Tuesday, 2 August 2022

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:43): The Liberal Democrats believe in public access to public land. Year after year the government adds new restrictions on what Victorians can do on Crown land across Victoria. There is an old saying:

The law locks up the man …

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose.

Crown land, the commons belonging to the people of Victoria, has now been placed off-limits to ordinary Victorians. In free societies citizens may do anything that is not forbidden by law. In the case of Victorian national parks so many things have been forbidden that it is easier to assume that nothing is allowed except what is expressly permitted by the state. You cannot camp, hunt, collect firewood, prospect, fish, collect bait, bring dogs or horses, fly a drone, rock climb or do anything without an exemption or specific permission. Any and every pretence is seized upon to end existing traditional uses of Crown land, like the Sea Lake Mallee Rally, but it is all an ideological agenda to exclude the Victorian people. The irony is that Victorian Crown land is so badly managed. It has been degraded by neglect from an ideological bureaucracy based in Melbourne at the same time as the people are being excluded. What is supposed to be protected is being destroyed.

Victorians have a right of access to the commons of the estate, and the law should reflect that. Crown land should be managed by local communities, local stakeholders that are responsive to their people, affected by the decisions and who actually care about the country in question. It is time to allow the Victorian public back onto their commons—public access to public land.