Wholesale theft in the name of carbon
By Jo Nova
Imagine a third world nation was mired in corruption so deeply that the ruling class were able to stealthily steal the rights to vast acreage of private property from landowners without paying any compensation.
Imagine that one of the victims of this injustice had approached every court of the land and had not even had his case heard, even after more than 200 attempts. In desperation, and with no other avenue available, having officially “lost the farm”, he starts a hunger strike, which has now gone for 28 days unbroken, threatening to starve to death if he has to.
Welcome to Australia — right on track for Third World Status.
Get ready to be shocked. This is an moving example of why “policy by accident” is a dangerous way to govern. In this case, innocuous feel-good laws end up crushing upstanding citizens. Peter Spencer is still alive (though he may only have 12 – 20 days to go) but how many other farming men were put through the environmental-ringer, and drowned themselves in brandy, picked up a gun, or crashed the car into the only tree near the road? None of these deaths would be recorded as victims of bureaucracy.
Peter Spencer bought a farm south of Canberra in the early 1980’s. In the mid 1990’s new laws rolled into action that prevented land clearing. That meant, even though the land belonged to him, Peter could no longer clear the regrowth. Eighty percent of what he paid for was effectively confiscated. He received nothing in return and there was no way out. He couldn’t sell the property — who would buy a piece of land they have no right to use?
But Peter still had a mortgage to pay, and no way of earning the money to do it. Recently, his last legal avenue was exhausted, and the sherriff gained a warrant to take the farm off him. That was the final straw…
Peter Spencer has issued the Prime Minister of Australia with a letter of his demands. He wants a Royal Commission and compensation for all the farmers who have lost the right to use their land.
Compensation would cost billions. But Kevin Rudd’s “stimulus package” (spend-for-the-sake-of-spending), was 42 billion dollars big.
This is what happens when big government gets your money. It gives a “free” handout of $950 per tax-payer to randomly “stimulate the economy”, and uses the rest to build school halls, even in schools which already had a hall, or in schools which desperately needed a library.
…
Spencer points out that the land-grab by the Australian Government meant the nation met it’s Kyoto commitments, a target that would otherwise have been blown away. The carbon stored in confiscated land amounts to about $10.7 billion in carbon credits. Probably the total value lost (with interest) from the productive use of that land would be many times higher.
Read the rest of this tragic story here at Jo Nova’s website.
=============================
Here’s the most important question: How does the Australian Government account for sequestered carbon when much of this land is prone to bushfires? Do they reset their Kyoto carbon sequestration tally for that land back to zero when all that carbon goes back into the atmosphere?
I’m reminded of this story, also from Australia, where even clearing land to save your home from imminent fire is met with fines and legal issues by the government:
“We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down…”
The whole carbon scheme is insane.
NOTE: I’ve made a change to the title, based on some commenters objection to the use of the word “retarded”. While some saw it in the context of “mental retardation”, that was not my intent. I was thinking of the use of the word in the context of retarding enterprise and freedom. They have certainly “retarded” the ability of people to use their land. I’ve changed the word to “restrictive”. I apologize if this offended anyone. It was a poor word to use. – Anthony
UPDATE: News just in this evening via WUWT commenter “helvio”: ABC Australia says the Mr. Spencer has ended the hunger strike. Details here
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Excuse me? Fairly extreme in what way? If you think the Harper government is “right wing”, I’d HATE to see how far left you are!
That wouldn’t have anything to do with the other parties now, would it? I mean, it’s not like the Harper government could have NOT thrown some stimulus around and also retained control, right?
The best part is, Harper IS “non-alarmist”, and a good part of that is myself and other CPC members ensuring he knew there was a debate. When he was first elected the entire party was awash in alarmists or alarmist apologists.
I seriously doubt that Canada has been in better hands since before trudeau.
@The ghost of Big Jim Cooley (14:08:45) :
“Anthony, I really enjoy your site, but you just made a mistake – in changing the title. As you said, the use of the ‘retarded’ word in the context of retarding enterprise and freedom is PERFECTLY valid! What you’ve done is to change the word simply because it can be used in a different context – yet you have just stated in what context you were using it, so it was okay!”
No, it wasn’t. He did explain, and the explanation (even as it stands now in the change notice) makes no sense, at least grammatically.
You can accuse that government of retarding progress or even enterprise all day long (though not really “freedom”, since that is not a process).
Saying “Australia’s retarded government does something” does not in any sense say that the action is causing a slowdown of some sort.
