Mr COPE - This first came to my notice when I saw the article in the paper on 21 January called 'Call for feedback on reconciliation'. I sent off a fax to Sue Smith and quoted some letters to the Editor of the Mercury, which you may have copies. Have you got copies of those?

CHAIRPERSON - We have.

Mr COPE - The summary of my views is that I'm a resident of Tasmania; I went to Canada towards the end of the war for air gunnery training and I saw the deprived state of north Indians there. Then I did flying training in the air force in southern Rhodesia and went on leave in South Africa and saw the effect of apartheid there also. I can assure you it's not a very nice sight.

I just see that the way things are going here, that we are setting up another apartheid system. We're discriminating in favour of a certain minority group, which in this particular island probably they haven't followed their normal life for five generations, six generations. I personally can't think back further than two generations in my lifetime.

So what I'm really saying is that land really doesn't belong to anyone, it belongs to the people. Although each of us may own a bit of land right now, we really don't own anything; it belongs to the people. So once you start giving it away to certain groups then you're going to create problems. We've seen the hatred that comes out in letters and I don't like the way the Mercury keeps talking about blacks and whites and the way that the Aboriginal Centre also talks about whites. To you and I, as we look at them, they look just the same as you or I because it is six generations probably since their tribal life finished.

I came out to Australia in early 1953 so I've spent about 47 years as an Australian. As I've said, I've seen apartheid in South Africa, I've seen it here and I see how the system of help based on race but not on need works very imperfectly. An example of this is Tasmania where the term 'blacks and whites' is used without meaning - if it every had any.

So if we go back to that letter that Tony Le Fevre put in the Mercury in 1996 headed 'Discrimination', that really sums it up, I think. I remember the horror I had when I first came in 1953 in Sydney seeing adverts saying, 'Only Catholics need apply for jobs', 'Only masons need apply for jobs'. This is something I had never ever seen in Britain. I think Mark Foyes was the Catholic one and I can't remember offhand who the name of the masons was.

Fortunately those things are gone but now we're bringing it back again in this discrimination on race. If it was based on race such as you have on the mainland where people are still living in their tribal areas I could understand that. But here in Tasmania we are setting up another culture and it's going to be to the detriment of this State I feel.

I've made a lot of notes but I don't want to bore you with them. I could go with the ones that the Government put out. I went on the Internet and got the legislative package which includes 'The transfer of eight areas of crown land'. I've made the note there that land doesn't belong to any one group, it belongs to all of us.

Mr FLETCHER - Mr Cope you're putting forward the principle of custodianship there rather than ownership, aren't you? You're saying that 'despite my having a fee simple title to my residential block of land I really am only the custodian of that land for a period of time'?

Mr COPE - We're only here for a short period.

Mr FLETCHER - All right, well then why isn't it fair for the Aboriginal community to be custodians of some land for a period of time?

Mr COPE - If you take an Aborigine, as we call them today - I think it's beautifully summed up in a letter we had in the Mercury on twenty-sixth of last month, on Wednesday. We had a statement there saying, 'Cultural Rights', and we have this man in charge of ATSIC here and underneath was 'Gillespie opens Aussie innings for Aborigines'. If I can just quote that to you: 'I accept I have Aboriginal blood in me, though I don't go around preaching the word. I'm proud of my heritage but it wasn't a big part of my life when I was growing up. I only found in high school that I had some Aboriginal blood in me and that's only a little bit. I have lots of things in me, including Greek and Irish blood'. I also had colleagues when I was teaching who had Aboriginal blood in them, but they never shouted about it. They were proud that they had it, the same that people are now proud that they have convict ancestry.

I can quote another case, too. We had a friend of ours come over from England in 1996 and she wanted to see the Risdon Historical Site, as it was then called. She wanted to see where Bowen first landed to set up the State of Van Diemen's Land. We could not gain access to that site, it was locked up, padlocked, and a big sign saying it was Aboriginal land. I wrote a letter to the then Minister of Aboriginal Affairs - which I have here - and Mr Rundle thanked me for my letter and referred it to his colleague, the Hon. Denise Swan, and her reply to me was merely, 'Thank you for your letter to the Hon. Denise Swan. Your letter has been drawn to the minister's attention. For your information all access provisions for land covered by the Aboriginal Lands Act 1995 are detailed in the act', and tells me where I can buy one. It did not answer my question about not getting access to the Risdon historical cove. Now there is. In last month's Mercury there was an article in the paper, as you may see, about the Risdon Historical Site in which somebody was aiming to set up a monument outside because of the desecration of the one inside. I don't know if you've seen the desecration of the one inside where it was sprayed with paint. So here we have a site which is on the walking plans for people who want to walk around the city here, which talks completely about the historical importance of the Risdon Historical Site, and the Government then give it away to a group who do not have the same interest in it that we have.

