The Local Government and Environment Select Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Freedom Camping Bill, a Bill which will enable local authorities to pass bylaws to prohibit freedom camping in designated areas and to issue infringement notices to people who breach the prohibition. Others have criticised Bill for a number of reasons.
But my beef with the Bill is that it is, I think, unnecessary and another instance of ad-hocery creeping into the local government legal framework. First, local authorities already have an existing power that enables them to pass such bylaws. Secondly, there is an existing power in the Local Government Act 2002 that allows specific bylaw offences to be designated infringement offences. The claimed mischief that has been advanced to justify the Bill just isn't there.
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