The common law has long regarded a person’s property rights as fundamental. William Blackstone said in 1773: ‘There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property’.1 In the national consultation on ‘Rights and Responsibilities’, conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in 2014, ‘property rights’ was one of the four areas identified as being of key concern