After the rout of the Liberal Govt. in WA w there's now a new minister for "Seniors and Ageing; Volunteering; Sport and Recreation." Mick Murray. mick.murray@mp.wa.gov.au
Is now the man in charge, people who had problems with Tony Simpsons changes to camping in WA should contact the new minister and let him know of your concerns.
There was a long conversation last year about WA's Local Gvt Dept changing the rules of camping to suit CP's.
It included limiting free camping, parking your RV on private property - like a farm, having it at a house and having anyone living in it - you were only allowed about a week in the last circumstance before you were required to buy a permit from the local council or shire and they would visit and check with your neighbours before taking your money and if it was more than a month you required a permit from the Minister for an extra large fee.
With low cost camping, such as a farmers property, it would have cost the land owner so much money to comply, that most would have stopped the practice.
The discussion paper was released by that Local Gvt Dept about a year ago and nothing more has been published - hopefully they are concentrating their attention now on the City of Perth council and their stupid and restrictive ideas have been shelved, although no doubt many CP owners would have made submissions which would have dramatically increased their business or turned away Nomads from visiting WA
WA = Nanny State (and I live here)
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
....and they CAN make it happen for the better...fact :our Victorian Miners Rights went from $80 odd under the Libs, to $23 for 10 years period! overnight, after Daniel Andrews was elected...they realized family's like to get out together and fossick/gold detect ,and support country town's financially in the process.....plus camping fees along the Coast/National Parks/hinterland were slashed overnight so folk were not forced' into CP's which had actually become cheaper alternatives only because of the huge increases applied by the previous Libs to national Parks whilst providing nothing by way of facilities......I don't believe this is a Political statement if it is fact, and affects we travelling Nomads/Fossickers/Family's etc for the better, and not worse...a couple of trend/cost reversals I have seen in recent times..
Can happen in W.A. if they want it to/have the will to, I suggest......Hoo Roo
-- Edited by Goldfinger on Saturday 18th of March 2017 05:05:10 PM
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'You are loved when you are born...you will be loved when you die....In between, You have to manage!'....
Church Sign: 'Where will you be sitting in Eternity?..smoking, or non-smoking?....
Bruce and Bev, Thanks for your reply to my question. With respect, a lot of what you said is very inaccurate. In WA, the rules that say where you can and can't camp are laid down in the "CARAVAN PARKS AND CAMPING GROUNDS REGULATIONS 1997". This is the current Act and has been in place for 20 years. These are State regulations and not a Local Gvt Dept. as you suggest. The regulations are about 90 pages long but only a small part of it (About 1 page) directly effects those of us who want to stay anywhere other then a Motel or caravan park. That section is regulation 11 and is titled "Camping other than at a caravan park or camping ground". Basically Regulation 11 covers the use of Rest areas in WA and camping on private land that isn't registered as a camp ground. As it stands you are allowed to camp on Private land for up to 3 days if you have approval from the owner/ manager of the land. If camping for longer then 3 days then approval from the Local council is required. Remember, this is not new. These rules have been in place for 20 years. And if you have a look online, you will find that all States have similar Regulations. The only thing that has changed in recent times is limiting the time you can camp at a particular camp site to 28 days. This was changed in Dec 2014. I did read a few complaints on different forums about this, but I also read plenty of support for the change mostly from travelers who wanted to stay for a night or two and from locals. Both groups said that they often got to these camp sites like 40 mile & Cleaverville only to find them full of Gray nomads who were camped there for months at a time. Having said all that, the current act did come up for review a couple of years ago and under went two public consultation processes. This process has now closed and as far as I know the proposed new regulations are still being drafted and have yet to be presented to Parliament. I have read these proposed changes and have no issue with them generally. The only thing I questioned was the proposed fee when applying to camp on someones property for more then 3 days. But seriously, when you think about it, If you back your caravan up into a friends or family members driveway and stay for a week, do you go and get permission from the council first. You're supposed to but who does. So who cares if they want put a fee on something you don't do anyway. A lot of misinformation has been spread by the press and social media about this topic over the last couple of years and I wanted to have my say about it. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.
The review was only last year and you may not have been a member on this site when the matter was extensively discussed and many of us downloaded the draft documents. and made our submissions to the draft paper
As you point out the existing legislation is old but with the intention of updating it, it also disadvantaged travelers who didn't want to stay in CPs all the time, or had an RV which they ,at use to accommodate an extra kid or visitors
As far as me referring to the Local Govt Dept - that is a State govt department - just like the Transport Dept or whatever.
Rather than writing a long and tedious post to try to cover all the points, my previous post was brief, but I thought reasonably accurate
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
Bruce, The review was started long before last year. The first consultation paper came out around the middle of 2014 from memory and closed on 1 September 2014. So the public have had access to the proposed changes for two and a half years. I made a submission to the draft paper and I'm glad to hear you did also. Everybody having a say is how we get our message across to the law makers. Moaning on social media doesn't do much, unless we get the message to the Government, so the more submissions, for or against any proposed changes that were made the better. My issue is that a lot of what was reported in the media and on live forums such as this one was inaccurate and misleading. You say that the proposed changes "disadvantaged travelers who didn't want to stay in CPs all the time". Can you please expand on this statement because I just don't see it. Also your statement in your first post "With low cost camping, such as a farmers property, it would have cost the land owner so much money to comply, that most would have stopped the practice" is just plain wrong. Maybe you can enlighten me on that as well.
-- Edited by Cruznoz on Sunday 19th of March 2017 02:10:24 PM
