*It is a fundamental role of government to make sure that their revenue base matches or exceeds the expenditure that is needed to uphold a decent quality of life and equity in the community, and not just in the short term.*

True, but it is also a fundamental role of Govt, to see that
hard working taxpayers (many work far harder then Govt employees do)
have their money spent wisely and efficiently.

Given the monopoly situation in which most Govt Depts operate,
peeing in their pockets with ever more taxpayers money is not
the way to solve it, holding them to account about their
efficiency, certainly has a role to play. If private enterprise
has to be efficient to survive, why should Govt Depts not be
efficient, when it comes to spending taxpayer Dollars?

A bit of stress occasionaly, might do you guys no harm at all :)

Just imagine how I felt about this one Ludwig: "Lead Zeppelin, and could have been Chancellor....", see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2364#52734

'Lead', a spellink mistake, off course, unt zen Spikey goes unt picks me up on it unt tries to schtick me mit invitink Led Zeppelin, ze punk rokker or vottever he/zey are to ze dinner! I meant "Led Zeppelin (as in led Luftschiffsbau Zeppelin, the airship company; Eckener being then CEO thereof) unt now I am accuszt of bringink badd musik upon ze scene! You vill see vot I mean: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2364#52765

Dis ist goink to to be ein badd nacht fur somm! Blondenkopf or deliberatische dennsenkopf?

Schpellink! Bahh! Hummbugg!

Ludwig “God that pisses me off! It was Visy when I wrote it, Visy when I proof-read it.........and Visa when I came back some hours later and read it again!!”

Damn that auto-spellchecker!

I remember a lady I worked with complaining her spell checker failed to pick up her misspelling of ‘Manager’ until I pointed out to her that ‘manger’ was a real word….

Maybe she would have been better off "away in" one…..

Yabbys point about the dangers of government monopolies is a very real and serious concern.

The USSR displayed of the failings of central planning (which demands monopoly direction. The most graphic example being everyone with jobs but nothing spend wages on because there was nothing to buy in the shops.

Margaret Thatcher spent a decade ripping down the edifices of socialism and British nationalized industries because they starved the economy of the funds needed to advance the economy.

‘Laws’ and ‘regulations’ are synonyms for one another.

I have had the pool police come to my house but not anymore, I filled the pool in – do I need a permit for that? – I would need one to fill it with water,

the graffiti patrol telling me I must clean my front wall or they will charge me to do so…

I have not been fined for cutting some trees down on my block but know other folk who would be.

Do I need a spotty moron checking the height of my wood fire flu before passing me as a responsible citizen, permitted to burn the trees I cut down (they were dead or diseased and one was a public hazard, spreading over the pavement)?

Why do I have to pay $150 for annual workcover for myself through my own business why can I not selfinsure?

Could I live without all those regulations and bye-laws?

You betcha

and we would save a bucket on the rates by not employing pointless council officials to annoy me.

Another annoying little OLO quirk: what you see in the preview window just before you post is not the same as what gets posted! The preview is supposed to show EXACTLY what your post will look like. All the ems in my last post were on one line in the preview. Then in the published version, they ran into a second line!

Forrest, I guess you’ll appreciate my annoyance at things like this, but I presume anyone else will think I’m a complete nork for even mentioning it ( :>/

.

Col, you wrote; “My view on government regulation at all levels is – it should be up for regular review…”

Definitely.

“We do not need bureaucrats deciding anything for us”

‘Bureaucrats’ administer various laws which are declared by government. But as part of that process, they need to make all sorts of decisions about outcomes or courses of action. We can’t escape that.

“Worthwhile legislation is there to balance disproportionate power…”

Absolutely! One of my major gripes with the regulatory regime is unfairness.

“One of my primary needs is to make my own way in life. Excessive regulations mitigate against that need.”

Inadequate regulation could have the same restrictive effect, by allowing big and powerful operators to totally override small players, or your neighbour to cut down his trees and let his topsoil blow onto your property or have 20 dogs barking at all hours of the night metres away from your core living space or by allowing dangerous and aggressive drivers to rule our roads…and a thousand etceteras.

You are very concerned about ‘excessive’ regulation. But you seem to just take for granted all the good regulation.

Of course the whole regime is far from perfect. But silly regulations comprise only a tiny minority amongst lots of good and necessary stuff.

“Could I live without all those regulations and bye-laws?”

You could live without them, but do you think the lives of those in your community would be better for their absence? Just imagine if people could do whatever they liked in regard to pools, graffiti, trees, etc.

Ludwig says:

"The preview is supposed to show EXACTLY what your post will look like. All the ems in my last post were on one line in the preview. Then in the published version, they ran into a second line!"

It seems it may be a browser issue. In my browser, Firefox, the ems (all 59 of 'em) plus their following full stop all display on one line. Granted, about two thirds of the last em obtrudes into the narrow light green border to the posting area, but at least its not as bad as in this instance: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2063#43711 and the immediately following rant. Perhaps you are using Internet Exploder as your browser?

OLO, it seems, is not a perfect cyber-world.

Further to the Visy-related issue that gave unanticipated rise to this typographic trauma, this seems an interesting development: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24767669-2862,00.html

It seems that we see a regulator, in this case the ACCC, seeing itself 'in loco parliamentarius'. If we are to believe the explanations in the lawyers' commentaries as to the Trade Practices Act specifically precluding the ACCC from offering an indemnity to a ring-leader in a price-fixing cartel, then the failure of the regulator to lay charges against the relevant Amcor executives in this case would seem to constitute a contravention of both the letter and spirit of the Act. A regulator posing not as a little Hitler, but as a mighty big one!

I guess it just highlights the necessity for the objective of regulation to be itself defensible. For competitive advantage to be able to be striven for without invoking criminal sanctions while a market remains 'competitive' but the identical striving for advantage to suddenly become potentially criminal in the circumstance of a natural duopoly is a nonsence. No commercial monopoly has recourse to the force of law to make people buy its products or services. Its time people accepted that.

Perhaps the ACCC has outlived its usefulness, and should be disbanded.

*You are very concerned about ‘excessive’ regulation. But you seem to just take for granted all the good regulation.*

Ludwig, given the huuuge amount of money spent on all this, I should
hope that there is some good regulation! What do you think we pay
these people for ?

The point is, there is also a heap of trivial regulation, perhaps
with good intentions, but the effects are often stifling and
application of the law shows no common sense at all.

Let me give you an example. A friend recently spent a few weeks
working for the Govt, but she said they never got alot done,
as she had not done an accreditation course to drive a 4wd, so
was not allowed to drive one, despite driving them all around
the farm for most of her life.

Anyhow, I then heard the story of a farm owner in the East, who
sent some guys to count the cattle and they had an accident. The
owner was fined a huge amount, for being negligent. (worksafe)

It turns out the staff were not wearing their safety belts and he
had never sent them to a 4wd accreditation course, so was liable.

Sheesh, I can think of so many occasions when I've asked someone to
hop into one of the 4wds and help me move some machinery, or go
and pick up something, or whatever.

Does this now mean that all this needs to end, unless they have done
a 4wd accreditation course?

On a farm there are literally hundreds of jobs to do. From fixing
wind mills to machnery repairs, to a bit of welding or plumbing,
to animal husbandary to you name it.

Given the 4wd rule, one would assume that they would need to do
courses on all these things, before it is safe enough for them to
undertake them. Now that is fine for Govt with its resources,
but in the real world of farming, when would these employees actually
get any work done?

.