Mr FLETCHER - I find that a very subjective judgment. The part of transferring the land access was provided to the barbecue area and a significant part of the site vis-a-vis the landing. That access was to be provided during daylight hours, that is part of the statutory obligations of the transfer.

Mr COPE - As long as there was no function going on for the Aboriginal community.

Mr FLETCHER - The act doesn't say that - to the barbecue area, not to the site generally. Certainly there was an outburst of radical, almost aggression, with regard this site and the monument in the very early days after the transfer of the land. I have tried to take some advice in more recent times and am informed that people do use the barbecue area freely during daylight hours, as the law permits them to do. People do have access to the site. There may be personalities coming into that clash, there may be people who have been aggressive towards the Aboriginal community in the past who have not built up good relationships and good trust one way or the other and there is still some resentment there. That might be reflected in access now, but at law they cannot deny access to the barbecue area. If you feel aggrieved by that and you lay a complaint, you have the law on your side in regard that.

Mr COPE - But that wouldn't have needed to have arisen if it had been kept as it was.

Mr FLETCHER - No. So you don't accept the proposition that the people are descendants of the original ancient people -

Mr COPE - I do accept that.

Mr FLETCHER - You do accept that. Do you accept the proposition that we dispossessed the original settlers, the ancient people of their land?

Mr COPE - Yes, I do.

Mr FLETCHER - Well, isn't it reasonable that after the passage of a considerable period of time we give some of that land back?

Mr COPE - It would be if these were the original people, but they're not. They're not, in any shape or form. Six generations makes a hell of an impact on the blood line of a people, doesn't it? I just read out to you this statement from Gillespie who said that the blood line in his is very small. It doesn't matter how small it is, you believe those people should have rights in all those different blood lines then, do you? I come from England and I probably have Viking and Saxon and Norman and all sorts of things in me.

Mr FLETCHER - We Australians come from all different ethnic backgrounds. Suppose the Japanese had won the war and dispossessed us of all our land. Do you think 200 years on our descendants would be trying to get some of that land back again?

Mr COPE - Yes, if we were the original race.

Mr FLETCHER - We are mixture of a whole lot of races, our blood line is not pure, is it. I am putting the proposition to you -

Mr COPE - I hear what you are saying, I just think what we are doing here is going to extremes. We are actually discriminating on the basis of some distant racial descent, and people are getting advantages from that when it should be based on need and not on race.

Mr FLETCHER - So you deny the group of people who are descendants of Aborigines and want to claim their aboriginality, for whatever reason? You are denying them their aboriginality being used.

Mr COPE - I do not quite understand what you mean by 'claim their aboriginality'.

Mr FLETCHER - They live in an Aboriginal community, they want to nurture and develop the remnants of their culture. They want to restore a language.

Mr COPE - But their culture is gone, hasn't it, the same as our culture of 160 years ago?

Mr FLETCHER - Is that not a subjective judgment you are making? How can you make that judgment when you are not of the community?

Mr COPE - But it is a fact. I am of a community that is aboriginal where I come from, and we certainly do not go around doing things that were done 100, 200 or 300 years ago.

Mr FLETCHER - Okay.

Mr COPE - I once lived in a town has great Roman remains. They passed an act of parliament in Britain to stop a builder putting up an estate because they uncovered a mosaic pavement. They gave the universities of Nottingham and Birmingham a year to do the research and dig the area up. But we certainly don't go back to making Celtic jewellery or anything like that, although it is beautiful and we have the right to go and see it. If you go to Britain you can visit all these sites and they are protected, but we don't seem to protect our history in Australia.

Mr FLETCHER - My concern with what you seem to be saying is that all people should be like me.

Mr COPE - No, I'm saying all people -

Mr FLETCHER - There is no room for other people to think differently or to react differently or to associate with other backgrounds.

Mr COPE - No, I'm really coming back to the statement that things should be based on need and not on race. This really comes back to my point, and you're saying it should be based on race.

