There has been a quiet debate going on about carbon permits being property. I have only seen it being covered in the Fin Review (here, here and here).
The background is that the government intends to create property rights to pollute – that is to transfer a tonne of carbon dioxide into the public domain. Under various conditions those organisations that meet a threshold level of emissions will have to buy and surrender permits to emit CO2. The opposition states that if and when it wins office it will abolish the scheme and presumably the property rights associated with the scheme.
Here in lies the problem; the Commonwealth can only acquire property on just terms – it is the vibe of the thing. So the government is arguing that if the scheme is abolished that a future coalition government will have to compensate people who already own carbon permits. It seems, however, there is some disagreement on this point.*
So it’s going to be High Court challenges at 10 paces if and when the coalition does abolish the carbon tax. There is another solution, however, the Coalition should simply announce that it will use the same legal mechanism to abolish the need for carbon permits as the Labor government will use to abolish cigarette trademarks without the need for compensation. Under that sort of arrangement individuals and firms will still own the permits, just their value will be diminished.
* I seem to recall Ken Parish posting a similar argument on welfare and the constitution – I can’t find it, but IIRC the argument went along the lines that if the commonwealth creates a right it can modify that right without having to pay compensation.
Update: Ken Parish addresses the issue here. The bottom line (emphasis added)
Permits or licences that are created purely by statute and whose attached rights may vary from year to year at the whim of the government do not look at all like property rights. They’re much more like the “inherently defeasible” fishing licence catch entitlements considered in Bienke and held not to be property.
That statement is qualified of course, but I suspect a permit to pollute will be very much like any other government permit.
I understand this is one of the issues with the NZ scheme which the government would like to shut down but some of the forestry interests claim they have property rights (it is an ETS, not just a tax) and would seek compensation in that event. A tax is less likely to create property rights than an ETS.
Judith Sloan
11 Aug 11 at 2:16 pm
An Abbott government could also issue eleventy trillion permits, making the existing ones worthless (or next to worthless). Think of it as the Zimbabwe option. Kind of what Obama is doing to the US currency.
I think my toilet would look cool with a fresh wallpaper of carbon permits. I’m hoping they’ll issue them with fancy motifs, like old fashioned share certificates and bonds.
boy on a bike
11 Aug 11 at 2:24 pm
The Constitution deals with the case of the Commonwealth acquiring property – that is different to the Commonwealth abolishing a property right, but taking no equivalent interest itself.
That is why the cigarette cases will fail on constitutional grounds – the Commonwealth doesn’t want to sell Benson & Hedges cigarettes, it just doesn’t want anyone else to. That is an abolition of a property right, but the Commonwealth has not acquired the right to use that brand.
Adam
11 Aug 11 at 2:41 pm
That’s very elegant Professor. A bit like saying to a Christian “You say I can’t prove God doesn’t exist? Tell me how you know Odin doesn’t exist. I’ll use your method.”
Ooh Honey Honey
11 Aug 11 at 2:59 pm
sinclair,
I recall that the just compensation clause of the Oz constitution is triggered only by physical taking or occupation of the property.
Regulating value down to zero does not count.
In the USA too a regulation restricting the use of property to further legitimate public ends, will not be considered a taking merely because it impairs the value of that land.
However, when the regulation goes too far (as Justice Holmes put it in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon), so as to deprive the property owner of all reasonable use or value of the property, it will be judicially recognized as the equivalent of a taking which may not take place without payment of just compensation.
The tangled concept of regulatory takings also affects zoning and the regulation of public utilities pricing.
Jim Rose
11 Aug 11 at 2:59 pm
boy on a bike
the price of carbon permits in the EU collapsed for this reason.
The international market in carbon credits has suffered an almost total collapse, with only $1.5bn of credits traded last year
If the EU meets its target of improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020, the price of carbon permits under its internal trading system is likely to fall dramatically.
This will in turn make it less financially attractive for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies.
Concern that used and worthless permits were circulating caused the spot price of the certificates to collapse, from €12 per tonne of carbon to less than €1 in mid-2010.
