Twenty-something years ago, when I questioned the necessity and rationality of occupational health and safety legislation and its implications, I was told at a seminar that NZ was 20 years behind the United Kingdom and that we needed to catch up.
Looking now at the effects of that legislation I suggest that all it has achieved is to add a vast layer of bureaucracy and mind-boggling expense for very little if any gain.
In fact, the suffocation of innovation and self-reliance has far outweighed any possible benefit.
It is true that our clean green image is important for our exported produce, and that we were handed that image on a platter solely because we had a low population that had very little impact on the environment.
This has all changed now of course, with a population of over five million and a compounding rate of increased consumption to match.
We have had many chances to learn from the mistakes made in other countries but have been dismally failed by politician after politician who had neither the foresight or the courage to take a lead.
Perhaps it is the short-term nature of our elections, but since at least the ’80s, government upon government has failed take an approach with a mind to taking the entire nation along, preferring instead to leave themselves open to dissent by serving favour and manipulating division.
The health system is a case in point, with every government in recent history committing to fix it, but none actually doing anything other than fiddle, leaving us with the current apocalyptic situation.
I sympathise to a point with Andrew Luddington’s view that regulations are needed to sort environmental issues, but the Emissions Trading Scheme, for example, is the second-biggest con of all time, and will achieve nothing except starvation on a grand scale.
I’m not sure either how many farmers only work two days a week; perhaps the ones who work seven days a week could be surveyed on how easy and beneficial they find micro-managing regulations.
Perhaps Andrew could also ask Damien O’Connor why, if agriculture and farming are so vital to New Zealand, his government is doing its level best to strangle them to death. Why?
Rick Gunson
Hawke’s Bay