It is simply applying the adjective to the noun, just like your average teenager (who’s been taught political correctness only with regard to the very protected groups) calling his friends’ stupid behavior “retarded”, just before typing on a car blog that some car’s styling is “gay”.
“I must admit, I’m very disappointed. The UK has gone ‘politically-correct’ crazy – and I do mean crazy, like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t think the US was just as afflicted. Shame, great shame. The English language is rich, diverse, and wonderful. Yet it’s being changed because some cannot see that it’s illogical to change a word when it conveys what you want to say. The word was created for a purpose of definition. Sometimes I really despair that people cannot see things logically”
Calling a terrorist just that, or calling a groups of muslim fanatics just that, is very different from misusing a diagnostic term for innocently mental limitation as an epithet for willful stupidity.
I understand that Anthony has that change notice up there to prevent lefties calling “he’s quitely changed the headline!”, but the explanation given (while reasonable as a basis in thinking up the title) really doesn’t do much good for the actual headline given its straightfoward grammar – it didn’t say what he meant, it said what it said. Can y’all quit saying it now?
The Australian Movie “The Castle”
“The story is about the Kerrigan family, who have been living in their home –their “castle”– for years. Their house is next to the local airport. The airport wants the Kerrigans to move so that they can build a new building on the Kerrigans’ land. Darryl Kerrigan is the father. He does not want to leave his house, so he fights the airport in court. At first he loses in court because his lawyer is not very good. Then he meets a very good lawyer (a Queen’s Counsel). The Queen’s Counsel argues very well and the Kerrigans can keep their house.
“The Castle is funny to Australians because the movie is about ordinary people. They are not rich or stylish, but they are good people. Australians like the idea of “the little Aussie battler”, someone who is hard-working even when life is tough. The movie title is named for the English saying, which is said many time during the movie, “A man’s home is his castle.” The movie also talks about the land rights movement of the Australian Aborigines. Darryl Kerrigan compares his problem to the Aboriginals problems about land. The movie talks about famous Australian Constitutional Law Cases, like Mabo and the Tasmanian Dams Case.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(movie)
The Australian government and the people of Australia should be deeply ashamed of themselves. They have been fooled by the Global Warming crap and they allow this to happen.
Each and every person in Australia lives in a house. Each and every person lives off of farmland that was once cleared. To say that ” I can have cleared land and you cannot” is Eco-Facism. The Eco-Facists should give up their houses and food and lively hoods first.
Land tax was initally inteded to encourage developement. The idea was to make the land productive. If you do not want to encourage land developement, then don’t tax UNDEVELOPED land!
Anthony
Latest Update
As of 40 minutes ago 9.30 am Wed 13th Jan 2010
“Peter Spencer ends hunger strike protest”
Link
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/peter-spencer-ends-hunger-strike-protest/story-e6frg6xf-1225818713137
“HUNGER striker Peter Spencer has ended his 52 day protest over farmers’ property rights and Australia’s climate change responsibilities but will continue his fight “on the ground” supporters said today.
In a statement released shortly after 9:30 am today, his supporters said he would now be hospitalised until doctors could determine his medical condition…….”
“ann riley (14:41:00) :
John Hooper and a few others have missed the point here. By not allowing the guy to clear and use his property the gov. has devalued it.”
Ann do you understand Rudd (see heading) wasn’t even in Federal politics when the land laws came in? It was the present opposition party led by John Howard. And that land clearance laws are not usually a Federal issue anyway.
It had nothing to do with Rudd, so trying to sore petty political points from this will only demonstrate you do not understand the issue.
Rudd may indeed be able to remedy it somehow or roll back the laws, but that’s a separate issue. He’s not the original villian.
Smokey (14:12:48) you seemed to have missed the point of John Hooper’s post. He wasn’t saying he believed in those statements…he was saying those are the claims we should be fighting….
Peter Spencer has ended his hunger strike and come down from the tower.
He is now on his way to hospital, and as soon as he is well enough, he will continue the fight.
He has the support of many Australians, including Barnaby Joyce, a very vocal politician who loves to take the fight to the government.
I visited Peter 2 days ago at his remote property and he was in fairly good spirits and seemed to be very sane and reasonable. He took the extreme action out of desperation when he had exhausted all legal avenues open to him.
The stories published in the Australian were part of an organised smear campaign against Peter Spencer, and John Hooper appears to be part of that campaign.
