Independent professional advice for managers and users of public land

• 5 Years' Hard Work - the Victorian Government's response to the VEAC Statewide Assessment of Public Land Final Report
• New professional development programs for Water Authorities, Urban Planners and Licensed Surveyors
• Can a Council discontinue a road which is on its road register?
• Our calendar of one-day courses January to May 2018

Not another restructure!

Governments seem to be forever reconfiguring the public service. Here at Terra Publica we are often sceptical about the merits of such restructures.

But if the creation of Land Use Victoria leads to implementation of VEAC’s recommendations for public land, then we must approve.

And we’ve done a restructure ourselves – of our training courses relating to roads. More details in this edition.

• Change management
• Q&A - Carriageway easements
• New one-day Roads courses
• Workshops and Masterclasses in 2017
• Our 2017 Training Calendar

Coastal Special
• Barney at Killarney
• Towards a new Marine and Coastal Act
• What's that on the beach? Pretty sure it's not sand...
• Reconfiguring Coastal Governance
• Victoria's Aboriginal Heritage Act 2004 - our workshops on the forthcoming amendments
• Our calendar of training courses

Hey, Watch Where You're Walking, Dude - 'Your Honour, Council should have protected me from walking into the traffic while I was texting...' 
The Aboriginal Heritage Act gets some teeth;
If Crown land is subject to a lease, can that land be sold off as freehold?
Best Value from Community-Use Land - a half-day Seminar

The VEAC Statewide Assessment of Public Land

Acres and Shillings - what are these weird units?

Professional Certificates in Land Administration and Governance

Koondrook Cricket Ground - an object lesson in confusion

Our 2016 Training Courses calendar

• Victorian Environment and Assessment Council (VEAC) may recommend that riparian land be set aside as a ‘Streamside Reserve’ but for most waterways the good old Land Act 1958 and Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978 continue to thwart sound management outcomes.
• The 12mm stumble – At last, the Supreme Court provides some insights into the effectiveness of the Road Management Act.

North of the Border
They have public land in NSW, too – including types we Victorians know nothing about, like Travelling Stock Routes. But one thing we share: the need for reform of Crown land law. And it seems NSW is a step or two ahead of us.

• The crocodile that ate the powerboats: conservation groups enlist a 4million year old fossil to oppose the expansion of a motor-boat club
• Is Leunig’s goat committing an offence? The Summary Offences Act illustrates a serious flaw in Parliament’s management of the statute book.

In this edition we:

• offer Daniel Andrews some suggestions for reforming public land law and policy
• reflect on the governance of recreational boating facilities
• address some questions about volunteer land management groups

Public Land from the right – a brief look at how conservative theorists view public land

• One question about municipal boundaries (and parking) and two more questions about parking.
• Our schedule of one-day training courses through to March 2014
• Coming soon: Offences on Roads and Public Land – a course for Enforcement Officers.

If we could turn back the clock, we’d surely retain more land in public ownership. Idle speculation? Well, if we don’t imagine what could have been, we’ll have a very limited vision of what might still be.

How a murder on the Murray River defined the NSW-Victoria border.
Readers’ question: Can a Council really sell off Public Open Space?

Council land is protected from theft by trespass – isn’t it?
Can a Plan of Subdivision alter an abutting road?

Waterways - a cadastral taxonomy.
Questions about road reserves

Fences Act - Parliament accepts our recommendations

We don't want a repeat of the Stonehenge visitor centre.
Also Land Tax on Crown Land.

That's the value of fences alongside Victoria's roads and public land. Who should pay?

141 years after the statutory separation of church and state, taxpayer assets are still being handed out, free.

Five examples of dysfunctional public land legislation.

In the July edition we bring you our long-awaited schedule of courses through to October 2012.

Competing interpretations of history have their roots deep in the Nineteenth Century. Our ancestors knew full well that they were dispossessing Aboriginal people at the point of a gun. The shameful thing is that the legislation under which they did it is still on the statute books.

There was a time when, if you owned the land, you owned everything on it – the water, the wildlife, the trees – and you held unrestricted usage and development rights. Not any more. This month we comment on easements and covenants, reform of the law governing them.

The authors of the Transport Integration Act 2010, and VicRoads, stretch our capacity for metaphors.
Public Open Space in Subdivisions - a quick review of case law

In this edition Terra Publica bemoans the decline of Mabo-style litigant, whose case helped us to better understand public land law...