“Ludwig, I apologise if I misunderstood you.”

Cheers.

“Actually, it is partly your fault for not being specific.”

I don’t think so Pericles! If you’re not sure about one’s position then seek clarification, don’t jump to conclusions.

“…what improvements could you see making a difference?”

I’m talking in broad generalities and principles, not specifics. My basic tenet is that we need a good rule of law that everyone understands, that applies equally to all, for which the penalties for breaching is clear and the chance of being stung if you break the rules is high enough to act as a real deterrent to just about everyone involved.

That’s the basis of it.

I’m not a businessperson. My major concern with the law has been regarding road safety, in which I see the most disgusting misalignment between the law, general practice and what is policed. Some rules are good, some are just stupid. The police turn a blind eye to all sorts of significant infringements and then take a zero-tolerance approach with some really trivial things. If you are subjected to dangerous antics on our roads, there is stuff-all that you can do about it. The police just don’t want to know unless an accident has actually occurred. It disgusts me to the core.

This is where my concern about a very sloppy rule of law evolved from.

It really is just the same principle with business and indeed the whole of society, is it not?

Before I continue, can you indicate Pericles whether you agree or not with this basic philosophy?

Ludwig,

The cost of compliance is a cost of doing business, it is tax deductible, and will mostly be passed on to the customer, not to mention a cost to the government to enforce. So unless there is a significant benefit to the public, the socialist impulse to regulate everyone to death needs to be curbed.

Secondly, as I mentioned before, the big retailers already have compliance officers, so the cost of compliance is relatively smaller, but for small retailers, it is relatively large. This would put further pressure on small retailers and put many out of business, which, I suspect, is not what you intended.

Understood Shadow Minister.

As I say, it is a balancing act, to come up with the right sort of regulatory regime that works effectively in the best interests of all operators without costing them or the end consumer too much.

In many ways our regulatory regime is good. But in many ways it could no doubt be improved.

If it is anything like road rules, which I’m sure it is, then if we just put our minds to it and had our hearts in it, we could greatly improve the whole caboodle very easily and painlessly.

Part of a good regulatory regime is to strive to make the costs as even as possible. Again, if we put a bit of effort into it, I’m sure we could devise methods of evening out the costs somewhat.

Ludwig, if you took some responsibility for the clarity of your position, I wouldn't have to make assumptions.

>>Before I continue, can you indicate Pericles whether you agree or not with this basic philosophy?<<

Which bit is philosophy, Ludwig, and which is commentary?

>>My basic tenet is that we need a good rule of law that everyone understands, that applies equally to all, for which the penalties for breaching is clear and the chance of being stung if you break the rules is high enough to act as a real deterrent to just about everyone involved.<<

That, I agree with.

And also believe exists.

>>I’m not a businessperson.<<

That of course does not disqualify you from holding a view. Just as I'm not a dentist, but can certainly determine whether my teeth still ache after a session in the chair.

But it does make it a little difficult to discuss specifics.

>>My major concern with the law has been regarding road safety, in which I see the most disgusting misalignment between the law, general practice and what is policed... It really is just the same principle with business and indeed the whole of society, is it not?<<

Not sure that is a convincing analogy, except at the highest level of generalization. And as I have said, at that level, we disagree. Our laws are on the whole enforced, and enforced consistently.

Can we now talk specifics, please?

Because this is far too vague to be useful:

>>Part of a good regulatory regime is to strive to make the costs as even as possible. Again, if we put a bit of effort into it, I’m sure we could devise methods of evening out the costs somewhat.<<

"Costs?"

In order to "make costs as even as possible?", you have to determine which costs you are talking about, within which community they need to be made "even", and also determine a measure of "evenness".

The you need to build it into a regulatory framework.

Leaving aside the regulatory framework bit, can you expand on the problem you have with costs?

I tend to think we have become a far more greedy society, we have been dehumanised to some extent into economic units and we have lost to some extent the idea of community and helping each other out. It is not only business that is greedier (no longer content with a healthy profit) but consumers.

Consumers have more power than we give ourselves credit for. We don't use that power. How many Westpac customers will move their accounts to another bank in protest to recent rate rises? Not many I suspect. We have become too lazy.

Imagine if all bank customers for example said we are not going to take it any more and moved their accounts to a smaller bank that does not use overseas call centres, that does not overcharge and keeps in line with RBA interest hikes.

Sadly there probably is not much choice in that list but consumers can't just whinge about prices (which is fun I know) we need to choose not to buy goods if the prices are outrageous.

It is more difficult of course when there is collusion on price rises and on goods that we depend on, such as fuel and food. But even there we can make choices to grow our own, buy at local markets and choose Australian Grown. Another example, if one doesn't like GM, don't buy GM (assuming labelling has integrity).

There is no doubt that criminal activity is occuring in big business today and little to protect even with the regulatory regime we have in Australia. Look at the HIH debacle despite warnings from insiders prior to the collapse, Visy price fixing etc.

“Ludwig, if you took some responsibility for the clarity of your position, I wouldn't have to make assumptions.”

You didn’t ’have’ to make assumptions. There are no excuses for jumping to conclusions. If there is any doubt about someone’s position then simply ask questions in order to seek clarification.

Pericles, you and I have been over this sort of turf before. I didn’t think that I needed to clarify the most basic level of my position.

But it became apparent that I did, which is exactly what I have done, right from scratch, in my last couple of posts. Of course, that is highly generalised.

Ludwig – “My basic tenet is that we need a good rule of law that everyone understands…”

Pericles - “That, I agree with.”

Great.

But then you wrote: “…at the highest level of generalization …. at that level, we disagree.”

I’m confused. This seems to be totally contradictory.

“Our laws are on the whole enforced, and enforced consistently”

Oooow, I’ll have to vehemently disagree with that!

“In order to "make costs as even as possible?", you have to determine which costs you are talking about, within which community they need to be made "even", and also determine a measure of ‘evenness’ ".

Of course!

“The you need to build it into a regulatory framework.”

Absolutely!

“…can you expand on the problem you have with costs?”

Thanks for seeking this clarification. Shadow Minister made the point that the costs of compliance are likely to be greater for small business compared to big companies. So as you say, in any regulatory framework, we need to be aware of that and build in mechanism to even out the costs, if possible.

Of course regulation has a cost. But it has just got be balanced up against the potential costs of having no or poor regulation, as I have said in a previous post.

I think we’ll find that our positions are not really too far apart.

This is all still very generalised. What specifics did you have in mind?