Jim Rose
11 Aug 11 at 3:07 pm
[...] Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy has a post musing about whether carbon emissions trading permits would be regarded as property rights which would entitle the holder to compensation if abolished by a future federal government. The obvious context is the fact that Tony Abbott has promised that the Coalition would “roll back” Labor’s carbon pricing regime if elected. Apparently there’s been a debate about it in the AFR (to which I don’t subscribe). [...]
Club Troppo » Would carbon permits be property rights?
11 Aug 11 at 3:26 pm
Hi Sinclair
I have mused about this question over at Troppo.
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 3:32 pm
Simple solution: Flood the market with free carbon permits.
Fleeced
11 Aug 11 at 3:36 pm
Hi Ken
thanks for that, updated the post.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 3:38 pm
The same argument applies to water entitlements.The issue was raised in the High Court in ICM Agriculture:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2009/51.html
but the Court determined that it was not necessary to determine that issue-see paras 74-80.The issue will arise again in relation to both the Murray and Murrumbidgee.
malcolm davies
11 Aug 11 at 4:24 pm
A small-scale model or analogy to the scrapping of any future ETS can be found in the deregulation of the taxicab industry which, I believe, is underway in NSW and enquired into in Victoria by Allan Fels.
As I understand, the NSW Government proposes to issue an unlimited number of licences (naturally to the chagrin of current owners), while in Victoria Chris Berg thinks the licences will have to be bought back (currently ~$500,000) or phased out over time.
manalive
11 Aug 11 at 5:31 pm
There is a strong assumption in some circles that carbon credits generated in Australia, for example through the carbon farming initiative (ie planting trees) will create a property right.
In some cases the same piece of land could carry freehold title, water rights, mineral rights and carbon credits. If it’s leasehold you could add Native Title as well.
What a mess.
DavidLeyonhjelm
11 Aug 11 at 5:33 pm
I agree with Fleeced. Flooding the market is an elegant solution. And as we know, Treasury loves elegant solutions.
Milton Von Smith
11 Aug 11 at 5:40 pm
I’d add to my previous post that the owners of any future ‘carbon pollution’ permits are likely to be far more formidable protagonists than the odd taxi licence holders in any attempt by a future government to obliterate their highly valuable assets.
manalive
11 Aug 11 at 5:40 pm
Also, I would have thought that the property rights and compensation argument runs both ways.
Currently businesses have a property right to emit C02. The ETS will remove that right. So shouldn’t they be compensated when the ETS is introduced?
Milton Von Smith
11 Aug 11 at 5:42 pm
No wonder lawyers love the idea.
manalive
11 Aug 11 at 5:54 pm
“Currently businesses have a property right to emit C02.”
No they don’t. All they have (in the terms made famous by the American jurist Hohfeld) is a privilege or liberty to do so, flowing only from the fact that no government has so far seen fit to prohibit or regulate such acts. It’s an aspect of sovereignty that governments have the power to regulate such things if they choose (assuming they don’t get kicked out at the next election and replaced by a new government which repeals the legislation).
With rare exceptions (e.g. an easement by prescription) the law does not accept the proposition that property rights can be created by mere government inaction. Creation of property rights (at least where there’s a nation state holding the “radical title” to all land as in Australia) requires a positive act of will by the state. Your assertion is a bit like a claim that you somehow have property rights in the street where you live by virtue of the fact that no government has to date restricted your privilege to walk down it. (You probably COULD do something to stop a government from restricting your ability to access your own house by using the road leading to it, but it wouldn’t flow from having property rights in the road).
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 6:09 pm
I have been meaning to post on the origin of property rights. Carbon permits would fall under the legal centric theory of property rights.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 6:17 pm
Well, the government can currently confiscate all land-use rights without confiscating the land, so I can’t see why they couldn’t legislate away all rights to buy and sell carbon property without confiscating the carbon property itself.
That’s how it currently works with the government and vegetation; they simply grant themselves all usage rights, but leave the landowner with the now-useless title.
wreckage
11 Aug 11 at 6:23 pm
It has always been a no brainer and even trite law that extinguishment of property is not acquisition unless their is some profit from that extinguishment. But things a little more complex my friends.
