> I'm not necessarily disputing this, but there are so many anecdotes and > opinions being expressed on this topic. Could I ask if we have any > source or citation for this? I mean the Department of Community > Services doesn't even exist any longer, and doesn't sound like it > should have been producing authoritative maps even when it did? I > don't even know what "as authoritative as can be obtained", even means. > Is there legislation, regulation, gazette?
See https://six.nsw.gov.au/content/about which states: Spatial Services, on behalf of the Surveyor General, creates and maintains a spatial representation of the State and acts as a 'single source of truth' for foundation spatial information and survey infrastructure and services in NSW. It supports the legislative and statutory requirements for the NSW Surveying and Spatial Information Act 2002. Spatial Services provide leadership to NSW in the production and maintenance of foundation spatial datasets and services by capturing, sourcing, aggregating and quality-assuring information so that government, industry and the community can make informed decisions and create social and economic value. It also digitises and preserves NSW state records including historic aerial imagery, land titles, plans and state survey records. Spatial Services will be part of Government and Corporate Services within DCS. >And the government paying > a royalty to "surveyors", just sounds odd. Wouldn't a government > normally engage surveyors in the normal way, rather than paying > royalties? Some Government authorities do have their own surveying staff (but even Government projects such as roads and railways etc may be outsourced). A lot of Government data is taken from the work of private surveyors. see https://www.copyright.com.au/2019/07/surveyors-in-the-west-receive-first-payment-in-august/ I understand that these plans are the source of data that are used to show lots etc. on government maps. Suburb, LGA and national park boundaries are then derived from this information. I found a some examples of statutes referring to national park boundaries : One example referred to expansion of Wadbilla National Park with the added area described as "An area of about 6 735 hectares, being the balance of Murrabrine State Forest No 947, dedicated 4 November 1955, and the balance of No 1 Extension thereto, dedicated 14 September 1979, and being the land shown by diagonal hatching on diagram catalogued Misc F 1289 in the Forestry Commission of New South Wales. Subject to any variations or exceptions noted on that diagram" (from Schedule 1 of National Park Estate (Land Transfers) Act 1998) One is ultimately referred to a diagram and to any variations or exceptions noted on the diagram. Another example referred to revocation of part of Kosciuszko National Park {Clause 27, Schedule 2 to the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80) which described the affected parts of the national park by lot numbers : (a) Lots 12–22, DP 1171834, (b) Lots 21–22, DP 1171835, (c) Lots 30–48, DP 1171836, (d) Lots 40–45, DP 1171838, (e) Lots 50–53, DP 1171839, (f) Lots 60–73, DP 1171841, (g) Lots 7–15, DP 1171844, (h) Lots 27–50, DP 1171846. Again one has to go to the government sources of this data to work out the boundary lines. > Clearly, if you change the location, you should update the source. > It's an issue, but OSM does track that changes have been made and by > who and why. Our licence allows us to do this - and I'd argue it's the > specific purpose for the existence of OSM - that is you can change the > data. Nothing is immutable. All you need is a source, or ground-truth. I agree. The problem is that there does not appear to be any other source for administrative boundaries - they are government data. If we had another source, then we could choose to use that other source. _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
