Regulatory resistance to environmental law in rural Australia: land clearing, murder and the media

ABSTRACT

In 2014 an Australia public servant was killed in a confrontation over illegal land clearing. The perpetrator was a land holder with a history of non-compliance with environmental regulations and had been subject to a series of prosecutions. Political suggestions that the crime was somehow justified drew attention to the growing prevalence of law breaking linked to environmental law and policy in rural Australia. This paper investigated the social construction of both the crime and the community response through a qualitative media content analysis. Utilising the “Recipe for Criminalisation” framework developed by Amnesty International, the analysis identified a contest between media discourses of legitimacy in regards to the actions taken by the perpetrator, the public servant and ultimately, the regulatory framework itself. The analysis revealed that the link between media references to illegitimate legislation, excessive regulation, over-zealous compliance and strong social norms of rural independence and economic survival created a persuasive story of justified resistance to unwelcome environmental legislation in this case. Understanding how affected communities respond to instances of policy failure, civil and criminal law breaking and environmental compliance is a crucial factor in designing more legitimate and effective governance regimes. How media narratives are constructed, by whom and in whose interests remains an important analytic question for the study of resistance to environmental law and policy around the world.

KEYWORDS:

• Land clearing
• regulatory resistance
• environmental crime
• rural crime

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Tanya M. Howard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2837-8529

Notes

1 The National Party was established in 1920 during the early days of Australian Federation and identifies as the political party of rural and regional electorates.

2 The recent public militia occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve in Oregon, USA, is an example of regulatory resistance that raises many similar questions.

3 This paper adopts the definition of rural as “non-metropolitan” and predominantly agricultural in enterprise (Barclay and Bartel 2015).

4 The NSW Land and Environment Court is a specialised court which hears environmental, development, building and planning disputes.

5 Ian Turnbull died in jail 27 March 2017.

6 Fairfax sold the rural newspaper business to Nine Entertainment in 2018, which then sold it on to Thorney Investment Group and Mr Antony Catalano in 2019.

7 Adapting the definitions provided by the original framework, the “environmental defender” refers to Glen Turner. The “perpetrator” refers to Ian Turnbull, the landholder convicted of murder.

8 The Macquarie Dictionary provides a useful definition of the sandstone curtain: The boundary between coastal and inland. Used in reference to real or perceived poor treatment of non-metropolitan citizens by their State Governments. Typically used by elected representatives from inland seats when referring to budget allocations by the State Government: You haven’t got a hope of getting any help from Macquarie Street if you live west of the sandstone curtain (“Macquarie Dictionary Online” 2018).

9 The author thanks Luc Farago for providing this summary.