Barnaby Joyce backs NSW Nationals over koala protection policy
Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce says the actions of John Barilaro in standing up against the Liberals over the new koala protection policy have his blessing. Here’s why.
Opinion
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The NSW Nationals are making a stand and putting their people ahead of others’ views on koalas. Others predominantly from far away with little skin in the game apart from virtuous grandstanding.
At the core of Nationals’ philosophy is the primacy of the individual over the state. For an individual to have rights they must have the ownership of property unfettered by imposed arbitrary caveats of the state.
If you have no assets you have no security. You will be compliant as you are reliant.
A further caveat of even more trees becoming sacred environmental assets means a further diminution of the value of the land those trees are on.
The divestment of an individual of an asset by the state for communal ownership and without payment is communism. The Nationals at the core of their being find this an anathema.
We have no problem if the state believes there is good reason to acquire an asset as long as they understand therefore there must be an equally good reason to pay for it. Virtuous motives, rational or otherwise, are not able to pay off a mortgage.
If we in Nationals'’ seats had a strong view that yachts on Sydney Harbour or at Pittwater were a blight on the pristine beauty of Port Jackson and surrounds and so demanded they must be immediately removed I imagine there would be a riot.
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Many would reasonably suggest that it was none of our business and to stick to Tamworth.
However you lumbered us with native vegetation laws taking our tress, fishing laws taking our right to store water on farm by banning our capacity to put in farm dams, step upon step of further animal management laws forcing out smaller farms.
You can’t shoot roos without a permit as they hop across your crops in their hundreds. You can’t shoot a snake in your yard, you have to get it “removed”. You can’t build a dam or fix a road if a certain frog is present.
All these “you can’ts” means I am not the free person that I once was in my country. It means I have the state looking over my shoulder and breathing down my neck.
We are sick of picking up the tab of another person’s latest guilt trip or hobby horse.
If koalas are so important that you believe taking the listed tree species from 10 to 123 then offer a price and buy them. Then pay the rates, public indemnity insurance, weed control and keep out the rabbits, pigs, goats, deer, wild dogs and other ferals.
Good on the state Nats for saying enough is enough.