have an accident if you stick fastidiously to the letter of the speed limit laws. Fact is with speed limits, as with so many other things, accepted practice is significantly different to the letter of the law.

So, unless you can confirm that you always stick to the absolute letter of the law all the time in every way, how about thinking very carefully about the tenet of your last post.

Dear Ludwig,

I'd count my blessings if I was you and not
question a thing. You were so lucky to get
such intelligent police officers. I suspect
the signage was put up for "undesirables."
I appears that you didn't fit the category!
:)