THE LOOPY RULES REPORT– the name given to the report of the Government’s Rules Reduction Taskforce says it all. To the current breed of National Party MP all rules are “loopy”. In the eyes of your average Nat, government regulation only imposes stifling and quite unnecessary restraints on the animal spirits of society’s wealth creators. All these heroes crave and require is to be left alone. Which is precisely what governments should try to do, according to National, because entrepreneurial freedom is the elixir that makes capitalism so powerful and creative.
Not everyone agrees, of course, and that tells the National Party something. Namely that the advocates of heavy-handed regulation are either crazy or evil. Only very crazy, or very evil, people, National reasons, would deliberately reduce the freedom, creativity, power and wealth of society by entangling its capitalists in endless coils of red tape. Regulators, by limiting the freedom of society’s wealth creators, make themselves the enemies of all right-thinking people. They must be stopped – and their red tape cast aside.
You think I’m guilty of exaggeration? You think this some sort of parody of the neoliberal’s attitude towards regulation? Think again. The Rules Reduction Taskforce was itself taken aback by the many bizarre urban (and rural) myths directed against New Zealand’s supposedly over-regulated society. So much so that they felt obliged to list the worst of them in their media release.
Myth: Lolly scrambles are banned because they’re unsafe for kids.
Reality: Not true. There are no Government health and safety rules against lolly scrambles at things like Santa Parades. There has been some concern that children could be injured running in front of floats, and while this is a valid concern, the most important thing is for event organisers, parents and caregivers to use common sense to keep kids safe.
Myth: It’s illegal to use step-ladders and saw horses.
Reality: There are no Government rules banning their use. There are also no rules requiring harnesses or scaffolding to complete work at small heights. What is absolutely important is that people are careful when they use step-ladders or saw horses.
However, The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 requires that they be used in the way the manufacturer intended them and that employers take steps to eliminate the risk of a person falling and injuring themselves.
Myth: People living in retirement villages can’t serve alcohol to their friends.
Reality: It is fine for residents in retirement villages to have other residents around to their rooms for a drink.
If the retirement village itself wants to run a ‘happy hour’ or provide alcohol to residents (whether selling it or as part of the rest home fee), they will have to obtain an alcohol licence. In most cases, they would be able to get a club license, and would likely pay the lowest possible fee (depending on the number of residents).
Myth: Farmers are liable if a visitor to their property trips over a tree root.
Reality: Not true. Farmers only have a duty to warn visitors about out-of-the-ordinary work-related hazards on the farm, and to ensure that no action or inaction of any employee harms another person.
Myth: Kiwis can no longer complete DIY work on their own properties.
Reality: Home owners can continue to do most DIY work as has always been the case.
All very amusing in a – “Holy Moly! But the animal spirits of these wealth creators sure are a lively lot!” – kind of way. But the laughter stopped abruptly when the Cabinet Minister responsible for commissioning The Loopy Rules Report, Local Government Minister, Paula Bennett, backed the taskforce’s astonishing suggestion that Qualified Master Builders should be allowed to sign-off their own work:
“[W]e put people through a whole lot of unnecessary compliance and don’t concentrate on the areas that really are important”, said Bennett, “and we understand why, a lot of it is risk, a lot of it from the leaky homes. But products have moved on since then, the country has moved on from then, and we have to make sure we are getting sensible rules.”
Labour’s Phil Twyford summed up the feelings of many – including most building industry players – in his media release responding to Bennett’s remarks:
“This is just another example of National’s mindless ideological love of deregulation. Back in the 1990s they cursed thousands of good hardworking Kiwi homeowners with the leaky homes catastrophe. Paula Bennett says the country has moved on from the leaky homes catastrophe but it’s clear she hasn’t learned from previous mistakes. Ms Bennett’s rules reduction taskforce is nothing more than a political stunt. Back in May she was justifying the taskforce by pointing out how ridiculous red tape that banned lolly scrambles and required people to wear a harness when using a step ladder was. Four months later she is back saying the taskforce found out those supposed ‘loopy rules’ were just misconceptions that had become myths. Now that really is ridiculous!”
Indeed it is. But Bennett’s “misconceptions” are just one more manifestation of the ideological cancer that is eating out the heart of the National Party.
The conservatives who founded the National Party held a religious and philosophical view of humanity that openly acknowledged its propensity to behave selfishly and corruptly. Rules and regulations – laws – are the price decent individuals willingly pay to protect themselves from the corruption and selfishness of their anti-social neighbours. Conservatism is also alert to the tendency of capitalism to break down and destroy those traditional restraints that keep societies functioning. Indeed many conservatives would probably agree with the description of capitalism’s corrosive effects contained in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto:
“Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned”.
