Don't lock up Australia

[peejay68au]

I tried watching the videos of the minister in question on his decisions, and well I switched off after about 5 minutes. If the dickhead redneck hillbillly bogan crowd would have STFU and let him speak I would have been able to listen to what he had to say. But they should be lucky I'm not the minister. After 5 minutes of trying to speak I would have said we're done here and the decision stands. And I don't get the religious adoration of roothie.

[luke.k1983]

I've just been to Central Coast, Jillby state conservation area, and all of the side tracks off Wyong (Drury Ln, Emmetts Rd, Middle Break etc) are blocked by a big bump (there's still dozer parked there) and minor dirt roads such as Yambo Forest Rd or Lemon Tree Rd have a massive gate there ready to be locked. Quite dissapointing...

[Ranger J]

I suspect EMG Mags could have a better front man on this than old Roothie, with his sweeping generalisations about people from cities or who wear a suit or are in the public service or are conservationists.....just can't pick old redneck Roothie with his hard core old truck and a bevy of 4wd DVDs showing him irresponsibly ripping up wet high country tracks or drinving round gates or taking his dog into Nat Parks etc etc...we've all seen them. Nat Park or the local council or state forrestry don't have the coin to send in graders and D9's to clean up every time d'heads go wreck a track. Cheaper solution is put up a gate.

IMO its the 4wds hoon minorty who wreck it for themselves and for us.

This.

I will not support anything involved with 4wd Action or Roothy, for said reasons above. Personally I think they are a bunch of goddamn amateurs.

And I bet my left nut that EMG is getting some sort of cut out of these 'made in china' shirts.

[Challenged2010]

4WD Action website is "off-line due to technical problems"? hmmmm...

[pauld]

Fighting based on the principle 'our right to access public land' alone will win nothing. There will always be a response to that which is - you can still access the land but not by vehicle.
The fight needs to focus on why it is to the benefit of ALL to keep the tracks open & what can be done about the problems that are the reasons / excuses being used to close the tracks.
e.g.
The best way to do develop an appreciation for the environment is through real life experiences, our next generation will move further away from conservation if they are not given the opportunity to visit & stay in the bush. I see this with my step children - when they were 3 & 7 they had no idea about anything outside a suburb and knew nothing of animals other than those in cages at the per shop. In addition they were literally scared of the 'bush'. Now at 7 & 11 after travelling through NSW South Coast forests, Vic High Country, Coffin Bay/Port Lincoln area & a holiday on a private charter boat in the Whitsundays NP they are far more aware of the greater Australian environment and far more likely to participate in sensible, practical environment protection as they grow up.

e.g.
Hoon hotline is used on the roads now, why not implement the same for State & National Parks - people who leave rubbish, deliberate track & environment damage etc

e.g. some states but not all have National Parks passes, remove this from the current state by state arrangement & apply evenly across all of Australia to provide funding to keep the parks maintained to a standard that means they can stay open.

There are many more examples.

[psproule]

Forgive me, but isn't John Rooth & co one of the reasons they are locking places up? Particularly some of their antics in the High Country bashing their way through scrub well off the marked tracks for the sake of some good video, driving up seasonally closed tracks and taking his dog (may he now rest in peace) everywhere he shouldn't. Their exposure an publicity of the Coffs region has resulted in it being locked up recently.

[Stevie-Ray]

Forgive me, but isn't John Rooth & co one of the reasons they are locking places up? Particularly some of their antics in the High Country bashing their way through scrub well off the marked tracks for the sake of some good video, driving up seasonally closed tracks and taking his dog (may he now rest in peace) everywhere he shouldn't. Their exposure an publicity of the Coffs region has resulted in it being locked up recently.

As well as that, the hoons watch those videos & flock to them, & if it's a challenging section, they'll go up & down it until it's impossible to negotiate!
Sometimes the best-kept secrets are best kept secret!

Steve

[GHendo]

I don't know why poor old Roothy gets such a bagging from some of you lot. If you don't like him you wouldn't buy the magazine, so where do you get your information?

