One of the few legitimate roles of any good government is to establish and protect the property rights of its citizens. When governments do the exact opposite, they should be challenged.
The ‘shredding’ of property rights by the former State Government of Western Australia was one of the factors leading to their dismissal in March, this year. Politics is seen to be broken in Australia and much needs to be done to restrict all governments to just the few tasks that were originally allocated to them.
This would wipe out the wasteful and useless duplication and triplication at all three levels of government with respect to education, health and welfare. Each day brings more examples of insane over-reach by all three levels of government.
The ultimate example? “Who gave local government the task of changing the date and name of Australia Day?”
Governments will not regain our respect until we get up off our backsides and force them to get on with their allocated ‘short list’ of tasks that include the very few things that we can’t do best for ourselves. Generally, these include protecting us from external threats (war), internal threats (crime) and the protection of property rights. Forcing governments to focus in this way will reverse the current trend to continue their bureaucratic, rapacious bloat!
To read more about property rights in Western Australia have a look at the following articles:
Property rights are not alright!
Property rights in WA: an endangered species
To the Premier, regarding property rights
Please send more examples of property rights shredding by our State Government and we will add them to our ever-growing collection.
2 Comments
I just saw a quotation from the great economist James Buchanan, he would have commented similarly on reading my above article…
“Politics that is confined to a few and well-defined tasks, cannot be seriously predatory.
The American founders seemed to recognise this simple truth. Modern political scholars do not”
Ron M
Dear Ron. I had a visit from the Police yesterday regarding a telephone call I had with a person from the D.E.C.on the 01/08/2017 regarding Peter Swift’s plight over an Environmental Sensitive Area. You are familiar with Peter’s case. The bank was about to foreclose as he could not farm approximately 2/3’s of his farm to make an income and repay the mortgage. I made an impassioned plea to everyone I could think of. There was only one telephone No. for these E.S.A.’s so I telephoned the person and pleaded for her to help or pass the information on to here superiors. What resulted on the 06/09/2017 was a visit from the Police at my home asking my whereabouts to my wife and my farm. The Police were very friendly and actually interested in what was happening about property rights. From Peter’s efforts, mine and a few others he is now in discussions and the bank for the time being has retired from any actions against Peter.
Do we live in a democratic society? I can be reported to the Police over an impassioned plea to help a Farmer losing his property for no fault of his own. Peter was very down and was having very dark thoughts and I was rushing to his aid the best I knew how and I was dealing with a person who did not want to know on a telephone line No. that was the only link to these E.S.A.’s. We were desperate and needed help.
Could I report this person to anyone for not seeing the importance and urgency of this situation? Thank god we have good Police that are prepared to listen and seek the truth and someone out there who became interested in Peter’s plight and have now caused the Government Department to enter into discussing the matter seriously. I am relieved that Police are taking no action. Do we have property rights here in Western Australia? Do we have freedom of speech? Would I do this all again to help? I am an Australian and you should all know the answer to that question without me answering it for you. Cheers