To a neoliberal like Paula Bennett, none of the above should be regarded as ‘a bad thing’. She is adamant that the “animal spirits” of capitalism be given free rein. If “loopy rules” get in their way, then they must be swept away. Collateral social damage (Leaky Homes Scandal, Cave Creek, Pike River) is simply the cost of doing business. If that sounds like profaning the holy, well, tough. Time, tide, and capitalism, wait for no man. The country is moving on.
‘ Time, tide, and capitalism, wait for no man. The country is moving on. ‘
And the hell with that neo liberal notion as well.
You know….there’s jolly good reasons why people that form into communities quite quickly have meetings to decide what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior’s….
A good example of out -of – control capitalism would be the California Gold rushes – where a cup of coffee or a a hot meal could end up as much as a weeks takings – and a shovel could cost a months takings, – men were murdered on deserted stretches of road – not just by brigands wanting to get rich – but by beggars who were down on their luck and were starving !!!
Is that really the sort of bullshit , unregulated and dysfunctional wild west carry on we want to see here ???
Hells teeth !!! – we’ve already seen the cowboys handiwork with the 2008 credit crash – more of the same neo liberal unregulated free market rip shit and bust …
If we follow through with the neo liberals full blown expression of an unfettered free market we may as well make booze even more available for every occasion – oh wait !!!- their already working on doing that with the rugby !!!
Silly me !!!
Seriously …the total folly of the neo liberal comes to the fore every time they try to deregulate even more and more…
And paradoxically …for those who love to set themselves up as the representatives of law and order….increasingly they show themselves to be ever more so the representatives of lawlessness.
Because that’s what total freedom without responsibility is :
Lawlessness.
Well Chris I grew up in an era when anything was possible when we put our minds to it, so “if you dream it you can make it real with effort.”
So I have planned my life on learning how to do anything with my hands and mind to protect my life and family to get through life (and hopefully make a little money in the process.)
Overseas I did DIY on several properties and family homes as Maurice Williams’ did on his Chinese neighbour’s home he sold to him, and now we are told we need a master Builders certificate now???????
Sorry mate but me, being a son of a Master Builder and brother of a master builder, learned enough in my time to know how to build from “scratch with basic wood and plan the project better than today’s kitset builders would.
I used to sit and watch my father as a foreman build all the state houses all around our new suburb in 1957, and have long learned the respect of these very solid framed homes built from very solid “heart wood” materials, not the soft woods they use today, that today wold be to costly to even contemplate building.
And yes Fletcher’s and others are bad mouthing those homes just to “acquire them cheaply” we and may others believe as one of the biggest swindles in our modern day history, by creating a imaginary problem then “capitalise” on it as god old fashioned “carpetbaggers” often use with amazing efficiency using the MSM.
So all these over reaching rules and regulations need to go, when I realise just who is driving these rules just for financial gain.
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/hijacked-environmental-movement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheFreedomArticles+%28The+Freedom+Articles%29
“Good Hearts, Fooled Minds: Top 4 Fallacies of the Hijacked Environmental Movement”
I can see some merit in this post which cuts across your theme Chris, such as “One World Government” (OWG) and the false ordering of our freedoms by Corporations to gain control of us for financial gain such as the energy market through Smart metering technologies and surveillance of our data for corporate financial gains and manipulation but why are they poisoning the planet and killing us all in the process?????
Sub human they must be so let us be free spirits to dream and do what our dreams say we should in a world that is again like 1957 as a fully shared collective wealth distribution system we had then called Egalitarianism please and less rules again.
It was another broken promise this National Government has carried out as remember when they said in 2008, (my words inferred) “We will reduce the Big Government control from everyone’s life”?????
To date National have passed at lightening speed more rule changes, law changes and regulations than any other Government in history so maybe Paula Bennett is right, that we now we are subject to many more controls today that does kill our free spirit.
Getting rid of loopy rules is fine, and there are some as the select committee heard, but don’t go adding any like allowing builders to sign off on their own work. Really loopy!
National = collective amnesia to their 1991 de-regulation of the Building Code, and the rotting homes scandal that followed afterwards.
If this passes into law, I strongly, strongly, strongly advise people not to buy any house built afterwards. You may be buying another rotting pile.
Who were the MP’s responsible for that de-regulation. Because none of them have ever been held responsible for what was so predictable!
The 1991 Act was passed unanimously by both National and Labour (https://home.greens.org.nz/speeches/leaky-homes-caused-deregulation). A look at some of the Labour MP’s of the time is quite informative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_New_Zealand_Parliament), as they include Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, Sonja Davies, David Lange, Peter Dunne, Graham Kelly.
The 1991 Building Act was still passed under a National government, and I fail to see your point of a list of Labour MP’s sitting on the opposition benches during the time of the 4th National government.
Wasn’t Maurice Williamson the minister for building and construction when National passed the Building Act 1991?
