ruahines

@dodgydave. This is _all_ about the big picture. About 'winning the war', not focussing on the individual battle. 'Winning the war' means enforcing the law such that all New Zealanders receive their legal rights, equally: - What is needed is for us to reach a state where neighbouring landowners to realise that they are not above the law and can not continue to treat neighbouring land that they do not own as theirs. - What is needed is for neighbouring landowners to respect the legal right of access to people to their neighbours land - What is needed is a situation where all public legal accesses are surveyed, mapped marked and usable by the public - as the law states they should be. Farmers are not above the law. Why is there this belief in NZ that just because farmers have been using land that they do not own for all these years that they can ignore the law? Every time I raise this people throw their arms up in the air and pretend that obeying the law of the land will be the end of practical farming in NZ. I suggest that you, and all others with this attitude, look at the experience of the UK in the 1980s. There farmers had begun to refuse access to the public along legal 'customary rights of way'. The response of the public - to protest. The response of the government - to survey all of the rights of way. Mark them. Signpost them. Map them on OS maps (UK's LINZ equivalent). Make them easy and practical to use. Problem solved. For ever. @dodgydave: that is 'the big picture'. == The farm I grew up on had around 20-such rights of way across it. The right of way that passed our house would get at least a dozen people/groups through every day - at weekends many more. Mostly dog walkers from the local village. And everyone respected everyone else's legal right to use the land - in accordance with the law. The sky did not fall down. Farming did not become impossible or impractical. People did not get killed. And so as poms we look at NZ and wonder what all the fuss is about. Why is it so hard here to respect people's legal right of access? Why is farming convenience seen as more important than equal treatment of all under the law? Why do people like yourself pretend that solving this once and for all is impossible, when it is clearly very simple, achievable and practical for all?

TA walkers have been pissing off landowners, mainly because some of them camp where they arent supposed to or in some cases use and or break into private huts to stay in that they arent permitted to. also taking shortcuts that deviate from the trail they are supposed to be following

@madpom I think you have missed my point. I support your right to the legal access ways. If someone is trying to illegally bar you from accessing them, then they are obviously in the wrong. I think it would be great if there was a codified set of surveyed legal accesses to minimise both confusion and illegal actions on both sides of the debate. What I am disputing is the method of zero communication. It seems like taking a howitzer to a knife fight then turning the howitzer on all the people standing around not even taking part in the fight (ie all the land owners/occupiers who have no issues with you using the access ways but would just like a heads up it is happening). I appreciate the law is black and white and you want to read and apply it in the absolute literal sense with no communication; and you are strictly within your rights to do this. However, the world generally works best when we all communicate and work in at least a little bit of grey. You talk about farming convenience over people's legal right of access. I am saying there is often a "grey area" where you can both convenience yourself and the land owner/occupier through following their tracks/suggested route that is easier than battling along with your nose in a GPS/phone just to ensure you are keeping things black and white. If this "grey area" can be achieved by a simple phone call and you are both better off why would you not make it? To me it seems your strict moral standards are creating a prisoner's dilemma where you think you are making yourself (and society) better off but are instead arriving at an inefficient equilibrium for all parties. Maybe, it is just me but I feel we live in a world where there are now so many methods of communication but no one is actually using them to courteously talk to anyone anymore. And as @waynowski said I am sure that is also not helping the situation either.

I just can't bring myself to ask someone who has stolen something for permission to use the thing they have stolen. It just legitimises what was always an illigitimate act and makes me feel complicit in their act. It just makes every other similar act of unlawful annexation in futute seem all the more justified to the squatter. In some cases stolen is a good word to use but not always. In the case of a farmer that has taken full use of a legal road./ marginal strip and taken steps to ensure it is effectively his property for only him to use then stolen is correct. However often the farmer is fully aware of these access and his use of the land does enable easier public use and often the farmer may route a farm track along this access which can end up a win win. We get a nice track he gets an access track that hasnt used any of his valuable land. It should not cause an issue for us but can cause issues for my other hobby 4wding where the farmer may want payment for maintenance of the track that he doesnt own. My thought is advising the adjacent owner of your intent to use is a good idea and if a maitanance fee which is reasonable is requested it should be seriously considered as worth paying. Of course this gets harder if each side has a different owner and you dont know who is making use of this land

traditionally landowners in NZ have just said sod off whenever they felt like it and assumed themselves to have the final work on access to their farms... how many actually know what the public access is for their land and where easements and paper roads are. theres plenty of paper roads that have been built over effectively making them useless. how do you argue you have the right to jump someones fence or walk through their building because its on a paper road and had no legal right to be built... physical structures like that just automatically demand land ownership and deny access. mid 20th century brits had to protest and invade private land to get land access rights.

> Any landowner can fence off their property boundary, if they wish to avoid conflict with users of their neighbour's land. I'd suggest that the Crown would pay 50% of the cost of that as a good neighbour under Part 3 of the Fencing Act ( http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1978/0050/latest/whole.html#DLM21855 ), but I see that section 3 of the Act says that nothing in it applies to roads, National Parks or Marginal Strips ( http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1978/0050/latest/whole.html#DLM21855 ).

Thanks for the clarification @izogi. I was aware that roads were exempt from the good neighbour fencing rules, but did not know that marginal strips were.

I think the leniency towards farmers stems from the days when the squatocracy had immense political power. It was a real battle to get the stations broken up by the Liberal party at the end of the 19th century. In the 1980's the Labour government acted to elimate a bunch of farming subsidies. Subsidising primary industries no longer makes sense of course. Rather we need to subsidise value-added industries through R&D investment. This is exactly what Finland did, post WWII, and look at the result! Good to see Christchurch has a lot of thriving electronic industries here.

I've visited Te Ekaou Hut via the farm track with permission, although it took two attempts. In both instances i phoned the landowner. The first time they politely declined me & informed me why, which was in my opinion a legitimate reason. In the phone call I asked them when would be a suitable time, so as to keep them engaged in conversation & to build rapport. The second time i phoned, i reminded them of our previous conversation (which they recalled) & I felt having 'already done the spade work' i would get the result i was seeking, which i did. I made sure to appropriately thank them with Cadbury Roses (chocolates). I've had 10-12 similar experiences throughout the country, & whilst initially the landowner can be 'gruff', they appear to warm & engage in conversation. I employ the same tactic above if i'm declined permission at my first attempt, & it has always worked favorably. I'm enjoying following this discussion.