Property Point 8 August

The headline appeared on my social media news feed one day last week: “Dog owners must spend a minimum of three hours a day with their dogs under proposed ACT Government laws.”

We are well past April Fool’s Day so the story about Government reaching into people’s lives was true.

Yep, under the proposed law, it would be illegal for people to spend less than three hours a day with their dogs in the ACT.

The story raised so many questions in my mind: Would there be video surveillance in people’s properties so that human to pooch contact could be timed by Government bureaucrats? Would Government rely on neighbours to dob in neighbours who had failed to spend three hours with their dog on a given day? Perhaps there could be a peephole policy to help dobbers get evidence. Could a nasty boss keep an employee back at work for emergency overtime and then dob the person in for not spending three hours with their dog?

Don’t get me wrong, I know that dogs are social animals and it’s important that their owners spend time with them.

My dog Millie gets more than three hours a day of human company, along with regular walks/runs, ball throws etc. But I don’t need a government to tell me that or stick their nose into such matters. That’s not where they belong.

But I fear that I am in the minority and most people don’t seem to mind governments, more and more, wandering into their lives dictating what they do, say or think.

I’m more in the individual freedom camp than the government-knows-best gang.

Some may recall Nicolas Cage in the movie Wild at Heart when he proclaims that his snakeskin jacket “represents a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom”. I’m not sure if sure snakeskin jackets are banned these days but governments will be looking at it.

None of this means that I am some anarchist that thinks Governments do not have a role in making laws, keeping people and their property safe and protecting their rights. It’s about achieving the right balance.
The other side of the coin is the new laws and regulations that were introduced last week by the Queensland Government in relation to people selling real estate in this state.

These laws are designed to ensure that sellers disclose key information about a property and that a buyer is informed if the property is affected by proposals such as a transport infrastructure project or a resumption of land.

There are other matters that also need to be revealed such as encumbrances on the property, disputes with a neighbour over a tree on the land and unlicensed building work in the previous six years and under the new laws buyers are entitled to pull out of a contract if such matters are not revealed.

There is an additional cost for sellers who now have to pay for the required searches that legally must be done so that the information can be provided to a buyer prior to a contract being signed.

The changes to the law do ensure that buyers are given more information about key matters that might affect the property and that they don’t find out after moving in, for example, that part of their front yard is going to be lost when the road is widened.

While there will be an additional cost to sellers, the intention is that buyers are armed with more information prior to signing a contract.

These changes feel less about governments meddling in areas they don’t belong and more about actually doing their job and providing reasonable protections for buyers who need to know what, specifically, they are buying.
Although, we still need to keep an eye on the lot of them.

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