Labour passed the Building Act 2004 that repealed the 1991 Building Act, and introduced a number of changes to the law governing building work.
Those black, dead eyes… Jeeeeesus . There’s an evil spirit inhabiting that particular carcass.
A logical fallacy generator in a fearsome frock.
Your guide to logical fallacies.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
The best bullshit navigating device I’ve found. This will hold you in good stead when confronted with a zealous neo liberal. Beware The Straw Man tactic particularly . Once learned though, you can deflate even the most over inflated neo liberal and bennett looks like she’s about to blow! Trust me. It’s fun to watch them wither and fidget.
Good article, Chris. I for one, wonder at the mentality of a government that has tried to add to the staggering amount of red tape that our little country already has, then suddenly has a “taskforce” looking into the “loopier” laws that are out there, probably many of which this same government has implemented! One wonders about this, and the timing of the release of the report. Another red herring, perhaps?
It has been in other blogs that “we Kiwis have a love affair with John Key currently, because we apparently love to be controlled by regulation”.
Take our fuss over TPPA, and if we don’t want less then my point is made that people enjoy control by big brother.
Here is the actual work they’re doing.
Take a look at table 1 and tell me if this doesn’t need cleaning up!
http://www.dia.govt.nz/Rules-Reduction-Taskforce-Report#TopTen
Andrew, I draw your attention to this one;
Now correct me if I’m wrong, laddy, but didn’t your precious guvmint just recently refuse to tighten up workplace Health and Safety rules?! Even going so far as allowing farms to escape being included?
Now you tell me if this doesn’t need clearing up?!?!
Your move.
I think the problem is with the legal interpretation of ‘practicable’.
For example if we deem say forestry to be inherently dangerous is it ‘practicable’ to simply shut down the entire industry to eliminate the risk? Or is a policy of risk minimisation sufficient?
It’s a legal argument and likely beyond your limited comprehension so I won’t go any further. However I do consult in this field, so if you’re prepared to pay my charge-out rate I could provide you with advice.
You know – I had this sudden image of Lucy in the old ‘Peanuts’ comic strip. It flashed up as soon as I read ‘consulting in this field’.
No. Policy by itself is totally insufficient to achieve sustained reduction in workplace harm in forestry or any other industry.
It requires a healthy industry culture, vigilance, good habits and several other criticals for success.
That was free, BTW.
You’re right Andrea. But you start with clear regulation and work down from there.
“Or is a policy of risk minimisation sufficient?”
You may decorate your loo paper with policies.
You may consult in fields, Elysian or otherwise, yet, for all your consulting, no policy unbacked by dollars, intent, training, culture change and relentless insistence plus active compliance is EVER going to turn around the hideous death toll that has come to be since 1987.
And, out in the real world your policy and risk management reports and recommendations will be carefully entombed in a folder of some sort and left to gather dust on a bookcase. Maybe.
Window dressing, merely, because it doesn’t meet deadlines or turn a profit.
And thus it has ever been…
In the end it’s all about getting results.
And in the case of workplace fatalities we are making progress:
http://www.business.govt.nz/worksafe/research/health-and-safety-data/workplace-fatalities-by-year
“We”?
Who is “we”, Andrew?
Well, well, well, so you’re a government employee?
Which department? The Prime Minister’s Department by any chance?
Snapped!
Actually workplace fatalities have dropped consistently over the last few years.
Not that we should ever be complacent – NZ still has too high an accident rate.
Your 10.35am post is nonsensical, Andrew.
“Charge out rate”? Considering you’re posting here in the morning, during working-hours, I think we’re a bit past that.
In essence, you have no answer.
Doesn’t that depend where I live?
@ Andrew . O .
You consult in this field ? Thank God I don’t work in forestry then is all I can say.
Speaking of forestry, like all other dangerous professions, an alert and clear head powered by common sense would be better than a fluro vest and a minimum wage. Bad things happen when people get tired and when you pay shit wages you get monkeys . Tired monkeys are not safe monkeys. And didn’t our forestry used to be , you know, ours ?
Pay forestry workers twice as much and work them half the hours . You would increase over all production and significantly reduce work place accidents .
No charge for that @ Frank ; – )
@ Andrew-Oh ! You’ll still be trying to get it so take your time . Go and consult in your field .
FYI ? Check out this hilarious work of fiction while you’re at it.
New Zealand Department of Statistics . La La Land Edition .
The only thing missing from this crappy piece of gibberish is accurate statistics .
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/Maps_and_geography/Geographic-areas/urban-rural-profile/historical-context.aspx
Forestry Smorestry .
Did I say I consulted in the forestry sector? Read it again please.
I’m not quite sure how higher pay will clear heads but from what little I’ve seen in that sector, not smoking dope would be a great start to clear heads.
Really, Andrew?
