Peter Spencer's background story Part 3 of 3

In January 2011, Peter Spencer became aware of an interesting extract from the Queensland Government Hansard which seems to show proof of collusion between the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments to use uncleared land for the Kyoto Protocol requirement.

2011 was a very promising year for Mr Spencer. He was in court several times and turned up many documents which seemed to prove that an agreement existed between the Commonwealth and the State. Access to Cabinet documents was approved by Judge Emmett with access to be granted by State and Federal governments progressively to 2nd September, 2011.

The latter part of 2011 and into 2012 was spent haggling over documents which were required to be disclosed. Many of the 3500 Commonwealth documents were redacted or refused on the grounds that they had “Cabinet privilege”.

On 26th November, 2012 three High Court judges struck down Mr. Spencer’s access to Cabinet documents which were needed to show that state and federal governments colluded to introduce land clearing legislation to lock up carbon on Australian farms so it could meet carbon targets under the Kyoto protocol without compensation.

For four years, the approach taken by the Australian Government Solicitor (for the Commonwealth) had been to deny the existence of any documents showing the existence of informal agreements between the Commonwealth and the Sates (relating to sequestration of carbon and land use change laws and measures) before and after the Kyoto meeting of the UNFCCC in 1997.

In May 2013, still in discovery hearings with Justice Cowdroy ruling that if relevant documents can be found they must be handed over. On 30th May 2013 Mr. Spencer had a productive day in court before Justice Cowdroy.

Barrister Peter King started by giving a detailed chronological account of signed international treaties, intergovernmental agreements, commonwealth/state legislation, commonwealth/state agreements and commonwealth/state committees starting with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and followed on citing in detail many High Court authorities with regards to the merits of the case.

Justice Cowdroy ordered that various State and Commonwealth documents be produced within eight weeks with the court able to reconvene with three days’ notice in the event that this order not be honoured.

24th November, 2014 was the start of the major hearing in the Federal Court to determine if there was a clear direction to the States by the Commonwealth.

In spite of the considerable evidence showing dialogue between the Commonwealth and the States about Carbon emissions, the Judge managed to find that an informal arrangement between the states and the Commonwealth was not proven.
Justice Mortimer handed down judgement in July 2015, rejecting Peter Spencer’s claims against the NSW and the Commonwealth Governments

To read more, this web page documents this major court case - Peter Spencer verses The Commonwealth.

Mr Spencer appealed, with a 3 day hearing starting on February 27 2017 before a Full Court of three judges of the Federal Court. Eventually decision was published on 15 February 2018 to the negative.

But Peter Spencer was not giving up, on March 20 2018 it was announced on the Support Peter Spencer & Australian Farmers Facebook page that he is taking his case all the way back to the highest court in the land - The High Court. Read more [here]

The action through the various courts beginning in 2005, looks like it has come to an end on June 21, 2018 when Peter Spencer was informed that  the application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia was refused with costs. 

Further reading:
'The Death of Property Rights' by Alan Moran

Support Peter Spencer & Australian Farmers Facebook page

No just terms on 'acquisition' with quotes from Murdoch University law lecturer Lorraine Finlay. 

'Courts refuse to protect Australian private property rights' by Alan Moran
'Carbon credit hunger strike farmer Peter Spencer returns to court in fight against Commonwealth' by Michael Condon

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Peter Spencer's background story Part 1 of 3

Peter Spencer's background story Part 2 of 3

Peter Spencer's background story Part 1 of 3

Peter Spencer with his oldest daughter, Sarah in 1980,
after he purchased his farm at Shannon's Flat near Cooma, NSW

In 1980, Peter Spencer bought 14,000 acres in southern New South Wales (near Shannon’s flats and on the ACT border). It had previously been significantly cleared during the 1930’s and 40’s, however, regrowth had occurred so that only about 2000 acres was uncleared at the time of purchase.

Throughout the 1980's Peter was involved in tourism in the Papua New Guinea highlands. He became close to Jiga tribesman Paias Wingti, who when he regained office as Prime Minister of PNG bought Peter to Port Moresby in the mid 1990's. Peter drafted a National Law and Order policy which dealt with corruption, which later may have been the reason an attempt was made on his life and encouraged a permanent return to Australia to begin work as a farmer on Shannon's Flat.

Peter returned to find the laws had changed and he could no longer manage the regrowth to return the land to productivity. In 1997, the Federal Government under John Howard decided to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments with shifty accounting: they offset greenhouse-gas emissions with uncleared vegetation on private property. To avoid any obligation for compensation (under the Australian constitution), legislation to prevent land clearing was used at State level. NSW Premier Bob Carr introduced the Native Vegetation Act.

Peter attempted to use his land gainfully with a trout fishing enterprise – this ran into water problems. He set up a fine wool breeding program (in association with CSIRO) – the Canberra fires of 2003 destroyed surrounding national parks, driving dogs and kangaroos onto his property, killing many of his sheep.

In 2005, Peter commenced legal action for just compensation for the loss of his property rights.

