Editorial, Tuesday August 25, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

YOU KNOW your taxes are being spent wisely when the police in Timaru prohibit an apparently community spirited man from getting mates home from the pub in one piece, not because he's known to be breaking the law but because the local taxi drivers don't appreciate the competition.

He has been warned against operating an unlicensed transport service, but the errant good Samaritan insists that he hasn't been paid, and given that he's a teetotaller there's no suggestion that he's a danger on the road. This can therefore only be seen as the police involving themselves in a civil dispute, if it even amounts to that, that is none of their business. In the meantime, it makes a nonsense of what we've been told to do.

Presumably the old bloke who drives a bunch of young revellers home in the television advertisement is exposing himself to a similar warning, while those who seek legendary status by driving a drunk mate need to be told that they might be breaking the law, at least as it applies in Timaru.

And there are implications for car pooling, which city folk are encouraged to do. What damage is this doing to Auckland's taxi industry? And the public transport system? Whatever the answer, it has to stop.

There might not be too much wrong with car pooling per se, but what if the passenger offers the driver a couple of bob for petrol? For all we know this heinous behaviour might have been going on for years, right under the cops' noses. If the police in Auckland had any of the initiative that is obviously in good supply in Timaru they would be stopping every car with more than one occupant that is seen heading into the city on a weekday morning, and out again in the afternoon, to check that Auckland is not a hotbed of unlicensed transport service operators.

The basis for all this seems to be the belief of the chairman of Timaru Taxis that no one would go out of their way to give someone a ride without financial reward. Such is the parlous state of community spirit in the South, but this is just one small symptom of a pernicious disease that now has us firmly in its grip. Mayor John Carter commented the other day that the process of legislating our once famous initiative out of us has been under way for some time, and continues apace. It's hard to disagree with that.

A small book entitled The Death of Common Sense in America, published some years ago, exposed the source of much of the idiocy that is propagated by this country's politicians and bureaucrats.

Many of the daft rules and regulations that abound these days emanated from the Land of the Free, it seems, which doesn't excuse our adoption of them but does at least absolve us of blame for thinking them up in the first place. But we in New Zealand are leaders, not followers, and we have taken the principle that stupidity is a quality to be admired and run with it, never more keenly than as evidenced by the new health and safety legislation that has begun making its way through Parliament.

This extraordinary new chapter in saving us from ourselves is not a hoax, unfortunately. An unknown human being in our employ has come up with a list of hazardous occupations whose practitioners are in desperate need of laws for their own protection. As a Northland Age correspondent notes on this page, that list includes worm farming, but there are others, like growing lavender and mini golf. (It's not clear if only the operators of mini golf courses are in danger, or if players are equally imperilled).

It's all very well to be amused by the idiocy that is so often displayed in Wellington, but there comes a point where we are entitled to take offence, and this case has achieved that benchmark. Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse says he was "blindsided" by the media over the listing of worm farming etc as high-risk industries, adding that it would "not seem sensible" for them to make the final cut. He had not gone through every list with a fine-tooth comb, however, that being the role of the consultation process.

Mr Woodhouse seems to have lost sight of the fact that a little intelligence can go a long way. And he shouldn't be trying to explain how growing lavender has been assessed as posing a genuine threat to life and limb, given that he and Peter Dunne had been working on evidence-based criteria including any industry with a fatality rate greater than 25 per 100,000 or a serious injury rate or more than 25 per 1000 workers.

One stands to be corrected, but one would be extremely surprised if growing lavender, farming worms or playing mini golf came close to meeting those criteria.

It is good to see, however, that farmers will not be required to appoint health and safety reps. Opposition parties reckon that's because farmers tend to vote National, making their exemption a blatant bribe, while Mr Woodhouse says it's because farm owners/managers work alongside their employees, experiencing and exposing themselves to the same risks that are faced by their workers.

Neither makes sense. Perhaps farming's exemption could be defended on the basis that most farms are family businesses employing Mum, Dad and a kid or two. Requiring a health and safety rep in that situation would be too ridiculous even for this Minister to contemplate.

Imagine the practicalities. Who would decide who the health and safety rep was going to be? Mum or Dad? Would they get a badge and/or a helmet? Would legislation give them the authority they would need to impose their will on a recalcitrant spouse or child, one who simply refuses to wear ear muffs when the cowshed radio is on full blast or to submit their gumboots for regular inspection to ensure a proper fit?

In any event they would not have had sway in the farm house, which will not be considered a workplace and will therefore not be covered by legislation, but what of the inherent risks there? Like choking on a scone, or spilling one's tea and burning oneself? Or accidentally running over a visitor with a quad bike, with or without a helmet, while they're admiring the roses?

Mr Woodhouse must have pondered these scenarios before deciding that people may continue to visit farms without a safety briefing, but it might be a different story for lavender growers. Perhaps the Minister's advisers know that bees like lavender, making even the smallest crop a serious health risk for those with a bee allergy. Free epipens all round might be the answer for that.

Would it be too much to hope that anything sensible will come out of all this? Yep. But there is an opening for someone to write The Death of Common Sense in New Zealand, with an appendix, perhaps, listing those who killed it.

In the meantime, enjoy growing your lavender, farming your worms, the odd round of mini golf and risking your life at home on the farm, confident that Parliament has your back.

Surely common sense will prevail one day. Probably not in Michael Woodhouse's political lifetime, but there must come a time when we are allowed to dice with death in the garden without our last thought being that we have breached the code of safe behaviour.