@Tom in Florida: The reality is that we all own property subject to various restrictions. None of us can claim “absolute” ownership, since we are bound to abide by many conditions on what we can do with our land. The prime example is of course planning legislation. There are many ways in which an owner could theoretically increase the value of his land, by changing its use, or construction of additional buildings. But such changes must be considered in respect to the effect they would have on the surroundings, and that is what planning legislation is for.
Similarly, there will be occasions where planning rules are introduced after the purchase of a property, and this will potentially reduce the value of that land.
I realise my wording indicated an obligation, but Mr Spencer was free to choose whether to sell the land to the Nature Conservation Trust. The option was provided based on a market value offer, provided his property met certain conditions. Mr Spencer rejected the offer, and in fact took legal action to try to challenge the valuation, which failed.
Simon
Australian Climate Madness
Anthony, I love your blog to bits, but please listen to what a few sensible people are saying. I fear the site will lose its street cred if issues are raised that risk stoking up the same kind of tribal hysteria that we see on alarmist sites re: every passing weather-related phenomenon.
I agree with what one contributor has said, that this site could usefully concentrate on the science. Yes, there are political ramifications which I am not saying should be completely ignored, but imho they need to be dealt with in a sober way. Following up the links some have posted, this issue may not be as cut-and-dried as it appears on first glance, so maybe it was an unwise choice?
Just twopence-worth, intended constructively, from a genuine fan of your site! 🙂
“Smokey (14:12:48) :
John Hooper (13:56:28),
Here, let me fix your post:
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Yes. In your case, failure is an option.”
Sorry, you must not have understood I was presenting key arguments we need to rebut to debunk the scare. It may interest you to know that many skeptics disagree with your assertions as well. That’s why it’s important to target the structure of the theory and systematically deflate it.
In order to argue any case you simply need to reference a peer-reviewed study from someone with some credibility, and hopefully not connected to some Libertarian think tank with ties to the tobacco industry or promoting creationism.
Watch me now:
The theory of AGW relies on an increase in atmospheric CO2 leading to an increase in surface temperature.
So let’s agree that CO2 emissions have risen, but question whether atmospheric CO2 has risen in tandem.
That’s right. The science isn’t settled on whether atmospheric CO2 levels have risen, says this report:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html
Therefore, any rise in temperatures whether transient or trend could not be related to CO2.
QED.
And that’s all you need to say.
Australia does not have a Bill of Rights so no Secend Amendment
” Vivienne (15:27:43) :
The stories published in the Australian were part of an organised smear campaign against Peter Spencer, and John Hooper appears to be part of that campaign.”
Oh please. Shouldn’t you be calling talk-back radio?
This story has nothing to do with climate science, and everything to do with the politics of land development. Do you still not get this is about the Australian way of doing things, and not just Kevin Rudd’s Government? Land developers and politicians are forever at odds/in bed.
For what it’s worth, I’m not allowed to remove any native vegetation from my property either. It’s a council zoning by-law to do with my proximity to a wildlife corridor.
I have no interest in defending Kevin Rudd, but if you’re going to take a pot-shot, pick your mark carefully. Don’t be like Malcolm Turnbull and end up taking out your own foot.
@Simon
That sounds good, until it is YOUR house or YOUR farm that is taken away. It especially hurts that it was taken for a fraudulant reason.
I know exactly what it feels like. My family’s farmland was taken by the Communists in Hungary. It was reciently returned, too late, my father died before he could see it.
Communism is another fraud.
Troppo (15:24:04),
Thanks for pointing that out. I am so used to hearing exactly those points endlessly repeated that I made an assumption – something I regret at least half the time.
OTOH, the mast head states that this site is about: “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”. Anthony takes commenters’ suggestions and often posts them as an article.
With 135 comments in only six hours, this has been a popular post. People are interested. And WUWT has a wide audience, unlike the Soros-funded AGW echo chambers with the same relatively small group of true believers, repeating the same things to each other over and over.
Thousands of people read this site every day, lurking in the background without commenting. The folks who post their opinions here get a much bigger audience, and much wider publicity for their views. Yes, the climategate scandal boosted traffic, but I think Anthony must be doing something else right. WUWT won the Best Science award well before the climategate story broke.
While I sympathise with this man I think we need to make a few things clear. The legislation in question is a state law that is more than 10 years old – the Rudd government is Federal and is less than 3 years old. It’s perhaps a bit disingenuous to blame Kevin Rudd for the situation?