The interesting issue is the CGT ramifications of the extinguisment of the carbon permits. This extinguishment will lead to the occurrence of CGT event C2 for the holders. I suspect this will lead to the permit holders suffering a capital loss which they will be able to write off against past or future capital gains, thereby reducing their income tax liability. The Government will thus stand to lose quite a bit of revenue if it cancels the permits. However, if it changes the CGT provisions to stop permit holders claimig a capital loss, it could be seen as profiting out of the extinguishment of the permits and the High Court might just then be ready to hold such an extinguishment is akin to acquisition.
This is good. I could get some good work out of this>
Rococo Liberal
11 Aug 11 at 6:32 pm
Update – In a new comment at Troppo Tim Macknay points out that there is a published exposure draft of the proposed carbon trading bill (which I hadn’t known), and that it expressly deems the permits from the 2012 fixed price period to be “transferable personal property” even though they’re not in fact transferable!
I suggest in a subsequent comment that I still don’t think that would prevent Abbott from rolling back the carbon price regime, but it makes it at least a bit more interesting from a legal viewpoint.
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 6:44 pm
Ken I suppose you want to see the carbon tax locked in so the Coalition cannot roll it back. That will be very damaging for the ALP if it turns out that the science has not been settled in favour of dangerous warming. If we actually get mild warming with more upside than downside then people are likely to be very cranky about alarmists and the party that puts the tax in place with all the negatives that go with it.
In that event you guys will need to have an exit strategy so you can fall back to a reasonable position and save some credibility for yourselves and the ALP. That might mean that the ALP would have to roll it back or cooperate in opposition to help with the job.
Rafe Champion
11 Aug 11 at 7:11 pm
The idea that a Government can bind its successors is abhorrent.
If the electors vote out the ALP with the vehemence that we suspect, then it would be evil of them to try and make that policy on us for all time. The only good side of that would be that the ALP would be utterly finished in Australian politics. A new, bettr centre left party may then arise.
Rococo Liberal
11 Aug 11 at 7:17 pm
Ssorry, that should be: “it would be evil for them to try and make that policy remain in place for all time’
Rococo Liberal
11 Aug 11 at 7:18 pm
Rafe
No, not at all. If you’d actually participated meaningfully in the Troppo discussion, you would have seen that while I think the science is pretty clear, I’m a long way from convinced that a carbon tax or ETS is the right way to go. I support the initial stage of the Gillard scheme only because it’s modest in scope, won’t do much if any economic damage, and puts in place a framework that could easily be cranked up into something meaningful if there is ever a workable global agreement to reduce emissions.
However I’m fairly pessimistic that any such agreement will emerge, and if it doesn’t within the next few years then Australia should shift immediately and decisively from an emissions reduction strategy to an adaptation one.
The fact that this has long been my position was one reason why I was so angry at your attempt to paint me as someone who could reasonably be suspected of participation in a conspiracy with Tim Lambert to mislead readers (apart from the fact that IMO no person of integrity would do such a thing irrespective of their substantive views, and I can’t imagine why you thought I was the sort of person who might do so. Have I ever done anything to lead you to believe that I was such an unprincipled person?).
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 7:22 pm
Otherwise known as Mabo.
Peter Patton
11 Aug 11 at 7:26 pm
If the ALP/Greens succeed in establishing their ETS and it operates for some time, it creates a dilemma for economic liberalists because the ‘pollution’ permits created by the socialist government would have been purchased in good faith and it would be ethically, practically and above all legally, bound to honour them unless Abbott (or whoever is the opposition leader at the time) makes it abundantly clear that the phony ‘free market’ will be extinguished when the government changes without compensation.
manalive
11 Aug 11 at 7:31 pm
manalive
The proposed 2012 fixed price scheme does not involve anyone buying permits at all. That phase would only begin after 2015. In the meantime Abbott has made it perfectly clear that he will roll back the scheme if elected and (at least inferentially) that he wouldn’t be paying compensation unless legally obliged to do so. I don’t have any problem at all with that. In my view Abbott is under no ethical obligation to do any more than he has already done. If the Coalition wins the next election (which looks odds-on), it would be legally and morally entitled to repeal the carbon legislation without delay.
