Peter Spencer Property Rights update 2.

Image: courtesy "Agmates."

I am seeing some signs of the press taking notice of the plight of Peter in his struggle for compensation over the seizure of his right to farm his property through vegetation management laws. The massive areas affected by this draconian law have been bargained by Rudd to mitigate a 30% increase in emissions from this country caused by other sectors of the economy who have been given a free ride on the backs of the Peter Spencers of this country.

This has resulted in a net saving under the Kyoto Protocol of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Despite this no compensation has been paid to the affected landholders, some of whom like Peter are facing financial ruin. Others are severely affected, by marriage breakups, depression, ruin, and some have committed suicide. The government have stated that this is a matter for the courts, however they are being deliberately dishonest in this as on every occasion that Peter has managed to get a day in court, and it appears he has done so on around 200 occasions the government moves for dismissal and the matter is deferred.

For those looking into this for the first time or others, there is great coverage of his protest at “Agmates.”

I would urge you to join the group and contribute to the discussions, or if you just wish to keep informed you will receive Email updates. Some protests are being organized and you might find it possible to join in. We need your help, Peter has been on hunger strike for 37 days now.

For some background go to Quadrant Online for Justin Jefferson’s article, or to “‘Carbongate’ The Great Carbon Heist” on Crikey.

When you read of this, you will find it easy to rail about the injustice of it all. It is easy to call the government a pack of bastards for doing this, and indeed they are, all of them, Federal and State. Unpleasant as it is to accept though, we are all culpable in this outrage. This action has been taken in your name, with your permission tacit or otherwise, by your government, elected by the majority of you. It is no use saying “I voted for Howard,” he started the ball rolling on this.

Unless we start moving on limiting the power of the state in what it can and can’t do we are destined to watch helplessly as these actions are foisted on us time and time again. We need some form of constitutionally enumerated powers similar to those in Article of I Section 8 of the US Constitution and a Bill of Rights equivalent to their first ten amendments. Only then can we make progress to a just and moral society.