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Charged for controlling parthenium

Property Rights Australia chairman, Joanne Rea said it is beyond belief that the Qld government would prosecute anyone for controlling weeds especially parthenium, a declared noxious, exotic weed which spreads aggressively into neighbouring property if not treated.

This follows hot on the heels of the capricious prosecution of Trenton Hindman of SW Queensland for renovating country infested with the invasive woody weed, turkey bush.

This reveals a pattern of unacceptable activism by some departmental officers. “What is the agenda of the State Government in pursuing people who have, in essence, done nothing wrong? Is common sense ever going to return to the pursuit of justice in this State?” Mrs. Rea, Chairman of Property Rights Australia said.”

The above quote was included in an article on page 9 in the 29^th December 2011 issue of the QCL written by Troy Rowlings called, Moore grazier defends weed ‘damage’ charge.

As the QCL article has not been posted at farmonline it has now been scanned and added as an attached file at the end of this discussion starter.

Peter Leo lives on the farm that his family first settled in 1897 not far out of the hamlet of Linville. In 1911 a railway corridor was cut through the farm and was used for this purpose until its close in 1989. Then in 2008 the Department of Infrastructure and Planning (DIP) took a sub-lease from the Department of Transport and Main Roads for the rail corridor land which was previously known as the Brisbane Valley Railway Line that ran from Wulkuraka Railway Station to Blackbutt. The DIP then started to develop the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail as part of the Queensland Government’s South East Queensland Active Trails Strategy and community greenspace network. The rail trail is supposed to be for walking, cycling and horse riding.

Photo sourced from ATHRA

The start of Peter Leo’s recent problems was the floods in January 2011; the same floods known nationally and internationally for the havoc they wreaked along the Lockyer Creek and the Brisbane River. After the flood waters had long gone, weeds germinated. In a phone call that I had with Peter he related not only of the abnormal amount of weeds but the variety of them, some that had not been seen before. Amongst the normal weeds such as noogoora burr were paterson curse and parthenium. The parthenium plants were found on the rail trail and Peter sent a sample to the Queensland Herbarium who confirmed that the plants were indeed parthenium.

The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail employs a Trail Ranger to whom Peter Leo reported the weeds on at least two occations but no action was forthcoming. Peter wrote a letter to the Minister whose portfolio included the DIP. When a new minister, Paul Lucas took over this department a letter was despatched to him as well. In all his efforts to have action taken about weeds on the rail trail after 8 months Peter received no satisfactory response. An unwelcomed response was for the Director, Resource and Landscape in DIP, Steve MacDonald, sending a letter of demand for records of any agreement that the family had with the railway. An unlikely event that even if there was any agreement of the chances of documents surviving from 1911.

By mid-August the weeds were out of control, Peter did not wish for the weeds to go to seed so he decided to control the weeds by the means of a tractor & a disc implement to plough the weeds in. “A light harrow job””, as Peter called it. At the end of August parthenium was found by Peter & a friend on the rail trail. Peter sprayed the parthenium and also ploughed again. This was the first time that he had ever found parthenium but controlling weeds and encouraging natural grasses had been practiced by Peter along this corridor ever since the railway had left.

On this map the railway is shown as a dotted line. Peter Leo's farm is just south of Linville.

After the weed control had been done the Trail Ranger turned up & reported it to the DIP. As a result a policeman paid a visit to Peter Leo, the policeman inspected the situation & left presumably satisfied that no charge was warranted. However the next day the policeman came back with the news that he had been instructed to charge Peter Leo. Peter found himself taken in, finger printed, a swab taken for DNA and charged. Peter had been told to plead guilty and take a $100 fine. In a state of disbelieve and indignant at his treatment Peter told me that he decided, as he put it, “I’m not a criminal; I am not pleading guilty.” He is convinced that the orders to charge him came from at a higher level in the DIP. The minister Paul Lucas was well aware of the situation, in fact Peter was told that “Paul Lucas had hit the roof”. Peter believes that this is a “political charge and that he has been subjected to intimation” and also that, “Independent discretion has been taken away from the police.”

If this is what occurred it is a very serious situation and of great concern for the administration of justice in Queensland.

Charging a person for controlling a declared noxious, exotic weed such as parthenium is bad enough but what is even more incredible is the charge brought against him, that he has to appear before a court for mention on January 6^th – wilful damage.

Peter Leo was told that he had damaged the integrity of the rail trail.

Peter Leo told me that he “just wants to be left alone”, but I can tell you from listening to him that he will not roll over on this one just to be rid of the situation as soon as he can; this is one determined man.

UPDATE #1 QCL article added as an attached file (see below)

UPDATE #2 Peter Leo's trail date has been set on the 13^th April at 9.30am at the Toogoolawah court house.

UPDATE #3

There are always two sides to a story and it now appears that evidence will be presented at the court case that is contrary to the account told by Peter Leo. We will have to wait until the court case to get to the bottom of this situation.

Tags: PRA, activism, control, intimation, justice, parthenium, paterson+curse, property, rights, weed

Attachments:

2011.12.29_QCL_Moore grazier.pdf, 505 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by dallas spencer on January 8, 2012 at 11:09am

Pig hunting in Australia'S

CAPE YORK
9C94DA2EED754FD29E3D87875A1D2487@system
I'm training him to be a 'retriever' but having a little trouble getting
him to bring the pig back to me.

Permalink Reply by Dale Stiller on January 10, 2012 at 8:42pm

UPDATE #3

Today I received a phone call from a Linville local who asked me not to write any of the detail that they told me until after the court case on the 13^th of April.

