Any landholder who has been through compulsory land acquisition for energy or transport projects in recent years will readily tell you how bruising the process is.
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In a battle between everyday farmers and statutory entities backed by a full suite of acquisition powers, represented by slick negotiators holding a ticking clock, the power imbalance is immense.
And the odds always seem stacked against the landholder.
Last week, the state government released a discussion paper canvassing reforms to the NSW compulsory land acquisition processes and the 30-year-old Just Terms Compensation Act.
While triggering reading, it's also a welcome, much-needed discussion which will hopefully lead to urgent reform, identifying eight key areas to improve transparency, remove complexity and uncertainty for landholders, legislate some consistency, and most importantly clarify the legal rights of landowners and obligations for the acquiring authorities.
The key areas flagged for improvement are: genuine negotiation; mediation; compensation provisions; hardship; valuer-general determinations; legislative requirements to clarify requirements; co-ordination of multi-agency acquisitions; and consistency in government acquisition processes.
Following my own experience with a transmission line easement, I could write a stand-alone column on what has been wrong with each of the above issues.
However, I'll focus on a few standout discussion points for now.
One of the most pleasing reforms proposed is for non-disclosure agreements to be prohibited.
Such a reform would undoubtedly bring more fairness and transparency to land access negotiations and enable landowners and their communities to work together for better outcomes.
The review suggests the need to mandate the Just Terms Act 'Property Acquisition Standards' which will regulate that negotiations be conducted in a way ensuring landowners can make informed decisions and have access to independent advice to support their negotiations.
The murkiness around the negotiation timeframes is raised, acknowledging the start of the minimum negotiation period is not clearly defined and needs amending, while it was also found there is no clear requirement in the Just Terms Act about information given to the landholder at the start of the negotiation.
The discussion paper also acknowledges there is no consistency in respect to acquiring authorities providing a valuation report to support their initial compensation offer to landholders, and suggests future processes include evidence-based letters of offer.
Clarification is needed around a whole range of compensation measures and costs incurred to value these - particularly on the broad area of 'disturbance'.
There is no real acknowledgement of cumulative impact from these projects, and the value or cost of cumulative impact, which needs to be explored.
The government is seeking feedback on the paper and the issues it raises and I would urge all landholders who have been affected to have a say before feedback closes on May 3. Visit www.planning.nsw.gov.au/land-acquisition-review.
- By Lucy Knight, is a woolgrower from the Gunning District and a former press gallery journalist. This article originally appeared in The Land.
