Time for New Zealand to adopt ‘right to roam’?

GERRARD Eckhoff (ODT, 1.8.18) uses 18thcentury English law to justify property rights in New Zealand — but how many know that absolute private ownership of land was a gradual process of theft from the common people?

From the 14th to 17th centuries, wealthy landowners ‘‘enclosed’’ the traditional open fields and communal pastures from the small farmers. In each century there were significant rebellions against the enclosures and the leaders were executed.

A pamphlet from 1649 reads: ‘‘Take note that England is not a Free people, till the Poor that have no Land, have a free allowance to dig and labour the Commons, and so live as Comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Inclosures.’’

In New Zealand we had a continuation of this theft. The early settler governments based their takeover of Maori land on English property law developed from the enclosures — as part of that, huge tracts of high country were sold to rich settlers for sheep farming.

Ownership of a plot of land to build a dwelling cannot be compared to ownership of land needed to grow food to feed everyone, nor to freedom to roam the back country. In 1932, hundreds of factory workers asserted their ‘‘right to roam’’ the ‘‘privatised’’ Derbyshire grouse moors; in 2000, freedomtoroam legislation was passed in England.

Maybe it is time for New Zealand to pass laws giving us the ‘‘right to roam’’ in our own country and perhaps the development of community gardens and food cooperatives is the beginning of the reclamation of the commons? Patricia Scott

Outram

YOU can generally surmise that when you are personally attacked by a correspondent, instead of their addressing the issue, there is little substance to their point of view.

Jerry Walton wants access through Hunter Valley Station for the privileged few such as himself, but no public access (ODT, 8.6.18). What principle does Mr Walton employ here?

He might also like to estimate how much human waste is deposited daily in these pristine areas when full access is granted. A ‘‘rock on top’’ quite literally doesn’t cover it, Mr Walton.

Yes I do have a hobby horse re property rights and privacy, as our Western civilisation is based on the right to hold property against the Crown and even against those who wish to impale a fish with a barbed hook, play it for a while and then release it. Jerry Walton calls it sport. Gerrard Eckhoff

Alexandra

Police hold the keys

LAST week I lost my car and house keys somewhere between St Kilda Beach, John Wilson Ocean Dr and Chisholm golf course — it was a long beautiful dog walk.

The impossible happened. When I went to report the loss the next day at the Central police station, I was given a big bucketful of keys to rummage through.

And there they were!

Thank you so much to the thoughtful person who took the effort to not only pick my keys up, but also go through the trouble of handing them in. There are some great people out there

And if you have lost some keys recently, I recommend you have a look through that bucket — there are an awful lot of keys in there.

Ulla Reymann

Sunshine

A cereal litigant

SANITARIUM should rename one of its products ‘‘Cheatbix’’.

The company is a registered charity, yet runs a multimilliondollar business.

It also has the gall to take a small trader to court for daring to sell a similarlynamed product.

Doesn’t sound particularly pious or charitable to me. Alastair Watt

Ranfurly