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Background
My husband grew up on a coastal dairy farm, we married in 1971. In 1976, the family purchased a sheep &
cattle property in the Central West.
We moved there to begin the work, while the remainder of the family were to follow. As often happens, they
did not follow, and after 20 years inter-family issues arose, resulting in a legal battle. This was finalised in
2004 when we purchased the property from the remaining family members.
At that time, our local council, under Mr Sartor\u2019s instructions, was planning on implementing an LEP \u2013 Land
& Environment Plan throughout the Central West. Figuring largely in this plan was the removal of building
rights on properties of less than 1000 acres (400 hectares).
As 67% of farms in our Shire were less than that size, this impacted extremely on all farmers. It removed
and/or interfered with retirement plans, succession planning, superannuation plans, land sales, the growth of
the wider community and more.
Along with other Shires in the Central West, farmers and concerned citizens began meeting, submitting and
protesting this action. One of the constant refrains was that the action of removing housing rights was illegal,
but no-one could define illegal.
In August 05, my husband heard an expression via a lawyer speaking on the radio. Fee simple. We googled
it and were astounded at the information, but were completely unsure where to go for more info until I read a
letter in The Land re Fee Simple ownership, rang the writer, was directed to a larger group researching our
ownership rights, and consequently became a member of that research team.
Since that time, I have read countless High Court cases, Federal, State and International Government Acts,
and reams of associated information. I have read Blackstone\u2019s Commentaries on English Law 1765 & 1769,
Quick & Garran\u2019s Commentaries on the Constitution, many Hansard\u2019s\u2026.
I learned to focus on CLR HC cases in preference as they created a precedent and to ignore the dissenting
judges comments no matter how eloquent they were. I learned to stop at every numbered reference and go to
the appropriate case in order to fix that point in my thoughts before I continued the original reading.
I learned to read with several dictionaries open so that no word was misunderstood \u2013 and on that point I was
amazed at how different a legal definition of a word often was compared with common usage.
Everything was cross-referenced against the Australian Constitution via the Acts Interpretation Act.
I took copious notes, filled folders. And of course, every step was governed by constant contact with the
other researchers, guided by the legal team involved.
The focus was to both clearly learn what we owned and could do with our ownership, versus what we were
told we could do from government bodies. Please note, when I use the word WE I am referring to both the
researchers from 4 states and the legal team.
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