Every farmer in NSW is subject to the same laws and while they may not be fair they are hardly ruining the industry. There are 39000 farms in NSW employing 82000 people. They produce more than 40 billion in revenue including 10 billion in export dollars each year.
Mr Spencer’s problem is that he allowed his farm to go ‘fallow’. Now he is legally forbidden to clear the regrowth. It is a problem that all farmers face but most are able to ‘work around’ the situation by keeping regrowth from happening in the first place (usually by regular slashing). Mr Spencer’s unique problem is he pursued alternative business interests elsewhere and the regrowth (and legislation) occurred in his absence. It’s sad but is it sadder than (for example) a farmer going out of business because of drought – because that happens all the time in Australia and has done since Europeans settled this country.
Above all – it has nothing to do with AGW and I honestly don’t see why it’s even on this site.
Austrailians already lost their rights under the 1688 Bill of Rights. The original for Croc Dundee had his gun pried out of his cold, dead fingers.
Yep, “extremism” is just a label you use on anyone who disagrees with you if you want to make them be seen as out of the pale, out-law.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, Anthony. I’d leave the story, as whilst there may be little in the personal circumstance to infer climate change, certainly the laws that prevent Mr. Spencer from selling his scrub were enacted with this in mind.
SOT – John Hooper, your own personal agenda was even less relevant to the point of this blog. 😉
@ur momisugly DogB (16:10:30):
It does have have something to do with AGW because the Commonwealth Government at the time (when Howard was PM) got the states to enact and use these laws to meet Australia’s Kyoto emissions target. You may want to read my earlier post (14:13:00) for an explanation of the link between the Federal Government, these state laws and the Kyoto protocol.
@Joh4Canberra (16:28:17):
What is your evidence for this collusion between the Commonwealth and the States, and for the link between the State’s native vegetation laws and Kyoto? Temporal association does not indicate causation.
Simon
ACM
Where’s Mad Max when you need him!
Hello all, I have been posting the following email to as many web sites as I can find to highlight this DISGRACE.
Everybody please do the same for the sake of JUSTICE.
===========
Hello,
We are in Australia. You may not be aware of the issue we have over here, but it concerns CARBON SINKS.
Basically various farmers around Australia have had their ability to earn a living from their farms removed by the government declaring them CARBON SINKS in order to fulfill this KYOTO TREATY TREASON. Their rights to clear any land for farming have been removed. Little to no compensation has been offered to them!
This farmer Peter Spencer has had enough (he has been fighting this for over 10 years and had over 200 court appearances) and is taking a stand, not only for himself but for all the farmers who have been wronged by this COMMUNIST POLICY.
He is trying to draw attention to this SHAMEFUL and DISGUSTING INJUSTICE BY THE GOVERNMENT!
He has now gone over 50 days WITHOUT FOOD.
The Prime Minister/federal government will not even meet with him!
World Wide publicity has to be given to this SICKENING SITUATION!
This is the support web site for the hunger protest against this INJUSTICE:-
http://agmates.ning.com/group/peterspencerhungerstrike
Please give this as much publicity as you can.
Thanks for listening.
@Simon from Sydney(13:36:39):
http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/1997-11-07/index.cfm#climate
http://www.australianpolitics.com/foreign/environment/ngs.pdf [NB PDF!] especially Module 6
The various “Partnership Agreements” of the time between the Commonwealth and the states.
http://www.environment.gov.au/land/publications/nvf/
Agree with you Simon,some are blaming the commonwealth government for what is state government laws.I was horrified to see the state government did not have to offer compensation,but after reading this blog I see that is not true either.Most state governments are in because of green preferences,they give in to the green party to get the votes.It is ridiculous to give power to a political party that only musters a few thousand votes,but that’s our political system.I don’t see the USA system as any different,didn’t Obama buy his health votes?In Australia the government promises the greens concessions(like building bike tracks,locking up land,no building dams) to get their bill through parliament,not money.The main reason why we have stupid burn off regulations is because of green concessions by various state governments,not in Tasmania though.We still burn off but that may change next election where the possibility of a hung parliament is looming,leading to a deal between liberal and greens which will be a nightmare,but is expected to happen because of the green campaign against the pulp mill.
This is a sad case, however…
There’s been an account of this saga running at Australian Climate Madness that includes analysis of his legal claims, an account of him failing to pay back a family loan of $1 million, and his being away in New Guinea and, as a result letting the farm go downhill.
As much as it looks like the poster-boy case of AGW government stealing his land for a carbon sink–it’s a bit more involved. go check out Simon’s several posts on the case.