Mr FLETCHER - No, I'm not saying that at all. I am saying that there was ancient people, that we dispossessed those people of their land, that there are descendants of those ancient people here who want to identify with that culture. We have land in abundance and it seems to me - this is the Crown on behalf of the people of Tasmania has land in abundance that we cannot possibly hope to manage properly because the State hasn't got the funds to do it, we have people wanting to identify with their aboriginality and, as you recognise the concept of custodianship, I think it is entirely reasonable to give these people custodianship of a parcel of land to help them carry on the memories and the traditions and the remnants of the culture that was here before European settlers arrived.

Mr COPE - But the members they have would be very, very faint, wouldn't they? This is, what, five or six generations, isn't it, and the blood has got so thin since then and yet you say they should pick one particular part because it belongs to this race that was originally here. I live at the moment on a convict station and from 1840 to 1847 the convicts brought the road from Lower Sandy Bay through to Kingston, which was then Browns River, but I'm afraid the history of that is rapidly disappearing and we're not protecting the heritage there.

Mr FLETCHER - Well, we need to do something about that as well.

Mr COPE - And that's even a short period of 150 years.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes.

Mr BAILEY - But you would support that being preserved?

Mr COPE - I think all heritage is important - yes, very important.

Mr BAILEY - Well, if we look at the Aboriginals, their heritage and what they think or what they believe and understand to be of significance - it might be middens, it might be rock carvings, it might be other -
 
 

Mr COPE - But the descendancy is very small, isn't it? It is probably greater in the Caucasian side, isn't it?

Mr BAILEY - But surely they have an ownership, a greater ownership in those and a greater interest and they are of a greater significance to that race to ensure that they are preserved than they would be to those who have come here, as Johnny-come-latelies, 200 years ago. Do you agree with that?

Mr COPE - Yes, I do. But I don't think they should get things done for them that wouldn't be done to anybody else. We had Justice Slicer here yesterday, I read in the paper this morning, claiming that you should also look at giving them the infrastructure and the support to run these areas as tourist areas. It is a fantastic idea but why does it have to be done through - it only happens because this one group want to do it.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes.

Mr COPE - That is what annoys me.

Mr FLETCHER - Well, I agree, the same opportunities -

Mr COPE - I mean, the money is suddenly going to come there which it wouldn't have come before because it's going to come from the taxpayer again.

Mr WILKINSON - When you say 'all heritage is important' - and that is my area, Sandy Bay leading down to Kingston -

Mr COPE - Oh, good.

Mr WILKINSON - so I am of the same opinion, I think it is important as well and it should be upheld. But do you think it is important also therefore to uphold the Aboriginal heritage in a way so people in years to come can look back and say, 'Yes, these were the initial inhabitants of Tasmania and Australia' and if the answer to that is yes, well how do we do it?

Mr COPE - I think on the mainland of Australia it is quite a different story in most cases but in Tasmania it is totally different. In Tasmania we have got the people with a bit of Aboriginal blood here then climbing on the bandwagon and getting all the money from the taxpayers under this aboriginality thing. You have only got to look up the paper and I could just read out to you, they have their own special legal system, their own child centre, their own community school, their own health services. They have a Risdon Cove residence, they have a community benefit fund, they have land councils, councils of reconciliation and ATSIC. Now why should one group have special free legal aid, special health services? Why isn't it based on need and not on race?

Mr WILKINSON - I hear what you say, that everybody should be equal and everybody should be treated equally but, in relation to your comment 'all heritage is important', if I could ask you what you think about that. How do you believe that we should safeguard the heritage of the Aboriginal people, if at all?

Mr COPE - Well, first of all, there should be a group of people formed and if we take the First Settlers Association, here we have a group of people trying to perpetuate the first settlement of this island.

Mr FLETCHER - The first European settlement.

Mr COPE - They're not climbing on any bandwagons, are they, or claiming any special privileges from anybody but they are now a motive force that can talk to Government and perhaps get something done about the heritage of the First Fleet.

Mr WILKINSON - But that is what I'm saying: the first settlers here, the Aboriginal people, would argue the Europeans weren't the first settlers here. The first settlers here were the Aboriginal people, like for instance the Maoris have done in New Zealand, like for instance the North American Indians have done in Canada. So if heritage is importance certainly one would argue and could argue quite strongly that if heritage is important for the first settlers, the European race, so too is it as important for the Aboriginal race, therefore how do we give them the ability to preserve that heritage?

