Here comes Dan

[red750]

D$an Andrew’s is passing a bill now which means you won’t be allowed to grow your own food, they can forcibly come in a rip it all out.

Have a read

Andrews government will be coming after agriculture next. The Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 has had it’s second reading in parliament. Biosecurity being the stated reason for changes. Increased enforcement powers, searching of property and persons without warrant, Increased fines, what was $1800 now $10.000 for providing false or misleading info. Landholder consent no longer required for Authorised Officers to take samples, stock (animals), documents. Authorised Officers no longer required to present identification. Heavy penalties for obstructing entry to the property. Sounds like they are getting their ducks lined up, ready to be deployed to shut down farms.

Sounds crazy right? It’s true, it’s all true. Here are just a few examples from The Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, Explanatory Memorandum:
Authorised Officers no longer required to present identification:
New section 53(4) of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 creates an exception to the requirement under new section 53(3) for an authorised officer to produce their identity card. The exception provides that an authorised officer is not required to produce their identity card in exercising a power if the request is unreasonable in the circumstances, or the power is exercised by post or electronic communication…

Heavy penalties for obstructing entry to the property:
New section 54J of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 creates an offence of failure to comply with the requirements of an authorised officer. The provision provides that a person commits an offence if without reasonable excuse, the person fails or refuses to comply with a requirement of an authorised officer under the Act. The maximum penalty for this offence is in the case of a corporation 100 penalty units and in any other case 50 penalty units…

Increased fines, what was $1800 now $10.000 for providing false or misleading info:
New section 54L of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 creates an offence of false and misleading conduct or information. A person commits the offence if the person provides any information or produces any document or engages in any other conduct towards an authorised officer while they are performing a function or exercising a power, if the person knows that the information or conduct is or the document contains information that is false, or misleading in a material particular. The maximum penalty for this offence is in the case of a corporation 100 penalty units and in any other case 50 penalty units. Section 72A of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 applies to the new offence, meaning that, if a body corporate commits the offence, officers of the body corporate also commit the offence.

Most concerning, they are putting in place laws which would allow them to charge you the money it cost them to destroy your own food supply:
Clause 20 makes miscellaneous amendments to section 58 of the�Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 to clarify and modify the provision in relation to debt recovery and broaden the scope of the directions that may be included in a destruction notice. These amendments provide that a notice may, in addition to dealing with the destroying of chemical products, fertiliser, stock food, agricultural produce, plants or stock, also provide for otherwise dealing with the thing by alternatives means such as recycling. The amendments also include an express provision that action for the recovery of costs may be taken in a court of competent jurisdiction and the costs can be recovered as a debt.
Yep, here it is 😠 

 

Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022.

[spacesailor]

GEE 

I put in four onions & six potatoes in my garden,  Also have a number of fruit trees.

I,ll have to pay someone to rip that lot out !. Less l get that $ 10,000 fine.

What happens IF we ( the public ) , stop buying certain products to show our collective distain. IE potatoes one fortnight,  then a green vegie anothher fortnight. 

It will only hit the retailer,  as the farmer has already sold their produce.

Ton of smelly vegies going to landfill. 

spacesailor

 

[onetrack]

The greatest single problem with that new Act is that it gives Agricultural Inspectors greater powers than the Police, without them undergoing any Police training system, or having any of the protections for victims of an Inspectors decision-making, that are available to people against Police decisions and actions.

These Inspectors will be worse than jackbooted Workplace Safety Inspectors, who have caused a great deal of stress to quite a number of business owners, with their unrealistic safety demands.

 

I recall one tyre repair bloke telling me how he buggered up one jackbooted Workplace Safety Inspector who shoved his way into the blokes business operations unannounced and in the biggest Bolshy manner.

The inspector claimed he was there to inspect every air compressor and air tank in the place, to see if they were in proper compliance with "pressure vessel" laws. He was specifically looking for "unregulated pressure vessels, he claimed.

 

He found one air compressor that he claimed wasn't in compliance and started reading the Riot Act to the tyre bloke, telling him he could have him jailed for safety infringements, for having an "unsafe pressure vessel" in his workshop.