Personally, all I know about him is what I see in the 4WD Action videos and he doesn't seem to be doing any more damage to the tracks there, than anyone else would do in the same circumstances. They (his team) don't go off the tracks and make new ones (well, according to the videos they don't) - they argue against this, however at times I do think they would be better going around some of the things they tackle. It's all done for sake of the video. Maybe some of you have personal, first hand information about "damage" he's caused somewhere, but a lot of "hear-say" is rumoured around by the unfriendlies.

As far as the magazine goes, it is pretty obvious it isn't giving any of it's normal profit on the T-shirts away. Although I read the magazine I haven't had much to do with the website but recently had a bit of a look. I notice that their T-shirts are $20.00 - they are chargin $25 for the campaign ones and say they are donating $5.00 - they clearly don't want to be out of pocket.

The "conservationists" seem to want to lock every bloody thing up and if they get their way you will not be able to go camping anywhere in the parks. There wont be much point is having a 4WD to "go bush" in for the weekend as you wont be able to go off the bitumen and you may as well bring the Kingswood. The conversation movement has become a bit of an insidious diease in recent times and is infiltrating all tiers of government. Regulations are around the corner that mean farmers will need to get permission to plant crops, construct fences, dig a drain etc. - they already exist in places. The stupid part is that the people making the decisions are pencil pushers sitting on their butts at a desk in the city somewhere who have absolutely no idea of what they are doing. Just like the Minister in Tas. who made the decision to close the park - he hadn't been to have a look at it!! And we pay these people to be in parliament!!

It's no use sitting on your bums and criticising what others are doing to try and save a way of life. If something is not done to resist the push of these hard-nosed drips, you will all be wondering why it is there is nowhere decent to go with your 4WD for the holidays.

Geoff

[psproule]

I don't know why poor old Roothy gets such a bagging from some of you lot. If you don't like him you wouldn't buy the magazine, so where do you get your information?
Geoff

My father gives it to me, along with the DVD's. I wouldn't spend my hard-earned on it I'm sorry. I could show you several examples from their DVD's where they head well off the tracks. Once in the high country they made quite a mess driving down a gully without a track, and it was well noted by NPWS.

[Ranger J]

It's no use sitting on your bums and criticising what others are doing to try and save a way of life. If something is not done to resist the push of these hard-nosed drips, you will all be wondering why it is there is nowhere decent to go with your 4WD for the holidays.

Geoff

The reason we are being cynical is that THESE GUYS ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM - as Pat pointed out. To add to that, lets not forget they are journo's, and journo's love a good bit of marketing and are not afraid to twist the truth in the name of a good 'story'.

This is the equivalent of Street Commodores, or Hot4s magazines mounting a campaign against hoon laws, with the argument "you will never get to drive your cars on public roads again". It is rediculous. Why don't they launch a campaign against mining and agriculture while there at it if they want to get serious about 'our right to access public land'.

[mmannion]

I don't know why poor old Roothy gets such a bagging from some of you lot. If you don't like him you wouldn't buy the magazine, so where do you get your information?

Personally, all I know about him is what I see in the 4WD Action videos and he doesn't seem to be doing any more damage to the tracks there, than anyone else would do in the same circumstances. They (his team) don't go off the tracks and make new ones (well, according to the videos they don't) - they argue against this, however at times I do think they would be better going around some of the things they tackle. It's all done for sake of the video. Maybe some of you have personal, first hand information about "damage" he's caused somewhere, but a lot of "hear-say" is rumoured around by the unfriendlies.

As far as the magazine goes, it is pretty obvious it isn't giving any of it's normal profit on the T-shirts away. Although I read the magazine I haven't had much to do with the website but recently had a bit of a look. I notice that their T-shirts are $20.00 - they are chargin $25 for the campaign ones and say they are donating $5.00 - they clearly don't want to be out of pocket.