If it is a different story that comes out from the evidence presented at the court case, I assure you that it added to this discussion. Until then everyone has the right of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Permalink Reply by dallas spencer on January 12, 2012 at 10:49pm

Without Prejudice

I was reading this article about this forth-coming music festival

http://www.news.com.au/national/state-wont-stop-nazi-morons/story-e...

and came across these interesting quotes-

"We are not in the business of banning people who express moronic, stupid and wrong points of view," Mr Lucas said

If they want to make total fools of themselves and demonstrate their mentality, then that's for them.

"You can't ban something on the basis of what people might do"

Mr Messenger said. Queensland risked becoming a laughing stock

Has a precedant been set?

Could we use these quotes elsewhere?

Permalink Reply by Beverley Prescott on January 14, 2012 at 9:19am

This article regarding "Declared Plants" happened to be in one of our little free local papers this week.

The second and third larger paragraphs (beginning "Declaration under the Land Protection Act 2002" and the next one beginning "Other than" etc.) must have been worded by a lawyer so that you have to waste time reading and re-reading to decide what is meant.

Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on January 23, 2012 at 9:34am

This topic has gone quiet with the April deferral. I did speak to Dale and I feel that it was a weak update to muddy the waters. Gossip is always planted and rife and I don't hear anything that removes the outrage that should be felt over this ministerial bullying.

Dale Stiller said:

UPDATE #3

There are always two sides to a story and it now appears that evidence will be presented at the court case that is contrary to the account told by Peter Leo. We will have to wait until the court case to get to the bottom of this situation.

Today I received a phone call from a Linville local who asked me not to write any of the detail that they told me until after the court case on the 13^th of April.

If it is a different story that comes out from the evidence presented at the court case, I assure you that it added to this discussion. Until then everyone has the right of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Permalink Reply by Colin J Ely on February 1, 2012 at 3:43pm

Down here in suburbia, we have a little parcel of crown land between our boundary fence and the roadway, euphemistically referred to as our 'nature strip'! Now how about the farmer concerned, and all his neighbours stopped mowing the strip of land between their properties and the adjoining roads, on the grounds that they risked prosecution for 'destruction of government property'? How long till State and Local Governments were up in arms about two metre high grass verges, rampant with feral pests? ;-)

Permalink Reply by dallas spencer on February 1, 2012 at 4:47pm

Guilty, your Honour.

Several years ago I had a dispute with the Local Shire so I ceased mowing "their" footpath. Prior to this they claimed that when they received a complaint, they had to act on it, so every few weeks I complained about about the footpath and they sent out a crew to mow it. Eventually the local Councillor called a truce and I went back mowing it myself. About eighteen months ago the Council put an article in the local paper about footpaths and made the comment that if anyone parked even an inch on "their" footpath a $70 fine would be issued. I sent them the reply "Bring It On". To date I have heard of fines issued for blocking the footpath so that pedestrians could not traverse safely (rightly so), but no "petty" fines for just encroaching on the footpath (as we sometimes see on the Current Affairs Shows).

When fronted the Council will claim that the footpath is part of the roadway and under jurisdiction of the road authority, and then in the next breath, claim the footpath under their control (especially when there is some revenue to raise.

The definition of a roadway is from property boundary to property to boundary so if "Plod" is down on his "Cheat-Sheet" he could use the opportunity to "ping" you for driving your ride on mower on a roadway.

Permalink Reply by Beverley Prescott on February 1, 2012 at 6:30pm

I am getting someone to mow my grass at the moment as I haven't been able to do it myself and it is in the hottest part of the year. I sort of told myself I would get someone in during this fast growing and hot period - not as young as I used to be.

I used to do the lot in one go and it took me an hour. Now I do it in half hour stints. However, it took this bloke today one and a half hours - ??? Oh he did whipper snip which I don't do so that would be the extra time.

So now I am basically paying $35 to get the footpath mowed as it cost me $70 today and the footpath takes up about the same as inside.

Where is the fairness in that?

I don't mind when I do it myself as you just know you have to do it but when one is paying, it puts a different light on things.

(I am on a corner block hence the extra footpath).

Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on February 1, 2012 at 6:31pm

Last year a local in our area graded 14km of road that he had been complaining about for over a year.

It was in such a bad state that the truckies and everyone else who used it hated it. One even wrote a song about it.

In spite of a lot of public support the council was determined to prosecute. Some of the townspeople protested by carrying placards that they were not going to mow the council owned footpath.

The response from council was that if they did not mow their footpaths they would be fined.

Permalink Reply by dallas spencer on April 9, 2012 at 2:10pm

Hello Everyone,

Things have been a bit quiet on this site lately. Has anyone heard how Peter Leo is going?

I have got Fri 13th April pencilled in as his next appearance at Toogoolawah Court House. Has anyone heard if this is still on?

Permalink Reply by Dale Stiller on April 27, 2012 at 6:50am

The charges were dropped.

This case did make it to court but early in the hearing the magistrate suggested the charge be temporarily stood down while the parties conferred. An agreement was reached between Qld Police & Peter Leo where the charges were dropped & Peter Leo undertook to consult next time he believed that work needed to be done on the rail trail in the future.

Troy Rowling has the the following article published in QCL & now available at farmonline, Leo ploughing charges dropped

"As far as I am concerned these charges should never have been laid in the first place," Mr Leo told Queensland Country Life.

"I don't blame the police; the problem was instigated by the previous State government.

"I had been ploughing the area since 1990 and I had done it about three times in the past.

"These charges were just stupid and were a waste of the court's time."

Permalink Reply by Ian Macrae Yeates on April 27, 2012 at 7:03am