Mr COPE - I am really saying that we don't have an Aboriginal race - that's really what I'm saying. Yes, sure we have them on the mainland but it's this business of what you define as an Aborigine and I think it even goes so vaguely as to say if they are accepted by the Aboriginal community.

Mr WILKINSON - We've been struggling with that for the last couple of years as well, I can add.

Mr COPE - The whole thing comes back to whatever government was into power at the time that made that definition; they didn't base it on need, they based it on race.

Mr WILKINSON - So you're saying that there can't really be any argument now that there should be any Aborigines arguing that they should try and preserve their heritage within Tasmania, you're saying 'That's gone, that's passed. Aborigines should be forgotten as far as their heritage is concerned within Tasmania', do you take it that far?

Mr COPE - No I don't.

Mr WILKINSON - ... Tasmanian because you're saying there's no Tasmanian Aborigines now.

Mr COPE - Not true Aborigines, no, but if you go back to - there's a picture here taken in your room - of community representative Max Lesage and Charles Wolf. I wasn't here, I wasn't privy to what they said but one man is listed as being leader of the Tasmanian Aborigines, hang on - Tasmanians of Aboriginal Descent Association. I see nothing wrong with that, that's a fact and they have rights and they can be looking at the heritage that belongs to their bloodline that they are looking at.

Mr WILKINSON - Like at Risdon Cove with the initial plaque, that you wanted to go and see and couldn't get to, like in other parts in Tasmania where there are monuments to applaud the works of Bass and Flinders et cetera and all those people, should there be monuments and plagues and places kept within Tasmania which refer back to Aboriginal settlement such as certain middens in areas of the State, caves with paintings et cetera?

Mr COPE - Yes, I think so, but of course we are relying now on the colonial history for that evidence, aren't we? There's no actual evidence, any history from natural Aborigines of this island. We have only got the rock carvings and some of the basketry and necklaces, one of which I saw in a museum in Exeter in England - which I believe is now back here.

Mr WILKINSON - So should they be preserved?

Mr COPE  - Their monuments? But they haven't got any monuments, have they?

Mr WILKINSON - No, should the ancient rock carvings and the ancient -

Mr COPE - Oh yes, that's heritage, that's extremely valuable.

Mr BAILEY - Could I just follow on there. Having said that they are of significance - and I think we all agree they are of significance - the question is, who is best to preserve those: a government department, where people come and go from year to year or from decade to decade and there is no continuity of the belief in their worth and the ability of government to make sure that they are preserved than a group of people who are the descendants of those - and they may only have a little bit of descendancy in them - but who have a passion for the preservation of those artefacts? Who is best to look after them?

Mr COPE - They'd obviously have a bit more interest in what's going on.

Mr BAILEY - I agree with you there, then doesn't it follow that the way they look after them is to control the land on which they are so that they can make sure that they are preserved. I am thinking of your response to what I'm putting to you.

Mr COPE - We're not going that with the heritage of the colonial times in this island, are we?

Mr BAILEY - Well, give me an example.

Mr COPE - I live on a convict station which is just falling apart because nobody cares a damn about it.

Mr BAILEY - I think that is up to those who hear and who are descendants to do something about it and I think as money is available they will do it. What has happened in 1995 is that land has been granted to the Aboriginal people to pursue their cultural rights and for preservation of relics that have been found and they would be the best to look after it.

Having established a principle in 1995 that land should be granted to the Aboriginal community, are you advocating that all of that land should be given back to the State again and taken away from the Aborigines? Is that what your position is?

Mr COPE - I just think that we have gone along the wrong track. I am not saying we should take it back, that's really a matter for the people of this island, isn't it, to decide through their parliament.

CHAIRPERSON - If I could just interrupt for a moment, Mr Cope, the ABC would like to come and take some visual footage, no sound, do you have any particular worry -

Mr COPE - None at all.

CHAIRPERSON - Thank you.

Mr COPE  - I have been living on this site I am on for twenty years and I have got it registered with the Heritage Council. I conduct the walks around what is left of the convict station; I have all the sites along the road that the convicts built that are still there registered. I haven't found any Aboriginal remains and if I had I would bring those to the attention as well because I think they are just as important. I don't hold particular importance on middens because they are rubbish dumps, aren't they? I haven't managed to find a rubbish dump at the convict station yet but undoubtedly there is one there somewhere. But, as far as I'm aware, a midden's just a rubbish dump, isn't it? Just shells and stuff.