The tyre bloke saw red about then, and said to the Inspector, "You want to see all my unregulated pressure vessels, do you? Then I can tell you, I've got 200 more of them on the premises!!"

 

The Inspectors says, "Where? Show me!!" - so the tyre bloke points into the back yard of the premises - where he had a couple of hundred truck tyres!

"There ya go!", the tyre bloke says, "around 200 UNREGULATED PRESSURE VESSELS!, all ready to blow up and kill ya!!

 

He said the Inspector snorted, turned on his heel, and walked out of his shop without a further word!! What else could he do, the tyre bloke was spot-on!!

[Old Koreelah]

41 minutes ago, onetrack said:

The greatest single problem with that new Act is that it gives Agricultural Inspectors greater powers than the Police, without them undergoing any Police training system, or having any of the protections for victims of an Inspectors decision-making…

A good reason we need a more powerful Ombudsman. I believe that after finding regular cases of government excesses, the one in NSW has suffered budget cuts.

 

The Federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal is unlikely to do us much good; the LNP government has used it as a way of putting failed politicians and party hacks out to a very lucrative pasture, where they don’t have do much at all.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/09/24/aat-anatomy-of-a-scandal/

 

The general pattern of this government has been to punish those who expose mismanagement:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/30/agency-that-uncovered-sports-rorts-will-be-forced-to-cut-back-on-audits-without-budget-rescue

 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/porter-s-plan-will-help-cover-up-corruption-not-expose-it-20201103-p56b0e.html

https://chaser.com.au/national/an-exhaustive-list-of-the-liberal-partys-corruption-over-the-last-7-years/

41 minutes ago, onetrack said:

These Inspectors will be worse than jackbooted Workplace Safety Inspectors, who have caused a great deal of stress to quite a number of business owners, with their unrealistic safety demands…

One turned up at an accident scene, lecturing about safety protocols, until it was pointed out that he had himself broken lots of rules- not wearing PPE and walking thru the evidence.

[old man emu]

"Unregulated pressure vessel"  Is that term defined in the Regulations?

 

This week I am doing some systems audits and one of the terms is "Moderate or High risk". I don't know what constitutes the level of risk each represents because the term are undefined.

[nomadpete]

Surely this alleged

"The Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022" couldn't actually be seriously considered?

[red750]

Apparently it has passed the second reading in the lower house.

[old man emu]

On 02/05/2022 at 8:07 PM, red750 said:

Dan Andrew’s is passing a bill now which means you won’t be allowed to grow your own food, they can forcibly come in a rip it all out.

 

I've had a skim through the amendments and can't find anything that would suggest that could be allowed.

 

If a person grows a prohibited plant or noxious weed, then I see no reason why they should not foot the bill for destroying it. Take the example in another offence where a person breaks a shop window with a brick. Shouldn't they pay yo have the broken glass replaced?

 

There is no mention of authorities ripping out plants that are, or produce foodstuffs. The amendments allow for the destruction of foodstuffs, chemicals and fertilizers that fail to be consistent in composition with information on labels.

 

Yes, there is an exemption for producing ID in certain circumstances, not every time. There do occur times when it is immediately unreasonable to produce ID. Consider the plain clothes constable arresting an offender in the act of of assault or robbery. It's a case of stop the offence as quickly as possible, thenprovide your authority for making the arrest.

 

As far as I can see, anyone who thinks these amendments are the thin edge of the wedge to crack our rights is a conspiracy theory nutter. 

[onetrack]

OME - When I wrote, "unregulated pressure vessel", the meaning is to refer to pressure vessels that have no official controls, regulations, plating, or testing done on them. I have not found the exact term used in any Regulations.

[old man emu]

Yep. I understood that. When I was in The Job, we would control rowdies with threats to charge them under the "Tarpaulin and Canvas Act" which covered everything. A dubious confession was obtained through the application of "The Barbed-Wire Entanglement Act".

[facthunter]

In the goldmining days they read the RIOT act. Nev

[octave]

Re the original post in this thread.

