One tale of property, in my own words

The power of the State to alter the conditions of land use through planning laws continues to attract theorisation at the possible intersection between planning and property. As planning laws become more complex, and by needs responsive to environmental degradation - including the consequences of climate change - landowners will arguably suffer loss of market value of their land despite broader community benefit. This article analyses the contention that land planning regulation is itself property - a claim made by Paul Babie in this journal in 2016. It does so in four parts, focusing on the law’s own construction of both real property and planning permissions. It analyses the nature, content and source of the estate in fee simple in Queensland, followed by analysis of Penner’s ‘bundle of rights’ argument to ascertain whether planning laws might be comprehended within this conception of property. It goes on to assess planning permissions in terms of Honore’s incidents of property before establishing the nature, content and source of planning rights. Finally, it clarifies how planning law responds to climate change, suggesting that downstream liabilities rather than front-line environmental protection is at stake. In conclusion, it posits a conceptualisation of property alternative to that of Babie

Big data: A case study of disruption and government power

Although it is part of core government business to collect information about its citizens, ‘big data’ has increased the scale, speed and complexity of data collection and use to such an extent that it is arguably qualitatively different from the record-keeping that has gone before it. Big data represents a radical shift in the balance of power between State and citizen. This article argues that embedding big data in government operations masks its deployment as enhancing government power, rather than simply facilitating execution of government activities. In other words, big data is ‘disruptive’ technology that calls for the examination of the limits of government power. To illustrate this argument, this article examines a selection of recent case studies of attempts by the Australian government to deploy big data as a tool of governance. It identifies the risk to the citizen inherent in the use of big data, to justify review of the bounds of government power in the face of rapid technological change. </jats:p

The COVID cyborg : Protecting data status

This article examines the increasing tendency towards governance of people through their representation via data. In its most contemporary iteration, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the release of contact tracing apps – in Australia, COVIDSafe. While public discourse about the apps has focused principally on the important issue of data privacy, there are other possible effects whereby participation in such schemes might become a prerequisite to accessing services or basic rights – either from government or from corporations. The pathway to acceptability of applying our data in this way is already paved, through fitness monitors and other technologies by which we represent ourselves. This article sets out the foundation of such technologies and their application, before outlining their effect on the recognised boundaries of governance and the conception of the holder of rights and the substance of those rights