Saturday, May 13, 2006 at 06:38
Hello George,
The reason you get as you put it hearded into camps is because the second you set wheel off the road down one of those indistinct tracks just mentioned is because you are then on land someone else is paying money to rent !
They therefore have the right to chose to open it up for tourism or not to do so.
It is private property with full rights by the leasehold to prosecute if you are caught on it. If the land is fenced or not has nothing at all to do with anything.
This may have a blind eye turned to it in the past but the numbers now doing it are huge and half of them are careless with rubbish, fires etc etc. In the past when the numbers where small it wasn't such a problem, with the numbers now doing it is it a problem.
Visitors are in the area 2 minutes and gone, each one thinks they are the only one doing this stuff, they are not thinking of the thousands that in fact do it, we are the ones left to deal with the problems.
Also each person wants to be alone and goes a bit further and a bit further, that indistinct track is in fact a private station track which people have no permission to be on.
The other problem is next thing they are accidently in the midst of muster and stuff it up for the pastoralist. I think people may all think differently about it if
(1) If it was them paying the rent, rates etc
(2) If it was them trying to run a bussiness where everyone thought they had a key to the door.
(3) You may think it is an empty wilderness but it is our backyard and we all run our business on all of it.
I am not having a go at you or any one person personally, just no one seems to stop and think about all this ' free ' camping on another persons lease from the other persons point of view at all !
No one would dream of going into a leased or freehold property anywhere in a more populated area without permission but there is no difference what so ever, and the same tresspass laws do apply.
It is only by the goodwill of the pastoral leaseholder that we mostly chose not to prosecute but be aware this is changing.
A re think of attitude by visitors is required, it is not your ' right ' to go on anothers land regardless if leased or freehold anymore than it is mine to go on to your place.
cheers, Anne
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