Crispin Hull: Portico
Tuesday October 9 2013
Bureaucracy gone mad?
We came out of Cairns airport on the way home the other day and I decided to count the number of speed zones between the turnoff and home in Reef Park, Port Douglas. It was an astonishing 36 different speed zones.
What are to we to make of this? Bureaucracy gone mad? A police state? Or a rational response to the idiocy of so many (mainly young P-plate drivers) driving maniacally?
Alas, I think the last of these is the best explanation.
I used to rile at this seeming folly. We know you cannot hurtle around a roundabout at 80km/h even if it is in an 80km/h zone. Well, yes, you and I might know. But so many young drivers do not. They think it is their right to drive at the maximum the speed limit allows.
So if we are to at least attempt to make them drive sanely, we need to post speed limits in infuriating detail. Mature, responsible drivers know to drive to the conditions. So in a way, the intensely detailed zones are of little moment because we drive to the conditions anyway.
Look at it this way. If we wanted fewer zones and the safety of a sensible speed limit, it might be 60km/h all the way to Cairns. Nonetheless, the 36 zones are quite onerous and one might be forgiven for being slightly over the limit on occasions.
Heaven knows, you will never be forgiven for being UNDER the limit. Horns will honk. Tails will be gated. Road rage will be expressed. Worse, you will be overtaken on double lines with death-defying insolence.
So, that said, we should have a system whereby those with long histories of good driving will be forgiven the occasional 10km/h transgression. Otherwise, if the 36 zones are too vigorously policed the whole system of demerit points and enforcing speed limits will be despised and brought into disrepute.
We see so many acts of driving lunacy on the Port Douglas-Cairns stretch that we frequently yell: “Where’s a copper when you need one?”
Well we now know – at a politician’s bidding chasing a bikie for being a bikie, rather than chasing a criminal for being a criminal. Nothing like a big scare campaign to distract public attention.
Don't fence me in
When is it safer for a toddler to be on the swimming pool side of the fence?
Family visited this week, including toddler grandchild. She was much safer on the swimming pool side of the fence, given what was on the other side, as this picture below shows.
The fenced was mandated by the swimming pool bureaucrats who demanded it be there lest a toddler swim across the crocodile-infested Reef Park lake, climb up the rocks, toddle across the lawn, negotiate the wet edge and drown in the pool.
Well done bureaucrats. I thought the fence was a waste of money.
Nothing like the right deed for the wrong reason.
An Act of Privacy
The Department of Immigration has been pasted by Justice Warwick Neville in the Federal Court, accusing it of hiding behind privacy provisions and engaging in “Yes Minister speak”.
Michaela Banerji had accused a departmental superior of bullying and harassing her. The department investigated and reported its results to her as follows:
“The allegation in this instance was investigated and appropriate action taken by the department. The matter has now been finalised. The Privacy Act 1988 prohibits further disclosure of information relating to this investigation.
"Accordingly, I am unable to disclose further details regarding the outcome. Thank you for your assistance with this matter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
The judge wryly asked how a complainant “might obtain any relevant information, or ask any questions, about a grievance that involves ‘serious misconduct’ in circumstances where that person is advised that no relevant information can be provided”.
Banerji has asserted that her right to free speech was breached when the department sacked her for comments on Twitter (anonymous and outside work time) criticising the department. Let’s hope this case goes further. The rights of public servants (30 per cent of the workforce) to engage in political discourse are important.
The department also cited the Privacy Act in refusing to give information about the case to the media. It routinely cites the Privacy Act when refusing to give information about refugees – who no doubt would dearly love their plight to be shouted from the rooftops.
One might suspect that the Privacy Act is being used more to protect the department’s secrets than any concerns for individuals’ rights.
Since the election, of course, the Liberal National Parties who were banging on about “boat people” every day, have now caused a veil of silence and secrecy to descend over the whole issue.
Do we seriously imagine the boats have stopped coming or that Abbott’s glib one-line solutions have actually had any effect?
