Peter Spencer has recently made the news by staging a hunger strike to draw attention to his plight. He currently owns an unproductive 12,000 hectare property in Shannon’s Flat NSW and is fighting the government for the rights to clear his land of native vegetation.

The war on farmers – On Line Opinion – 27/1/2006.  However after reading this article which he posted in 2006, I don’t have a lot of sympathy. Recent media reports do not tell the whole story.

Spencer writes that he first purchased the property in the 1990′s while living overseas. He remained overseas for a long period and did not work the property at all.  It is his inaction that allowed the regrowth of native vegetation over the next decade. When he finally returned to Australia he found that local legislation restricted the clearing of native regrowth.  He also stated that he could have applied for permission to clear his property but failed to do so.

His plea for sympathy mentions a number of other problems with his property as well, lack of water during the extended drought, fire risk due to close proximity to a national park, native animals that destroy what pasture he does have. By his very words the property sounds to be a lost cause, unless he can get somebody else to pay for improvements.

In my opinion, that is the crux of Peter Spencers problem. For a long period he allowed the property to be unproductive. It was neglected and became overgrown. Couple this with the long period of drought and you have a large property that is even more unproductive unless large sums of money are spent on improvements. He allowed native regrowth to occur on his property, now he expects a hand out to fix the problem. Sorry Mr Spencer, but I think you have made some poor business decisions and I don’t see why Aussie taxpayers should pay for them

Filed under: Category In the News, Politics | Tags: compensation,farmer,Peter Spencer,taxpayer by Steven Cousley