In which case you’ll be happy to provide us with the stats on how many people in the forestry sector who had accidents, had been smoking dope?
Come on , Andrew, let’s see the data. If you’re a “consultant”, it’ll be at hand. No need to tax your brain by googling it.
Otherwise, you’re simply an apologist for this rotten government and not doing a particularly good job at it, either.
Andrewo
I know you and your ilk.
You are the ones who replaced Safety with “Risk Management” on the railway and caused the deaths of several of my friends before we could get your evil philosophy rooted out.
So you’re loose in the forestry sector. That figures.
Well, Andrew Oh! it does indeed depend on what is practicable, but you would no more ask a party with a vested interest in doing as little as possible what is practicable than you would ask a builder to assess his own work. Unless there are “practicable” consequences for self-serving decisions, we are better off with some sort of triangulation on safe practices (and, ideally some system that encourages buy-in from all parties affected by those assessments. Perhaps you would like to explain this to your party.
All this should be obvious to any “consultant.” I wonder who you offer to advise. Not the workers at risk, that’s for certain.
Bennett is coming across quite mad nowadays in fact “loopy” and there’s yet another concern from a senior Key government minister. I suppose theirs a lot of damage to live with over her ministerial career and it gets to you some days.
Of course this bullshit is nothing more than a bells and whistles distraction from a government who desperately want to hide their serious agenda of state housing sales, borrowing money to cover for tax shortfalls, random privatisation of all social services, TPPA and on the list goes.
Last week on radio when asked of her leadership aspirations she replied, “I’m good, over and over”.
Of course the stupid answer sadly trying to look intelligent doesn’t fit the question but I guess its Paula’s way of being tricky like her boss when dishonestly answering a question. It’s just she is nowhere near as polished as he is. Perhaps slurring may assist?
Bennett talks down to people she will never be accepted
1000% XRAY,
All these sideline issues are clearly diversions to take us off what the Keyster is up to now.
I bet he’s over in US right now greasing the TPPA wheels about to be to the agenda 30th till 3rd Oct’, all while we are here chasing Andrewo and all of Keysters shadows he has left us as bait see?
I think Keyster thinks he is the character in Batman with the riddles, “the joker” is it not?
Yes “keyster the joker” has a ring to it eh?
Apparently it is also illegal to put lipstick on a bulldog, but that could be an urban myth, totally negated by Crosby Textor’s polling.
Lipstick on a bulldog – sorted.
The big irony here is that National, ostensibly the red tape and rules busters, actually create more red tape and rules than anybody else. You ask people who want to build a couple more units onto their motel complexes, people who want to create homestay units to raise some income, people who want to create their own homecooked foods and sell them – you ask them if there are more or less rules after seven years of National. There are more – many more, but of course the sleepy hobbits just take the default position and blame Labour and the nanny state while National sniggers and marvels at their gullibility.
“Or is a policy of risk minimisation sufficient?”
Policies without action are worth less than loo paper.
You may consult in fields, pastures or paddocks but, if your recommendations aren’t backed by relentless accountability, and don’t help to improve the bottom line without killing people, then they’ll sit in a folder, hopefully in an overstuffed four-drawer vertical file, never to be heard of again.
Because that’s how it is in the real world. Always was. Always will be.
It can’t possibly be eating out the heart of the National Party as the National Party, like all psychopaths, doesn’t have a heart.
1000% Draco NatZ must avoid human emotions as they gather all their nasty plans to undermine our humanity.
Gordon bleedin Bennett !!!…
Its Paula bleedin Bennett !!!
I had trouble getting Netflix connected and so accidentally caught Hoskins going on about this. I didn’t catch the person he was talking to but when asked, why shouldn’t a homeowner who wants a new deck or an extension be able to do it without it being assessed as being to standard, the guy said that was fine so long as he didn’t sell the house. Good point. You might not mind a bodge job on the cheap, but you better tell the buyer that it was.
I liked the idea of a guaranteed insurance policy on new builds like they have in the UK. Most people there wouldn’t buy a new home without an NHBC guarantee.
This is obviously just party propaganda to try and soothe the masses and, like a hypnotist, wave a few magic answers and hope everyone drinks it up unquestioningly.
Just like any propaganda, it’s a little loose with the facts. The reality is you can’t do DIY on your house like you used to. For restricted building work, you can apply for an ‘owner-builder’ exemption if you want to do the work yourself, BUT you’re only allowed one every 5 years.
I almost used mine up applying to put insulation in the walls of my house… yes, you need building consent to upgrade the crappy standard of insulation in NZ housing! And unless your super rich and can pay someone else to do it for you, you may end up having to apply for a owner-builder exemption and that’s it, no more real improvements for another 5 years. It’s just another knife in the back for anyone wanting to get ahead off the sweat of their own brow.
I wish they would get rid of Paula. She’s just plain loopy
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