Peter Spencer has shown great courage for 52 days while he pushed and willed himself through a hunger strike to highlight the great injustice done to landholders who have been stripped of an asset without compensation.
He has shown even more courage today by ending that hunger strike on his property at Shannon’s Flat in southern NSW.
This is the outcome his family and his supporters always hoped and prayed for as they did not want any harm to come to Mr Spencer.
We will continue to fight against any legislation, including environmental legislation, that unjustly persecutes individuals and groups of people, like that which restricts development near Cape York’s Wild Rivers .
What happened to Peter Spencer was like the Government taking your third bedroom or your lounge room and giving it to a homeless person. It is a just cause, but as the owner of the asset you would be apoplectic if it was done in the middle of the night without any payment.
Mr Spencer and other landholders have had the vegetation on their land locked up to meet environmental protocols. It devalues their asset, making them unable to sell or to work the land to earn an income.
He has issued a statement which reads: "As much as the nation is concerned about me, my concerns are directed at the families of the hundreds of farmers who have suicided and the politicians who have failed to show any concern, compassion or morality for what the government has done to these families and the nation's Constitution. My committed stance on the tower was to press the point," Mr Spencer said.
His spokesman Alistair McRobert said: "On day 52 of his hunger strike, which was initiated to correspond with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Copenhagen, Peter Spencer (61 years old) comes down from the suspended platform part way up a wind monitoring tower on his Shannon's Flat property "Saarahnlee" near Cooma, NSW," the statement said.
"Mr Spencer's passive protest is not in vain. It has placed issues at the forefront of every Australian and gained unprecedented attention across Australia, and the world concerning thousands of Australian farming family's property rights which have been stolen to meet Australia's entire Kyoto Protocol International Treaty Obligations and in so doing, breaching Australia's Constitution."