Posted by John Nichols on December 08, 2004 at 00:53:58 from 165.91.196.110 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Re: owner gave permission to camp here? posted by Adam Quinan on December 07, 2004 at 23:22:34:
The law of conquest still applies so if the vagrant had been able to best the owner and then hang onto it against the police and the army then he could claim it as his own, wiping out all previous claims. Of course this is pure fiction unless one has a big army or in the case of the Mouse that roared a good old nuke. Although we have something similar where if you squat on land long enough and no-one complains it is yours, I think it is 25 years or maybe longer I can not remember.
Interestingly enough native title in Australia was not extinguished by the invasion so long as the Koori group had maintained a relationship with the land, which may be a variant on squatting after conquest.
Then again you never really own the land in the Odal sense of the old Norse as you owe tax and rates etc and if you do not pay it is forfeit.
In all the years I camped no one ever begrudged me a small area of land for the tent, although we took our rubbish.
John