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 7:39 pm
Peter Patton/John G
Mabo in the current context is a good glib debating point but no more than that. The Mabo reasoning rested squarely on the long-accepted common law principle that sovereignty acquired by conquest (as opposed to acquisition by settlement of uninhabited lands) resulted in property rights existing under the legal system of the conquered people continuing to exist unless and until extinguished by a legally valid act of the new sovereign power. Logically therefore, there might still be some native titles that remained valid because they hadn’t been extinguished.
Thus Mabo is not as a matter of law or logic an example of creation of title to land by government inaction. It’s almost the opposite: an example of existing title to land persisting over time because of government inaction.
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 7:54 pm
The Mabo case is very interesting because it is a case where property rights exist that are not explained by either the economic theory of property rights, or the legal centrist theory. (Discussion here – subscription required)
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 8:06 pm
Ken Parish,
what matters is the economics, not the science.
Global warming, although real, is not apt to be severe. It will lower GDP by maybe 2% – the loss of one year’s growth!
Many of the consequences of global warming will be beneficial – warmer in some places, colder in others; wetter in some places and drier in others.
The exorbitant costs of attempting to substantially curtail global warming would squander resources.
Sums that are small relative to the cost of trying to fine-tune the planet’s climate could prevent scores of millions of deaths from AIDS, unsafe drinking water and other clear and present dangers.
The U.N.’s 2007 report estimates that by 2100, sea levels will rise about a foot—as much as they have risen since 1860.
That will mean a number of local problems, not a planetary crisis. Protecting people and property from the rising sea would be far less costly than attempting to turn down the planet’s thermostat.
The chances of India, China and the rest of the Third world agreeing for forego or even slow economic development to fight global warming is zero even before you consider the international collective action, verification and free rider problems.
Climate changes would have greater impact in underdeveloped countries. Agriculture provides the livelihoods of 30 percent or more of the population in much of the developing world.
Yet the trend in developing countries is to be less dependent on agriculture. If per capita income in such countries grows in the next forty years as rapidly as it has in the forty just past, vulnerability to climate change should diminish.
The only case for even a token carbon tax is to avoid EU green tariffs on OZ exports.
We may as well collect the revenue for ourselves rather than let the EU get it.
It is safe to say that green tariffs are more likely in the USA than federal carbon trading.
The greater tactical victory of environmentalists is keeping the debate on the science because even if the science is right, the economic costs are small.
Let the science be settled. How much will global warming cost is the correct question for debate.
Jim Rose
11 Aug 11 at 8:12 pm
“Let the science be settled. How much will global warming cost is the correct question for debate.”
Yes I agree.
Ken Parish
11 Aug 11 at 8:23 pm
Guys, I think we’re deviating from the original post. We have plenty of threads to discuss various aspects of the science and the economics of climate change. Here we’re on the property rights of the permits.
Ken – surely there are tests of what constitutes ‘personal property’. If the government simply declares x to be property in the legislation, there isn’t anything stopping a future government from simply rescinding that provision or even just modifying it.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 8:32 pm
Sorry – scrap the last bit, I see you’ve answered that at Troppo.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 8:34 pm
Ken, from what you have just posted, you have NO idea about the Mabo case at all. It was totally creation of NEW rights out of thin air. There was no fricking “Conquest” and there was no common law regarding it. All the law you needed was contained in the Governor’s instructions.
Peter Patton
11 Aug 11 at 8:42 pm
Sinc, unfortunately, the Mabo judges gave not a stuff about economics, the origins of property rights, let alone actual history and the law. They deferred to Roman Catholic holier than thou guilt. tis all.
Peter Patton
11 Aug 11 at 8:46 pm
PP – read the actual judgements.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 8:46 pm
The six lying Rock Chopping fraudsters – that’s the HC majority to you – should be in jail.
Peter Patton
11 Aug 11 at 8:47 pm
Sinclair, I HAVE read them about five times. They are completely irrational.
Peter Patton
11 Aug 11 at 8:47 pm
Yes, yes – when the revolution comes we’re going to shoot the lawyers and the journalists and basically everyone else who has it coming. In the meantime, the judgements in Mabo and Wik are very well argued and sensible too. People’s property belongs to them even when the governance structure of the country changes. If the government wants to take your property they have to be explicit.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Aug 11 at 8:50 pm
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the rights of indigenous peoples to customary land tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. Conquest does not disturb existing property rights unless there is confiscation.
