Legislators lose their marbles
IF ONLY GOVERNMENTS SHOWED THE SAME DISMISSIVE, DICTATORIAL ATTITUDE TO RADICAL INTEREST GROUPS AS THEY DO TO THE SO-CALLED SILENT MAJORITY
THE decision to ban plastic bags in Queensland is a classic example of governments desperately clutching for relevance by extending their control over every aspect of our lives.
Rather than getting out into their electorates and listening to people – I mean really listening – politicians spend weeks sitting in Parliament voting on laws that do little more than make life harder for people.
As late media mogul Kerry Packer told a federal inquiry in 1991: “Every time you pass a law, you take somebody’s privileges away from them.”
Instead of granting people freedom but with personal responsibility, we’re stuck with governments that simply churn out law after law.
Just this month, State Parliament has passed six new laws, including the ban on plastic bags.
Here’s a freedom that people have had for decades suddenly being taken away by politicians who claim they know better than we do.
The overwhelming majority – something like 98.4 per cent – of plastic bags are disposed of responsibly, but if you listen to human-hating green groups, you’d think bags are going to cause the end of the world.
But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of a green group who overwhelmingly supports this move. The Palaszczuk Government claims it formed its policy after receiving 23,000 public submissions.
The population of Queenslanders aged over 15 is about 3.6 million.
So this ban has come about after hearing from less than 0.63 per cent of the adult population, not all of whom would have supported the ban.
With votes from the LNP, Queenslanders have basically been dictated to, and if you don’t like it, bad luck.
We already have anti-littering laws, so why not strengthen them instead of imposing bans?
Make it a $1 million fine if you’re caught intentionally releasing a plastic bag into the environment.
I’ve written before about the newly formed “Relaxivism” think tank based in the Far North, and it is advo- cating that instead of banning bags that people use every day for everything from bin liners to eskies, teach people to flatten them and tie knots in them to stop them blowing away.
If they do end up in the ocean, they won’t look like jellyfish and less likely to be eaten by turtles.
If only governments showed the same dismissive, dictatorial attitude to radical interest groups as they do to the so-called silent majority.
This is evident in damaging climate change policies that threaten our power supplies and drive power prices through the roof.
We also see it in tax policies that penalise success, as well as liquor laws that treat everyone like criminals.
The Rockhampton New Year’s Eve B&S Ball was one of the most epic events in Queensland in its day.
For a one-off admission fee, you got all-you-can drink beer and UDLs, a feed and carnival rides.
If you played up too badly, you got thrown in a chicken-wire “sinbin” for 30 minutes where you could watch forlornly while everyone else had fun and you drank water to sober up. Then you could rejoin the party. But in stepped the sanctimonious killjoys at Liquor Licensing to change it to a ticketed booze system and it lasted only a few years before plummeting attendance made it unviable.
Same with the old International Marbles Championships in Brisbane.
Caxton St would be closed off and teams would take part in a champagne breakfast and march-past chanting songs and waving banners.
While the marbles contests were fierce, they were secondary to one hell of a party.
But again, a combination of Liquor Licensing puritans and public liability insurance costs ended the revelry.
Instead of cracking down on actual troublemakers, governments have this attitude that it’s better to penalise everyone – and make it harder for venues to do business.
This kind of government overreach makes it harder for people to live their lives and that surely should not be a government’s role.
Tell your MPs we don’t want endless laws and that real consultation doesn’t involve simply listening to special-interest lobby groups.
Governments could even allow people to vote via a phone app on any piece of legislation to gauge public appetite for change.
Anything is better than this constant chipping away at freedom.