Q & A: Public access to private land

Q & A

The Labour government is bending to more lobbyists to erode property rights through promoting a spurious "right" to walk through any private land next to a waterway.

Q. Who is pushing this legislation?
A. Fish and Game (the old colonial acclimatisation societies), ie. hunters, and the Federated Mountain Clubs, ie. adventurers.

Q. What does land does it affect?
A. 5m strips down both sides of a 3m wide+ permanent water course that is currently in private ownership. These are not to affect title. Many details yet to be sorted out.

Q. How is this different from the "Queen's Chain"?
A. The chain is a general policy from the late 19th century that the government or local government should try to acquire a 20m strip alongside all waterways including the seashore for public use. Only ever implemented in ad hoc ways.

Q. What is the Hunter's stated rationale?
A. Hunters want to chase their quarry ie. fish. Fish and the water itself doesn't belong to the land owner so they should be
able to get them/use it wherever it is.

Q. What is the real rationale?
A. Hunters and adventurers increasingly find foreign owners refusing permission that most citizen farmers grant freely.

Q. What is the real, REAL reason they want this "right"?
A. The hunters are taking tourists up rivers to fish and hunt for hundreds of dollars and don't want to split any of the money with the person whose land they are actually hunting on.