 

FAKE NEWS: Joe Rogan Says Australia Wants to Make Food Growing Illegal

[Marty_d]

I can't find it now, but there was a video on News.com the other day about a vegan protestor who was standing in public with her boobs out.  (She had body paint on).  Anyway 3 cops on bicycles were telling her she was creating a disturbance, and she calmly refuted that and quoted the actual Act reference which proved that what they were telling her was false.  In the end one of the cops was looking it up on his phone and had to admit she wasn't doing anything wrong.

[onetrack]

That's Tash Peterson, W.A.'s permanent PIA professional vegan protester. She spends all her time getting her boobs out, and even getting nude to push her vegan protests into peoples faces.

The cops are always arresting her for disturbing the peace, which is what she's good at. But telling her to put her top back on isn't going to work, she knows what she can legally do and can't do.

She's got a court record as long as your arm for being a darned nuisance with her protests - even invading farms where animals are being farmed - and the local Royal Show where she got manhandled out of the cattle yards and sent packing, amongst her wails of protest about being "hurt" by the manhandling. She just gets up everybodys nose, she wants to change the entire world over to a vegan diet, and she won't be happy until she does. 

[Marty_d]

I didn't say I agreed with her protests, I don't.

My point was, she knew the law better than the cops who were trying to stop her without knowing what law she was actually breaking.

 

(Just as an aside, if it's allowable for men to go around with no top on, I think it's perfectly reasonable for women to do the same thing!)

[Jerry_Atrick]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2657167/Video-Vegan-activist-Tash-Peterson-stages-topless-protest-outside-court.html

 

I am not too perturbed if she continues going around topless..

 

[old man emu]

The government spends millions in warning us to slip, slop, slap in order to reduce the risk of sun cancer. Yet have you noticed that women's summer fashions leave so much of their skin uncovered while men's don't?

[facthunter]

Many native tribes appear to be able to cope with it without everyone going Ga Ga. Nev

[willedoo]

14 hours ago, onetrack said:

she wants to change the entire world over to a vegan diet

The way I understand the vegans, it's a lifestyle as well as as a diet. They won't eat dairy or wear any animal products like leather, fur or feathers. It seems to be an animal rights political thing with some of them. A lot of people confuse vegans with vegetarians. All vegans are vegetarians, but not all vegetarians are vegans. For a lot of vegetarians, it's a personal dietary choice, and most don't give two hoots what other people eat or do. Some vegans are like that as well, but the more activist ones want to impose a blanket change on society.

 

 

[Yenn]

What vegans don't seem to understand is thet there would be no cattle, pigs or poultry if they had there way. I admit it is not good to be slaughtered as cattle are, but generally they have a good life.

If we go the vegan way I can see a large part of Australia turning to a weed overrun countryside. Already we see in National Parks where the weed problem is out of hand because they have removed the cattle. Where I live we have had several dry years and there are not enough stock numbers to keep the grass down. In a few months we will have out of control grass fires, because the greenies have made it difficult to burn off and the firies have no idea of how to control the fires. Gracemere will be evacuated again and governments will be applauded for saving the people, especially if they can get a water bomber to run from the RAAF base at Windsor to drop water on a fire in Central Qld.

[old man emu]

And, oh, the smiles on every face,

As happy lad and lass

Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place

Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel

Discoursed the men of mark,

And each man squatted on his heel,

And chewed his piece of bark.

"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,

There will, without a doubt;

We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"Before the year is out."

[Marty_d]

8 hours ago, old man emu said:

The government spends millions in warning us to slip, slop, slap in order to reduce the risk of sun cancer. Yet have you noticed that women's summer fashions leave so much of their skin uncovered while men's don't?

Someone should tell that model she's got it on back to front.

[red750]

Tim Quilty MLC - Liberal Democrats - Northern Victoria

  · 
An article from the North West Express. The Ag Bill is impracticable and untenable.  This is yet another case of a bad bunch of laws being created by the Victorian government.

 

 

[octave]

From the article "Most farmers work hard to control noxious weeds and feral animals"    My guess is the agricultural amendment bill is to address those who don't.      These fines I would imagine are very much maximum fines for people who are genuinely and knowingly doing the wrong thing.   Back in the late 80s I kept a few bee hives and even back then there were steep fines for not reporting diseases which could decimate the bee industry.

