Many community members will not be able to afford to rebuild on their land, is it really necessary for homes in the bush to be built to town standards?

"Members of Wytaliba's alternative community planning the rebuild of their homes are concerned planning approval rules could make rebuilding so unaffordable it could exclude half the village.

And one bushfire victim said the community, founded as a hippie commune in the 70s, may be forced to finance rebuilding through the "grey economy".

Glen Innes Severn Council this week confirmed the community will be required to follow development consent and building certification rules for "replacement" dwellings, laws that have long been flouted in the village.

Long-time resident David Pieters said some residents may be forced to take desperate measures to afford to do so.

Local fire captain Kym Jermey said building to specifications could be so expensive the community of about one hundred residents could shrink by half".

There's an opportunity for the federal Govt to put its foot down & give a lot of red tape the boot once & for all !
Buildings must be be made of non-flammable material & no trees to be planted within less than 15 metres. Problem solved ! No maggot consulting engineers & lawyers required whatsoever.
Council Building Inspectors get already handsomely paid to ensure compliance. No extra costs involved Period !
National Service participants could help everywhere, if we had a National Service that is.
Councils need to be stopped by Federal Legislation to rip off the people in their Constituency !
NOW, is the best opportunity to gain back at least some common sense !

individual: You need to read the constitution! The federal gov is NOT responsible for building codes. This is a state matter.

Also local councils are not under federal control, instead they exist ONLY by the grace and whim of the states. That is, councils are not even mentioned in the federal constitution but are created and given their powers by the states and the individual state constitutions.

The way our constitution works is that the states are the primary from of government in that they hold ALL powers except those explicitly granted by the constitution to the federal government. Section 51 of the constitution lists these federal powers. And it is quite a short list! The powers the fed gov have are things like: international relations (ie: external affairs and foreign trade), marriage/divorce, postal and telecommunications services, lighthouses, quarantine, companies, bankruptcy/insolvency, pensions, citizenship, currency, taxation*, etc.

Whenever a federal law conflicts with a state law then the state law ALWAYS overrides the federal UNLESS it concerns an explicit federal power.

So in general the states governments are exceptionally powerful governments. In practice the only effective way the federal government can reign in the powers of the states is by use of the foreign trade and relation powers that is has.
Eg: if the federal government were to sign an international treaty banning capital punishment then the states couldn't execute people. So hypothetically Tasmania could enact a law (ie: a bill that passes its parliament and gets its Governor's assent) requiring that all its residents who's names begin with the letter 'M' must be executed and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop this unless the federal government has signed an international treaty/agreement banning this.

*Taxation is a tricky one- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_basis_of_taxation_in_Australia

Whoops, In my last post I forgot to list a very important federal power that I meant to mention, specifically: the creation and control of the army/navy for defense purposes.

Too expensive? Want to carry on making the same stupid mistakes with living and bulding in the bush? Then burn, baby, burn.

To be fair: regarding the executing people who's names begin with "M" scenario I am perhaps pushing the example a bit too far here. There is perhaps another way that it could be stopped. The courts could overrule it by stating that it is contradictory to our human rights. But this is just the courts with their own modern feel-good interpretation of the constitution and not a literal interpretation. Since we do not have an explicit constitutionally based bill of rights or equivalent that grants us such human rights, the courts of have created them by implication of their interpretations.