20 June 2007

Put Stanhope out to Pasture

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The Tullys, long time active participants in the local music scene and part of the unusual Canberran phenomenon of farmers who’s land is between suburbs (I believe the Tully’s farmland abuts their home in Hawker), have put together a short Youtube clip of the karaoke classic “I would walk 500 miles” altered to express to our chief minister their displeasure at not being able to gain assess to the certain adjustments.

In their words:

Canberra area Farmer Maurice Tully, is being forced to walk hundreds of miles in the ‘Long Paddock’ alongside William Hovell Drive, Belconnen, ACT, to save his cows – with no thanks to the Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, or his heartless Environment ACT Dept. We need access to the Pipeline Road or other agistment over this hard Winter – as we’ve been on the road for nearly 11 months now.

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The problem with government is that it’s so easy for them to change the goalposts… unless the public holds them to account.

I say we need more people like the Tullys!

Disclaimer – I know one of band members. But, if I didn’t agree with their perspective, I’d just keep my mouth shut.

James-T-Kirk11:09 am 21 Jun 07

No, you all have it wrong – The key is in this line- “The ACT government has instead decided to give the grazing land to a large Sydney company to graze their cattle on….”

They need to think like Government – Simply SELL their cattle to the Sydney company, then LEASE them back – That way, they have access to the cattle, but they are no longer their property and the govmit cant complain. And they can pay for it out of their recurrent budget, and (in the great words of Monty Python) use their capital budget for something else!

Just like any govmit venture…

Ingeegoodbee9:15 am 21 Jun 07

GnT you’ve got a point about the need for more intensive use of our urban land, but the reality is that moving into green field sites before you’ve fully expolited the existing urban area just dosn’t make sense. We need more dual occupancy and multi-dwelling subdivision within the existing urban areas.

is this what we want for Canberra? Urban bloody infill everywhere?

Ummm … yes?
Cities should be cities, and rural areas rural. Urban infill means less transport (ie less greenhouse gases), sharing of infrastructure, more rates to spend on infrastructure, and more vibrant city centres.

Sure, we all want to be able to see green spaces but large stretches of farm land don’t belong in a city.

Rural lesees in Canberra have been screwed, totally, by the ACT gov’t for years… decades actually.

When they converted all ACT property to what you guys now enjoy, they forgot the rural people, who found themselves leasing their land. So every year, they have to pay land rates, AND rent. This is assessed on the value of the land. Well, you can imagine the on-paper valuation of the land! Whether it’s sensible or viable is another thing. So every year, they have to come up with thousands and thousands. There’s been some horrific stretches. they had series’ of court cases, AAT, High Court, you name it, and eventually got the right to “pay out” their leases. Which meant, paying for their land again.

But not everyone could afford to do that, and I bet the Tully family was one of them.

One of the big fun things with being a rural leasee (you can’t be a rural landowner in the ACT) is that the gov’t can resume all or bits of your land very easily, and they will only pay you for approved improvements: structures. They took back a slice going right through our paddocks decades ago for a pipeline, and we got nothing as they were paddocks. Splits the place in half. Then they took a corner, to widen a road. Paid us to fix the fence. That was it. we lost a bunch of trees and garden, but that wasn’t recognised. They almost extended the airport right over Pialligo a few decades back (that was a fight), put a new road through it… they see the area as not being properly utilised right now.

People like the Tullys are being screwed and they don’t deserve to be.

Vic Bitterman10:29 pm 19 Jun 07

There’s this other whinging liberal music tossers called the whitlams. Yep, they have as much credence as the tullys arguments.

Ralph, please refrain from giving these people stick. Nice folks, hard working, being screwed by a government that has next to no thought for primary producers in their district.

a quote from Farmer Tully on the You Tube site:

“You can help us by saving your day-old bread for our cows. I have a trailer parked on Coulter Drive that bread and veggies can be left in. There’s a safe spot to pull off the road. I can’t tell you how much my cows appreciate it!”

Come on guys, help feed the cows!! As they say on the video, and you can watch it on You Tube,why don’t we put Mr Stanhope out to pasture instead of the cows!!! I guess no one would leave any bread at all then!!!

Good on the Tullys, making a go of it in tough times!! Should be more of it!

(the music on the video is great too, “The Tullys” band, hear them live at the Belco mall this Sunday. Gloria jean’s 12-2.) and no, this is not a paid ad : )

Support your local farmers, without this one Cook and Weetangera might have gone up in smoke in the big fires!!

Oh, and Ralph, I don’t know if you have ever tried to buy fodder during a drought, but the cost of feeding the cattle for 2 months is more than the value of the cattle.

Which is why they are feeding them alongside the road rather than see them starve.

They don’t want any money, they just want access to grazing land that the local government has taken away from them.

Not quite right Ralph.

All they are asking for is access to the grazing land that the ACT Government has taken off them.

The ACT government has instead decided to give the grazing land to a large Sydney company to graze their cattle on….

Nice support of local industry Stanhope!!

p.s. Don’t worry Ralph – They don’t want you to subsidise them!

the tullys have been well and truly screwed by stanhope and his lefty mob.

adn its highly EFFICIENT to let cows graze on open spaces between suburbs – it SAVES YOU MONEY by not requiring the local council to mow the grass (or not mow as i found out when living opposite open fields for a few years) which is useful on days of total fire ban.

then agian urban numpties like ralph whose closest brush with primary producers is the styrofoam package in coles meat dept, are the same people who make decisions about peopel like the tullys – no idea, no experience but happy to make a crap decision.

Ingeegoodbee12:50 pm 19 Jun 07

I heard about these people on the radio a while back. The way that ACT bureaucrats have maliciously and vindictively mistreated the Tully’s with the encouragement of the Stanhope government is just another example of why Stanhope and his incompetent lefty minions need a nice long stint on the opposition benches.

Now apparently the reason the Tully’s are running their cattle in the long paddock is because their land has been resumed by the ACT Government – it’s a shady area because they were apparently significantly behind in their rates payments but the outstanding debt had apparently been re-paid in full long before the land was resumed (keep in mind that this is the same Government happy to let $100,000+ a year Deb Foskey live it up in Government housing).

A neighboring farmer and friend sub-let some land to the Tully’s so they had somewhere to graze his cattle – but ACT Government bureaucrats stepped in to veto the arrangement, so the neighbor offered to let the cattle stay on his land for free – when the bureaucrats found out they threatened to resume the neighbors lease if he did not have the cattle removed immediately. With nowhere to graze their cattle, the Tully’s have had to resort to the long paddock.

Yeah, this is an urgent priority for the ACT Government……..not.

Here’s an innovative idea………..buy fodder!

Another small-scale, inefficient primary producer expecting the taxes of hardworking plumbers, accountants etc to subsidise their lifestyle choices.

I’ve seen these cows! I thought it was funny having cows alongside William Hovell Drive in the middle of Canberra.

Could someone please explain exactly what the issue is here? I don’t think I quite understand. And what does Mr Rudd have to do with it?

Hundreds of other farmers all over Australia have had to do the same thing over the past 3 or 4 years.

Toughen up!

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