Property rights in aboriginal societies vary with the type of property and with the use of land resources.
Families have private property rights with some food resources while group rights apply to other kinds of food.
If it is economically more profitable to exploit a food resource in common, then it will have a group right such as often occurs with fishing or hunting.
Agricultural societies tend to have private rights for cropland, whereas societies without agriculture are less likely to have private lands
Regulatory takings have been extended to deregulatory takings. Google stranded costs.
Stranded costs are the decline in the value of assets due to restructuring of the industry.
Under deregulation, prices are likely to fall more than production costs, thus lowering the earnings of the previously regulated firms and the value of their assets. The largest problem threatening the smooth transition to market competition is stranded cost recovery.
See McChesney, FS (1999). “Of stranded costs and stranded hopes: the difficulties of deregulation.” Independent Review, for a fascinating discussion of the transitional gains trap, the disinterest in deregulation, and rent extraction.
Jim Rose
11 Aug 11 at 10:53 pm
See Deregulatory Takings and the Regulatory Contract: The Competitive Transformation of Network Industries in the United States by J. Gregory Sidak and Daniel F. Spulber
This book addresses deregulatory policies that threaten to reduce or destroy the value of private property in network industries without any accompanying payment of just compensation, policies that are termed deregulatory takings.
The authors further consider the problem of renegotiation of the regulatory contract, which changes the terms and conditions of operation of utility companies.
In the typical case of regulated industries, firms and their investors agree to bear considerable incumbent burdens for a regulated rate of return.
Sidak and Spulber argue that this arrangement represents a regulatory contract and find that recent deregulatory measures constitute breach.
They argue that, whether or not a regulatory contract in fact exists, recent mandatory unbundling in the power industry and open-access regulation in telecommunications effectuate a taking without just compensation.
my take is as a general matter, forcing firms to bear the costs of obsolescence is wise policy because doing so encourages efficient risk-taking.
If an entrepreneur contemplating a new investment knew it was entitled to compensation from the government if the investment did not pay off, then it would make the investment with little regard to the prospects of market success.
Sidak and Spulber’s argument for compensation cannot succeed unless they can show that the investment made by a regulated firm rests on a fundamentally different footing than the investment made by an ordinary enterprise.
An investor’s investment-backed expectations in carbon trading are not all that different from the expectations of the investor in an ordinary enterprise, who can almost never expect compensation for obsolescence and only rarely for changes in government policy.
In this case the change in policy is most typically the replacement of monopoly with some kind of competitive regime.
Given that society has been debating the large costs and relatively small benefits of regulation for many years, one can hardly argue that freedom from competition and policy change must be a part of the investment-backed expectations of a shareholder.
Jim Rose
11 Aug 11 at 11:08 pm
Or, if you invest in legislation, that’s your problem.
wreckage
11 Aug 11 at 11:28 pm
Yes, yes – when the revolution comes we’re going to shoot the lawyers and the journalists and basically everyone else who has it coming.
GASP! DEATH THREATS!
Also, violent rhetoric, which has been scientifically proven to cause murderers.
wreckage
11 Aug 11 at 11:29 pm
An individual transferable quota (ITQ) is an allocated privilege of landing a specified portion of the annual fish catch in the form of quota shares.
Like carbon permits, ITQs can be construed as exclusive, perpetual rights. This situation parallels pastoral leases on crown lands. All land is Canberra is leased for 99 years.
Fisheries regulators consider ITQ quota shares not to be property, but to convey a privilege to catch an amount of fish or shellfish in a given year that can be renewed or revoked.
ITQs are quota shares may represent a different resource quantity every year as the total allocated catch may vary from year to year. Nonetheless, the ability to sell or lease ITQ shares implies a more enduring, if not permanent, fishing access privilege.
No one has yet successfully argued that the ability to adjust and modify an ITQ program constitutes grounds for a regulatory taking.
Few U.S. banks accept ITQs as collateral for loans. The collateral value of Alaska halibut and sablefish IFQ shares is generally about 20 percent of their market value.
