As the likelihood of legislation to limit clearing of native vegetation gained public notoriety in the late 1990s, and pre-emptory clearing accelerated, concern by rural landholders in particular about ‘property rights’ intensified. Heated meetings were held around the State. The Department of Natural Resources commissioned two significant consultancies and its own officers produced a significant internal report. These analyses lead to a government decision not to pay ‘compensation’ for newly imposed restrictions (which were of a regulatory and not proprietorial nature), but instead to establish funds for industry adjustment, property management planning and purchase of distressed enterprises.
Institutional Reform in Rural Australia: Defining and Allocating Property Rights, Tony Gleeson and Kirstie Piper, 2002.
Property Rights and Natural Resource Management, Ian Reeve, Institute of Rural Futures, 2002.
The Department’s internal paper was titled as if confined to property in water, but that was an artifact of late-stage internal negotiations; the analysis applies also to land.
In 2002 the Department commissioned eminent planner and lawyer Phil Day to produce an Issues Paper examining the concept of betterment – the taxing of the unlearned increment in value when government decisions and the general advance of a community result in a rising value of land. The paper – Incentives and Disincentives – the Potential of Property Taxes to Reinforce Public Policy Objectives wasn’t published but a copy has fallen from the back of a truck into QSN’s hands.
Maps of land use and land tenure in South-east Queensland:
Public land map – April 2008.
Map plus table.
Land use summary for the SEQ NRM region – June 2014.
In 2014 the Queensland Government published a Discussion Paper envisaging freeholding some of the public land estate. The Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation (now Outdoors Queensland) commissioned a report titled Underpinning the Foundations of the Four Pillars. Queensland State Land–. A copy of the State’s Discussion Paper Strengthening our economic future has been annotated with detailed comments by QORF’s consultant.
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