Mr WILKINSON - No, they'd say that's wrong, that it's an important meeting place where the Aboriginals congregated after whatever it might be and spoke about -

Mr COPE - It's a very difficult position. When you think about when the First Fleet came here, they virtually descended on 4 000-5 000 people on this island who were living in the Stone Age. That's a horrendous impact, it really is. I know some terrible things were done, but just think about it. They were Stone Age people; they didn't evolve upwards like we did in Europe and they had these people coming in with a totally different way of life and something had to go and I guess it went, didn't it?

Mr BAILEY - Going back to the middens as rubbish dumps, whatever they are it's evidence of occupation of land, isn't it, and that's what we're talking about.

Mr COPE - You're back to this 'occupation of land'.

Mr BAILEY - I'm just saying that that is evidence.

Mr COPE - I'm not denying people were here. They were here, weren't they?

Mr BAILEY - Yes, they were here, but it's evidence of what area they occupied and fished and ate food. They may have been there only for the summer and then moved somewhere else for the winter. If they were in caves, there are rock carvings. It is evidence again of land they actually occupied, of areas of land they occupied. Do you think that has some significance to those who are descendants of these people?

Mr COPE - For people who want to trace the history of the people, yes, I think it's very important. They can find out where they generally tended to move around. Whether they can actually time-date those to see when they stopped using them or when they started using them, I wouldn't know.

Mr BAILEY - I think the difficulty is though that a global look is required because they were rounded up and taken to Flinders Island so, as I understand it from a genealogical point of view, it's very difficult to trace back the roots of where their forebears came from. It can be done but a lot were rounded up to Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island -

Mr COPE - As an act of mercy, yes.

Mr BAILEY - Well, they wouldn't have said that when they were being slaughtered and killed.

Mr COPE - Well, they weren't slaughtered, they were just put in a situation where they couldn't survive.

Mr BAILEY - No, others were - those who weren't rounded up.

Mr COPE - Yes, they were pretty ruthless if they attacked their stock. It worked both ways and you can understand they felt. Yes, I can understand that they would have been rather upset but they didn't stand a chance, did they, because they were Stone Age people and these people had much superior weapons. It's a pity they couldn't have got together and talked like the North American Indians did. Of course some terrible things went on there too, I know.

I hope I haven't come in and distracted you from your main purpose here which is looking at Aboriginal land -

Laughter.

Mr COPE - I just got excited because I thought, 'Here we are, we're doing it based on race and not on need again'.

Mrs SILVIA SMITH - I just wonder if I could intercede there where you mentioned land. I'm just trying to come to grips with the way you're thinking. Would it be fair of me to surmise that one of your concerns in this whole issue of the transfer of land back the Aboriginals of Tasmania, or the descendants of Aboriginal Tasmanians, is that there's one group of people - and you talked about apartheid - getting land, whereas yourself as part of the other group of people are purchasing land and you see an unfairness in that. And therefore you're saying that your ability to preserve the culture of the piece of land you're on is going to be different to the ability of somebody who is given land who hasn't had an outlay to begin with and then would possibly get some assistance? Is that part of your concern?

Mr COPE - No, it's not. I think these people have just as much opportunity to purchase as I have. I only came here in 1953. I paid my £10 and I landed with about £19 in my pocket.

Mr FLETCHER - I think the difficulty I have is with you denying that there are Aborigines, that the race survived. That seems to be your basic proposition.

Mr COPE - Yes, I am.

Mr FLETCHER - You hold the view that Truganini was the last of the Tasmanian Aborigines.

Mr COPE - Otherwise I could claim I'm a Saxon, a Norman, a Viking - you know.

Mr FLETCHER - From my perspective I don't hold that view. I believe there are descendants of the Aboriginal people, even though the genetic links may be very weak at this stage, they are there and the people choose to identify as Aborigines and want to identify with their ancient backgrounds and conserve and preserve the remnants of the culture, both for their own wellbeing and that of the next generation and I think for the betterment of society generally. I still have a problem and part of the reason for this committee is that we've tended to talk about the dispossession and the proof of a presence and the need to transfer some land. Now, if proof of presence was sufficient to warrant the transfer of land, there could be proof that there was a presence over all the island State of Tasmania therefore all the island State of Tasmania ought to be transferred back to this group that I recognise, the descendants of the ancient people who are now calling themselves Tasmanian Aborigines. So obviously proof of presence is not good enough. There has to be some criteria to establish.