Read - 'The war on farmers' by Peter Spencer, written in 2006

Further references for the above background information:

http://evacuationgrounds.blogspot.com/p/peter-spencer.html

'Farmers are pushed beyond limit' by Micheal Duffy

'White tribesman at home in a wild world', The Australian 

'Hunger strike up a wind mast is an act of tragedies', by Micheal Duffy

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Peter Spencer's background story Part 2 of 3

Peter Spencer's background story Part 3 of 3

Tragedies under Kyoto 1 will be echoed under proposed Kyoto 2.

Republished from Australian Climate Sceptics blog (LINK)

John Spooner: Taxing Air

Marcus Priest writing from the Lima COP20 Conference in the The Age:

But the Abbott Government is also in the middle of a new controversy at the Lima conference over the way Australia's emissions target will be calculated under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the current global climate agreement, due to expire in 2020 and replaced by any new deal signed in Paris next year. 

With apologies to John Spooner.

Australia is seeking to use favourable rules around land clearing - originally agreed to under Kyoto in 1997 to establish an earlier target - in calculating its promised cut for 2020 under the protocol's second stage. 

If Australia is not allowed to include land use emissions to calculate its target it is estimated that it will increase the national 2020 goal by between 40 to 80 million tonnes of carbon emissions or up to 2.5 per cent. 

Australia is threatening that it will not ratify Kyoto again if it does not get its way on targets, and has won support from major developed nations and also Brazil. (bold added)

In 1998, under the Howard Government, the Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Group issued Current Issues Brief 10 (link) contained inter alia:

• Credit for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing changes or the creation of greenhouse sinks was allowed for in the Kyoto Protocol.

Allowance for emission reductions from land use changes was permitted in the base year in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from declining rates of land clearing or forestry can be used to meet target commitments. Similarly, removals of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by absorption into biological systems can be used. These removals of carbon dioxide, for example the planting of forests, are referred to as 'sinks'. 

Ian Hampton writes of Australia's actions in Lima:

This is a carbon copy of the tactics adopted by the then Howard Government in the lead up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement. Australia's "success" in getting the "Australia Clause" in the Kyoto Protocol led directly to the Howard Government "engineering" the much more restrictive 2003 NSW Native Vegetation Legislation and similar legislation in Queensland.

Why Tony Abbott would pander to the loony lefties who read the SMH and watch "our" ABC is a mystery. Turning his back on the people who voted for him and bowing to  people who will never vote for him seems a suicide move.

SO, how did the Kyoto 1 Land Use Protocol work out for Australian Land holders. Let's look at two examples:

• Farmer tried to work with the Land Use Protocol;
• Farmer lost farm due to the Land Use Protocol. 

Farmer tried to work with the Land Use Protocol

Jennifer Marohasy wrote of the Stuarts of Mt Morris Station in June 2014:

Cate speaking to ABC radio May 20, 2014, about how carbon farming is a “good business strategy” at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-20/mount-morris-cate-stuart/5465060 . But the banks, for good reason, thought otherwise.

Cate Stuart among the mulga trees the Stuarts have used to create a
carbon-storage scheme with the help of Australian Carbon Traders.
Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen Source: News Corp Australia

Mark and Cate Stuart tried to work within the system and create a carbon sink. The sink was supposed to create income of $400,000 every 3 years. (link)

Cate and Mark Stuart will be evicted from their historic Charleville cattle station, Mount Morris, on Thursday after rural lender Rabobank last year called in the receivers Ferrier Hodgson to ­recoup an outstanding debt of $2.6 million. 

The Stuarts are heartbroken. But the tough outback family, which has run the 20,000ha far-west Queensland spread for the past six years, isn’t going without a fight. A very modern fight. 

They say the bank has failed to recognise their wild and sprawling home is more than just a cattle farm: it is a carbon bank. 

For the past four years, the ­Stuarts have worked with thespecialist carbon farming company Australian Carbon Traders to capture and store carbon on 5000ha of their mulga tree ­reserves. 

They planned to earn up to $400,000 every three years in valuable carbon credit payments.

Mt Morris is now for sale - See LINK.  The Stuarts have lost everything.

Cate has been featured before on the Australian Climate Sceptics blog, during the Convoy of No Confidence: LINK

Cate is now known as "Convoy Cate from Charleville." Listen to Cate on ABC's Counterpoint HERE.

Farmer lost farm due to the Land Use Protocol 

Readers of these pages should be aware of Peter Spencer: Our friend, Joanne Nova, has written a magnificent summary HERE

Peter Spencer’s story is one I didn’t think could happen in Australia. He is the farmer in New South Wales who bought a farm and then lost 80% of it when rules changed to stop people clearing native vegetation. Unable to use most of his property, he was slowly bankrupted. Though he broke no law, he lost his life’s work and his beloved farm in late 2010. There was no way out. He couldn’t sell the property — who would buy a piece of land that could not be used? Farmers all around Australia lost billions of dollars in assets as the value of their land and produce declined. 

It is this legislation and the resulting theft of the stored carbon in the resulting trees by the Commonwealth (enabling Australia to meet its Kyoto commitments) that is at the root of Peter Spencer's case against the Commonwealth and NSW. (link)

Read the trial notes in  "Peter Spencer: Court diary"

These are just two stories (from both sides of the boundary fence) of the myriad tragedies caused by Land Use Protocol under the original Kyoto Protocol.

Now, landholders (and all Australians)  should gear up for more tragedies IF the Abbott Government gets acceptance of their new Land Use Protocol.