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- 2000, November 29: PANZ calls for restraint by recreational 4WDers
- 1997, July 25: Loss of public roads may mean loss of civil rights
- 1996, February 15: Business Roundtable call would end civilisation
- 1994, August 10: Papuni Road
Four-wheel-drive users do not have an absolute right to use and to damage backcountry roads.
Recreational rights advocate Public Access New Zealand was commenting on concerns by the Central Otago District Council and the Dunedin City Council about severe damage being inflicted on the historic Dunstan Road and other high country roads in Otago. There are reports of ruts up to 60cm deep spread across road surfaces.
PANZ is a staunch supporter of public rights of use over public roads as these provide essential rights of access for everyone. However spokesman and researcher Bruce Mason says that the common law right of unhindered passage at all times is not absolute. "My delving into English common law, which applies to New Zealand, reveals that in exercising passage if damage results to a road surface to the extent that normal passage by other users is adversely affected, then a public nuisance is created. This opens the damaging party up to a liability to be sued". Administering councils, other road users, or adjoining land occupiers could take action.
PANZ takes issue with assertions that it is 4WD clubs alone that are responsible for damage to roads. Club members comprise a very small proportion of the 12 percent of new vehicle registrations nationally. "There has been the phenomenal growth in 4WD sales in recent years, up 4 percent in the last 4 years. That is responsible for the upsurge in damage. I have seen this myself with individual "Remuera limousines" tearing through bogs on the Serpentine Road in very wet conditions that had me pushing my mountain bike around".
Councils have a real problem on their hands. They can close roads temporally to protect the road surface, but only for classes of vehicle and not classes of user. They cannot lawfully lock gates. They cannot lawfully discriminate against recreational users and in favour of adjoining farmers. Problems have occurred in the past where councils have attempted this and become legally unstuck.
PANZ believes that councils must remain scrupulous in their dealings with the community by being even-handed.
Greater awareness among 4WD owners of their rights and limitations to those rights may help alleviate the problem. The 'tread lightly' ethic promoted by most clubs needs greater recognition in practice. There has to be general cognizance that when a road is clearly unsuitable for wheeled traffic, use is not a right it is an abuse. There is no God-given right to drive everywhere regardless of the damage inflicted.
PANZ advises that in wet conditions on soft, unmetalled roads susceptible to rutting, recreational users should park their vehicles and use their legs, or defer their trip until there are dry conditions.
If the temptations of throbbing horsepower and creature-comfort mobility continue to inflict a heavy toll on high country roads, perhaps a prosecution or two for creating a public nuisance may provide a persuasive influence on driver behaviour, Mr Mason concluded.
Recreational group Public Access New Zealand believes that Government's 'Land Transport Pricing Study' proposals have the potential to remove personal freedoms and public rights of access, unparalleled in New Zealand's history.
PANZ spokesman, Bruce Mason said although Transport Minister Jenny Shipley has said that a public road network will be retained she has also stated that the status quo is unacceptable. This means that direct user pays and privatisation of the road network is preferred.
PANZ believes that it may be more than co-incidence that last year the Business Round Table came out with similar road privatisation plans.
"It should be a great concern to all New Zealanders that the Study's narrow focus on costs and transport totally discounts the wider legal and civic value of 'roads'. The study presents a view that public roads only mean cars and transport".
These are publicly-owned strips of land with centuries-old common law rights of passage attached. Society depends on citizens having freedom of movement for it to be able to function. If the roads fall into private or commercial control what becomes of such rights? What becomes of the freedom of movement guaranteed to everyone under the New Zealand Bill of Rights if there are no means left to freely exercise it? It appears such fundamental rights are so secondary in importance to Government that they do not deserve mention in the report.
There are problems in store for private land owners. Our land-occupying civilisation depends on every allotment having legal access onto a road. If this right becomes a 'user-pays privilege' poorer members of society could become prisoners on their own properties, isolated from the rest of the community.
A commercial approach to managing public roads, even under continued Crown and local authority ownership, is likely to result in management for profit rather than people. A likely consequence will be the disposal of lightly used back-country roads which are generating insufficient returns to pay for upkeep or provide a profit on the investment. Unformed legal roads will become financial liabilities if the roading authority is required to produce a return on land value. Approximately half the public road 'network' is unformed, but of crucial importance for providing legal rights of access to public lands, water margins, and private land generally. Half the 'Queen's Chain' consists of public roads.
The study notes that the technology for monitoring individual vehicle movements is already available, hence making direct user pays possible. The authors do not dismiss extension of the concept of user pays to pedestrians and cyclists! It is only the absence, for the present, of suitable monitoring technology that is seen as a barrier. This has potential for a Big Brother or Corporate State with every move by every citizen monitored and recorded.
"This is blind market-forces ideology going to its logical but dangerously idiotic conclusion".
END
Contact:
Bruce Mason
(03) 447 3554
References:
'Listener' 12-18 July 1997 p18.
'Public Access' July 1997 p9.
'Public Roads: a guide to rights of access to the countryside'.
Bruce Mason, 1991.
15 February 1996
Public roads provide a vital
foundation for society. Without them, and an inseparable freedom
of movement, New Zealanders would end up as prisoners in their
homes. Privatised roads would remove the ability for individuals,
without financial where-with-all, to mix with their communities
or to access the rest of the country for cultural, outdoor or
any other activity.
Public Access New Zealand was responding to the Business Round
Table's recent call for a privatised roading network and the imposition
of direct road-user charges.
PANZ spokesman Bruce Mason described the Round Table's latest
call as 'extravagantly ignorant'. Public roads are immeasurably
much more than dollar assets and conduits for big business profit,
he said.
"Our whole society is dependent on public roads. Centuries
of common law, inherited from England, guarantee freedom of passage
for everyone. Every allotment of land must have frontage on to
a public road, whether that be formed or unformed. Half the Queen's
Chain along water margins consists of public roads. Every public
reserve and community facility is dependent on roading access
and freedom of movement."
The Round Table's plans would undo the settlement of New Zealand
and remove freedom of movement guaranteed to everyone. The latter
is enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
If the Round Table's latest nonsense were ever implemented it
would bring about the end of civilisation as we know it, Mr Mason
concluded.
10 August 1994
National lobby group Public
Access New Zealand congratulates the Gisborne region's recreational
user groups for opening up legal access to the Urewera National
Park along the unformed Papuni Road.
Spokesman Bruce Mason of Dunedin said that PANZ had been following
this "sorry saga" for months and was amazed at the groups'
patience in the face of years of difficulties with access to the
park.
"This is a clear-cut case of a legal access to a national
park. The public have an unequivocal right of access along the
road, without conditions being imposed by adjoining landowners
or anyone else.
"From the outset the authorities should have upheld the public
rights rather than attempt to horse-trade these for lesser rights
on alternative routes", Mr Mason said. The alternative which
DOC unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate would have imposed unacceptable
constraints on public use.
The situation at Papuni is not unlike many other areas of New
Zealand where public roads are treated by adjoining owners and
authorities alike as if they were private property. "Public
servants need to reevaluate whose interests they are acting for.
The risk is that they will be seen as pandering to vested private
interests rather than acting for the greater public good within
the terms of the laws they administer", Mr Mason said.
While PANZ is encouraged by the Wairoa District Council's undertaking
that it would never agree to closing Papuni Road, their and DOC's
failure to resolve the issue is most disappointing. In view of
this, PANZ believes that they should reimburse the user groups
for the cost of surveying the road.
"The user groups have done the citizens of the east coast
a community service. Their restrained and well considered actions
would have been unnecessary if the authorities had done their
job", Mr Mason concluded.