The Australian courts have found that fishing entitlements, although similar in terms of the privileges conferred, are not the common law property right of profit á prendre. They are a statutory entitlement.
A profit á prendre is a right to take part of the soil, minerals, natural produce including fish and wild animals. The person does not own the thing gathered whilst it is on the land, but has a right to gather it.
Compensation for modification and extinguishment of these rights depends on whether there is compensation payable under applicable legislation or on whether the plaintiffs can rely on constitutional guarantees of acquisition of property on just terms.
The courts have clearly indicated that fishing entitlements are rights created by government as means of regulating the fishing industry and are thus governed by the legislation that created them.
By annulling that legislation, the entitlement no longer exists. By modifying the legislation, the entitlement is redefined.
Statutory licences are ‘inherently susceptible’ to modification or extinguishment.
See ITQs and Property Rights A review of Australian case law Sevaly Sen, Barry Kaufmann and Gerry Geen Fisheries Economics, Research and Management Pty. Ltd. Australia
Jim Rose
12 Aug 11 at 12:15 pm
The Native Title Act did not need the bollocks of Mabo. In fact, Mabo has made the whole native title business an absolute abortion.
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 1:12 pm
jim
“settler colonialism’ is a very recent term of art used by historians. Yoiu will not find it among the musings of Mansfield, Blackstone, Dowling, Forbes, JJs, or marshall CJ, nor withing Governor Phillips Instructions, the Treaties of Westphalia or Paris.
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 1:16 pm
PP,
Campbell v Hall was a case decided in the Court of King’s Bench in 1774 that turned on the validity of a tax imposed in Grenada.
This was the trigger for an examination of the constitutional position of Grenada and for a review of the position in all British territories.
Lord Mansfield’s judgment reviewed the law applicable to British colonies in general and laid down a series of important points of constitutional law applicable to British possessions.
The points of law so decided were:
• A country conquered by the British arms becomes a dominion of the King in the right of the Crown; and, therefore, subject to Parliament.
• The conquered inhabitants once received under the King’s protection, become subjects in all respects.
• The law of a colony equally affects all persons and all property there: a native-born Briton has no privilege distinct from local people.
• The King has power to make law for the conquered country without the concurrence of Parliament (except that this legislation is subordinate to his own authority in Parliament so that he cannot make any new change contrary to fundamental principles such as exempted an individual from the power of Parliament).
• Once the King has irrevocably granted a territory a representative assembly to concur in law making, he can no longer legislate by decree or impose taxation without them.
The references by Mansfield to conquered inhabitants and a native-born Briton has no privilege distinct from local people seems as less polite way of saying settler colony.
Jim Rose
12 Aug 11 at 5:04 pm
PP, another:
Jim Rose
12 Aug 11 at 5:14 pm
Jim
I am familiar with both:
1. Mansfield’s discussion of “conquered” countries kinda refutes the label “settler” colony.
2. Grenada was precisely the sort of “country” that could be “conquered” as it was ‘conquered’ from another sovereign power, the French.
3. The notion of the laws of the conquered country remaining in force is purely pragmatic, as English laws cannot be administrated until magistrates, and so on arrive from England.
4. ALL these pronouncements ALWAYS had two caveats:
(i) The laws of the conquered country would NOT remain in force, if said country were “heathens”.
(ii) English laws would only apply TO THE EXTENT they were appropriate for the conquered country.
5. Bascially, point 4, removes Australia from the possibility of being subject to Lord Mansfield’s taxonomy.
6. Either way, at the end of the day, Parliament trumped the common law on this issue.
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 7:06 pm
Jim
In other words, you can’t understand Campbell v Hall outside the context of the Treaty of Paris. Ignorance of this is at the heart of the whole terra nullius intellectual fiasco. The judges in these cases have not been up to the intellectual challenge of realizing law is not an iron cage, and often requires other skills/knowledge, especially the further in the past it is. Tragically, in Australia, the historians the judges DID defer to, were the dregs of the discipline.
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 7:25 pm
Treaty of Paris 1763 that is; not 1783.
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 7:26 pm
Ken
WHERE in Mabo does it say Australia was “conquered”?
Peter Patton
12 Aug 11 at 9:15 pm