When approached by ABC journalists sometime before publication of this online article concerning recent changes to regulations under the NSW Crown Lands Management Act 2016, a spokesperson for NSW Minister for Lands and Forestry, Minister for Racing and Nationals MP for Bathurst Paul Toole stated the new provisions were:
"substantially the same as the provisions in the existing Crown Lands By-law 2006."
Adding words to the effect that the suggestion that new
regulations were designed to ban protests was wrong.
It appears that the minister and his staff think that voters across the entire state (and particularly those living in the Northern Rivers region) never learnt to read, write or comprehend simple sentences.
What other reason could there be for such a bald-faced political lie?
This is the by-law referred to in the spokesperson's statement supplied to ABC News.
Current version for 25
June 2018 to date (accessed 28 June 2018 at 00:26)
22 Conduct
prohibited in reserve
(1) A person must
not, without reasonable excuse:
(a) damage,
deface or interfere with any structure, sign, public notice, descriptive plate,
label, machinery or equipment in a reserve, or
(b) obstruct
any authorised person or employee of, or contractor to, the reserve trust of a
reserve in the performance of the authorised person’s duty or the employee’s or
contractor’s work in the reserve, or
(c) pollute
any fresh water, tank, reservoir, pool or stream in a reserve, or
(d) bring
onto a reserve any diseased animal or any noxious animal, or
(e) walk
over, mark, scratch or otherwise mutilate, deface, injure, interfere with,
remove or destroy any Aboriginal rock carving, its surrounds or any other
Aboriginal object in a reserve, or
(f) (Repealed)
(g) remain in
a reserve or any part of a reserve or any building, structure or enclosure in
the reserve when reasonably requested to leave by an authorised person, or
(h) bring
into or leave in a reserve any refuse, waste material, scrap metal (including
any vehicle or vehicle part), rock, soil, sand, stone or other such substance.
Maximum penalty: 5
penalty units.
(2) A person must
not in a reserve for a cemetery:
(a) interfere
with any grave or monument, or
(b) open any
coffin, or
(c) disturb
or interrupt any service, procession, cortege, gathering, meeting or assembly,
or
(d) bury any
human remains (whether cremated or not).
Maximum penalty: 5
penalty units.
Now spot the very significant differences in the new regulation.
9 Conduct prohibited in
dedicated or reserved Crown land
(1) A person must not do
any of the following on dedicated or reserved Crown land:
(a) damage, deface or
interfere with any structure, sign, public notice, descriptive plate, label,
machinery or equipment on the land, or
(b) obstruct any
authorised person or employee of, or contractor to, a responsible manager of
the land in the performance of the authorised person’s duty or the employee’s
or contractor’s work on the land, or (c) bring in or on to the land any animal
that is diseased or a pest, or
(d) walk over, mark,
scratch or otherwise mutilate, deface, injure, interfere with, remove or
destroy any Aboriginal object in or on the land, or
(e) remain in or on the
land or any part of the land or any structure or enclosure in or on the land
when reasonably requested to leave by an authorised person, or
(f) bring into or leave on the land any
refuse, waste material, scrap metal (including any vehicle or vehicle part),
rock, soil, sand, stone or other similar substance.
Maximum penalty: 50
penalty units.
The list
under the heading Activities that can be prohibited on Crown land by direction or notice
under Part 9 of Act (1) contains 36 banned activities, including sitting on a picnic table.
However four
in particular are activities often associated with community meetings,
gatherings expressing local concerns and public information events.
Each of the activities
specified in the following Table is prescribed for the purposes of sections 9.4
(1) (b), 9.5 (1) (b) and 9.5 (2) of the Act:
3 Holding a meeting or
performance or conducting entertainment for money or consideration of any kind,
or in a manner likely to cause a nuisance to any person
4 Taking part in any
gathering, meeting or assembly (except, in the case of a cemetery, for the
purpose of a religious or other ceremony of burial or commemoration)
6 Displaying or causing
any sign or notice to be displayed
7 Distributing any
circular, advertisement, paper or other printed, drawn, written or
photographic matter
Note.
Clause
6 of Schedule 7 provides for certain land under Acts repealed by Schedule 8 to
become Crown land under this Act. Section 1.10 then provides for this land to
be vested in the Crown.
Land that will become
Crown land under this Act includes land vested in the Crown that is dedicated
for a public purpose. This land was previously excluded from the definition
of Crown land in the Crown Lands Act
1989. See also section 1.8 (2).
So there you have it - very clearly set out.
An extension of government power and, a wide delegation of that power given the extended definition of Crown land, which will see community gatherings challenged, shut down and people moved on if local police, council officers or representatives of government departments/reserve trusts decide either the message or the visuals are considered politically unpalatable by government.
Oh, and I hope North Coast Voices readers have noticed that the maximum fine which can be imposed on an individual has been increased from 5 penalty points ($550) to 50 penalty points ($5,500).
ABC News - ABC North Coast, 26 June 2018:
The new regulations will
apply to all crown-owned land, which amounts to about half of all land in New
South Wales.
The 35,000 crown reserve
sites include parks, heritage sites, community halls, nature reserves, coastal
lands, sporting grounds, government infrastructure and showgrounds.
Mr Ricketts said the new
regulations were bigger and broader than those imposed under the
Bjelke-Petersen era in Queensland in the 1970s.
In September 1977, then
Queensland Premier Johannes Bjelke-Petersen proclaimed the day of the political
street march was over.
"Anybody who holds
a street march, spontaneous or otherwise, will know they're acting
illegally," he said.
The statement was echoed
by the acting police commissioner and was police policy until April 1978.
During the two-year ban,
1,972 people were arrested.
Mr Ricketts said he
expected a similar reaction in New South Wales, if the new regulations were
enforced.
"They banned street
marches for the right to march — which led to violent policing," he said.
The Knitting Nannas
protest group joined the chorus of concern.
Spokeswoman Judi Summers
said she was shocked to learn about the new rules.
She said the group's
strategy of holding weekly knit-ins outside the offices of local politicians
might not be possible under the new regulations.
"Well it would have
shut us down basically," Ms Summers said.
"We've been
knitting outside of Thomas George and Kevin Hogan's [parliamentary] offices for
the last sort of six years.
"Every Thursday
without a miss, and if these laws had been introduced way back then, we would
have been moved on right from the start."
Lawyer and NSW Greens
candidate for Lismore, Sue Higginson, said over the years, she had represented
hundreds of protestors in court, through her work with the Environmental
Defenders Office.
"I see time and
time again, the courts — generally speaking — have a real concern about having
to penalise people who have found that they are in a position of having to
break laws to stand up for an issue or to protect the environment or to protect
a civil right," she said.
"So where we are
criminalising really benign behaviour, and behaviour that people have a right
to do, it becomes a real problem for the courts."
Ms Higginson said a good
example was the role of town halls played during the coal seam gas protests on
the Northern Rivers.
"If you look back
to how the community in the Northern Rivers mobilised to protect the land and
water here from coal seam gas, a lot of that organisation and the information
and the those meetings — they were held in those town halls."
Ms Higginson said under
the new regulations, meetings could be banned or dispersed from town halls.
"People should
definitely be alarmed and the biggest problem about this kind of thing is it's
difficult to understand the application these laws will have until you're
impacted," she said.