 

It is interesting to note that the bill was supported by the opposition which I would assume would also include the National party.  I had a look at Tim Quilty's page, seems a little nutty to me (have a look at his Rexit page.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Noticed how no provisions of the act were cited? 

 

The bill is an amendment bill; it amends other acts. 

 

Under section 10 of the bill:

 

"For section 54 of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992 substitute— "54 Power to enter and inspect (1) An authorised officer may at any reasonable  time enter and inspect any place, other than a place occupied as a residence, and inspect anything found at that place, if the authorised officer reasonably suspects that.."

Followed by the conditions of which reasonable belief must be held, which are to do with suspicion of an offence or reasonable belief that there are or were agricultural related activities being undertaken. Note two points - entry must be a reasonable time. Courts will be the final arbiter of reasonable time (unless it is defined somewhere else.. which will likely normal working hours with regard to that industry - or if there is a reasonable belief the occupants are at the time engaging in activities other than leisure or rest/relaxation at what would normally be considered an unreasonable time. Also notice, officers cannot enter residential areas - they can only enter the parts of the property that are not residential. 

 

So, assertions it gives officers the right to storm people's property at will is a furphy.  Also, note this in subsection (3)

"(3) In exercising any powers under this section, an authorised officer must— 5 (a) cause as little inconvenience as possible; and (b) not remain at the place any longer than is reasonably necessary."

 

This seems very similar to WorkSafe powers. Australia has biosecurity high up on the agenda.. and this seems commensurate.

 

OK.. the next criticism of the bill.. that officers can unilaterally enter property without a warrant and not provide identification. This is a qualified power - not unilateral:

 

"54AC Announcement on entry
15 (1) Immediately on entering a place, vehicle,
vessel or aircraft under this Division, an
authorised officer must take all reasonable
steps to notify the occupier or apparent
occupier of the place, or the driver or person
20 in charge of the vehicle, vessel or aircraft, of
the entry and produce the authorised officer's
identity card for inspection by that person.
(2) If the occupier, apparent occupier, driver or
person in charge is not present when an
25 authorised officer exercises a power of entry
under this Division, the authorised officer
must, on leaving the place, vehicle, vessel or
aircraft, leave a notice setting out—
(a) the time of entry; and
30 (b) the purpose of entry; and
(c) a description of all things done while at
the place or in the vehicle, vessel or
aircraft; and
(d) the time of departure; and

(e) the authorised officer's name and contact details.

(3) An authorised officer is not required to comply with subsection (1) or (2) if—

5 (a) in the case of subsection (2), the authorised officer reasonably believes that the place is open to the public and that it would be impracticable to leave a notice at the place; or 

(b) in either case— (i) to comply with the subsection would unreasonably interfere with performing a function or exercising a power under this Act, 15 the regulations or an Order or notice under this Act or cause unreasonable delay;

or (ii) the occupier or apparent occupier of the place or the owner or 20 person in charge of the vehicle, vessel or aircraft has been notified in advance of the entry"

 

However, I agree that not obtaining a prior warrant is a valid criticism. Although, as I recall (from about 40 years ago), under Victorian law,  a the subject of the warrant had to be notified prior to the issue of the warrant. This is not ideal, either, but if it is still the case, I would have preferred that be amended so that the subject does not need to be notified. There should be independent review/approval of reasonable belief before authorising entry into a property, which ultimately is the purpose of seeking a warrant. Otherwise, it is open to abuse because an agriculturalist's head doesn't fit. 

 

However, for the purposes of chemical use:

"12 Announcement before entry 10 In the heading to section 54C of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act 1992, after "entry" insert "under warrant"."

 

Looks like under certain circumstances, a warrant is required. 

 

Also, there  is a lot of clarification of meanings that tightens things up rather than loosens them, etc. 

 

I can't be arsed reading the rest, but, you get the picture - the critics aren't exactly playing fair... and journos aren't exactly fact checking.