Mr COPE - But they were here, you can't deny they were here.

Mr FLETCHER - No, that's true.

Mr COPE - All you can deny now, all you can say now is that they aren't here any more.

Mr FLETCHER - We disagree on that.

Mr COPE - Well, I could claim I'm a Saxon.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes. If you went and lived in Saxony and immersed yourself in the culture of Saxony after a period of time you would be a Saxon, in my opinion. You've got a genetic link back to the Saxons, if you lived in Saxony and immersed yourself in the culture and called yourself a Saxon for long enough, you would be a Saxon.

Mr COPE - They haven't come, there're now here -

Mr FLETCHER - No, we came.

Mr COPE - and they're descended from the original inhabitants and they're now in our culture, aren't they? So how can they claim a culture that doesn't exist any more.

Mr FLETCHER - We can have an interesting intellectual joust without reaching a conclusion.

Laughter.

Mr COPE - I think heritage is very important. I just think we have a group of people who always seem very bitter. You see the quotes in there about 'We've been disinherited 100 per cent. We're only owning .006 per cent of our land'. They talk about whites, 'The whites have done us in' and all that. I mean, it's fairly racial; gee, it's so racial it's unbelievable and we don't do anything about it. We've got antidiscrimination laws and yet they can say things like that and they're legally empowered to say it. I find that offensive, I really do.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes. It will be my hope and I am sure the hope of the committee that we can move past that. There is a need in society to move on from that type of -

Mr COPE - I think if the referendum showed that the people would approve of what's going on and that money be made available and they ran it well. I mean there's instances up in Uluru near Alice Springs where the Government there has handed over - I forget the name of the gorge - some gorge. They've handed over to the Aborigines and they're running it extremely well. They're smartly dressed, the toilets are better than they've ever been and they've kept the place spic and span, so it can be done, yes.

CHAIRPERSON - Do you think, Mr Cope, perhaps then as a Tasmanian community we should give the local Aboriginal community here an opportunity perhaps to attempt to do the same type of tourism venture on one of our areas?

Mr COPE - Yes, but they won't be Aborigine, will they, like they are in Alice Springs? It'll be like you and I - you see them, you can't tell the difference.

Mr WILKINSON - That all comes down to a matter of definition ,doesn't it, as to who was an Aborigine and who was not?

Mr COPE - If you can associate with them you might be one too, it's only a definition, isn't it?

Mr WILKINSON - No definition would accept that. No definition that the Aborigines are saying would accept that.

Mr COPE - A similar definition from the Federal Government, isn't it? They would have to accept it, yes I agree.

Mr WILKINSON - They wouldn't accept that.

Mr COPE - So I hope I haven't bored you with my - it's just that I got stirred by that message in the -

Laughter.

Mr WILKINSON - You say here also 'Consultation of the people' instead of the correct -

Mr COPE - Yes, we don't get it. I mean Jim Bacon's been going around saying you can consult with everybody but I haven't seen him around our area at all.

Mr WILKINSON - That's part of the reason for this committee. We have got 103 submissions already, a couple drifted in yesterday.

Mr COPE - So you still take them even if they come in late?

Mr WILKINSON - Well, depending, because we just want that consultation of the people and people, if there wasn't that consultation, could come back and say, what you might be saying, 'Look there's no consultation'. This is what we're doing without chatting with the people. That's the reason of this committee, so there's proper consultation.

Mr COPE - I can say the same thing about the local government too, but I won't.

Laughter.

Mr BAILEY - I'd be careful.

Laughter.

Mr BAILEY - You understand that the land is owned by a cooperate body run by the Aboriginal community. It's not individually owned, it can't be sold or alienated in any way. It's held in perpetuity and it can't be mortgaged or assigned for by way of charge. There is a protection on the land that it's always got to remain for the purpose for which it's been granted and that's in relation to those pieces that have already been granted and those which will be.

Mr COPE - Yes, I understand that.

CHAIRPERSON - Thank you, Mr Cope, for your submission and the time you've taken this morning to come and make your position.

Mr COPE - I hope there's something useful there for you anyway.
 
 
 
 

THE WITNESS WITHDREW.