The "conservationists" seem to want to lock every bloody thing up and if they get their way you will not be able to go camping anywhere in the parks. There wont be much point is having a 4WD to "go bush" in for the weekend as you wont be able to go off the bitumen and you may as well bring the Kingswood. The conversation movement has become a bit of an insidious diease in recent times and is infiltrating all tiers of government. Regulations are around the corner that mean farmers will need to get permission to plant crops, construct fences, dig a drain etc. - they already exist in places. The stupid part is that the people making the decisions are pencil pushers sitting on their butts at a desk in the city somewhere who have absolutely no idea of what they are doing. Just like the Minister in Tas. who made the decision to close the park - he hadn't been to have a look at it!! And we pay these people to be in parliament!!

It's no use sitting on your bums and criticising what others are doing to try and save a way of life. If something is not done to resist the push of these hard-nosed drips, you will all be wondering why it is there is nowhere decent to go with your 4WD for the holidays.

Geoff

I totally agree Geoff. As I stated earlier I would like to see more than $5 from each shirt go to the cause but $5 is better than nothing. I don't doubt for a minute that they would be making a profit on the shirts but I assume they would need to pay people who are running/organizing the campaign, website advertising etc.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I see no reason why everyone that has a 4wd, enjoys the great outdoors, camping, trail bikes etc would not get behind this? If we don't then that's a sure fire way for it to fail and what good would that be to us?

[Ranger J]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I see no reason why everyone that has a 4wd, enjoys the great outdoors, camping, trail bikes etc would not get behind this? If we don't then that's a sure fire way for it to fail and what good would that be to us?

Because anyone who has been round the traps and has half a brain, knows that this is BS - just like their bullbar ban campaign. They claimed victory even though it had no hope of getting through parliament, regardless of whether John Rooth and 10,000 of his cronies had signatures on a piece of paper.

[mmannion]

The reason we are being cynical is that THESE GUYS ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM - as Pat pointed out. To add to that, lets not forget they are journo's, and journo's love a good bit of marketing and are not afraid to twist the truth in the name of a good 'story'.

This is the equivalent of Street Commodores, or Hot4s magazines mounting a campaign against hoon laws, with the argument "you will never get to drive your cars on public roads again". It is rediculous. Why don't they launch a campaign against mining and agriculture while there at it if they want to get serious about 'our right to access public land'.

The big difference being that we as offroader's are not endangering innocent lives on the local streets by racing, speeding, doing burnouts etc. Not to say that all people with a hotted up car do those things but you will always have a few that cant help themselves.

So "ridiculous"? I for one don't think so, is anyone on this forum going to stand up to the plate and go into bat for our rights? I think not! So why not get behind the ones who are willing to at least try?

[GHendo]

This is the equivalent of Street Commodores, or Hot4s magazines mounting a campaign against hoon laws, with the argument "you will never get to drive your cars on public roads again".

I'm sorry RangerJ but I don't quite get the point of what you are saying.

Sure, Roothy and his mates have an axe to grind, I can certainly see that, but does that mean they should NOT do something about it. Their livelihood (as journo's) IS being threatened, but that does not mean the threat is any less real. The end result of all these closures is that it is going to affect YOU and other people on the forum who like to go camping and 4WDing. What you fellows are doing is "shooting the messenger" !!

Are you saying the closures are not happening?

Your likening Roothy's action to "hooning" is not a valid comparison. Street hooning is something that is ALREADY illegal and most people would consider objectionable. A more valid comparison would be to a move to outlaw driving down streets that were lined by trees because the gases from the exhaust might harm them - and that is about as stupid as these closure arguments.

They say there are three types of people in this world - those who MAKE things happen; those who WATCH things happen; and those you WONDER what happened !! I'm concerned that if nothing is done to help get a movement going to combat the extreme "conservationists" (or whatever you want to call them), we will all be in the last group.

Geoff

[Paj man]

While we're not risking lives, some people are destroying bush and spreading diseases which is killing off Australia's natural bush land. I'm the furthest thing from a greenie but if this is happening, what do you think the expected outcome will be?

I don't really have an opinion on what Roothy does, never really thought much of him myself (seems to care more about what's happening on the east coast), but if blokes in cars are tearing up new tracks all over the place - what action will it take to stop this?