[Peetwo]

On bollocks headlines & RED TAPE -

Kharon headlined the SBG two weeks ago with - Government reduces aircraft noise. - and wrote...

"..Of all the government manufactured headlines this week the glorious truth is accurately, for once, reflected in the headline..."

...he then went onto say...

"..This outlandish protest is based on the scurrilous notion that complaints are down only because the aviation sector is not flying - moribund: stifled by government red tape, costs, draconian rules and mass embuggerance. This, as the minister will happily tell you, is just a few tendentious bloggers making trouble. Rejoice Australia, the future of aviation is in good hands.

Then, to add the gravy, in one of the most shamelessly manipulated [/b]headlines of all times, the minister has announced that the ‘burden’ on aviation has been dramatically reduced – No doubt heads will roll for placing the minister in such an embarrassing position. For there is not a scrap of real reduction in the whole package..."  

And HERE & HERE Kharon went on to highlight the absurdity of the situation where industry is being slowly suffocated by so much red tape, all for little or no safety improvement:

..Flight risk mitigation has not changed much; improvements brought about by accident and incident are, by and large, embraced by industry.  But for every single improvement to in flight risk mitigation the ‘regulations’ have grown, on my current values, at a rate of 16 to one. That’s 16 ‘new’ rules from every accident which brought operational change. A classic example is the Civil Aviation Regulations; go back 30 years and find the ‘Regs’; then look at the ‘regulations as they stand today. It’s nuts, out of control and being promoted as a safety improvement.  I may yet get an I-pad with a direct link to a lawyer; can I accept this landing clearance – the jet ahead looks a bit too close to me? Will a ‘go-around’ cost me my job?  Flying ain’t that dangerous; it’s back on the ground where the real risks are found...

Continuing along the same 'Nanny State' theme but on a more generalised level, I noted the following article from the Oz:

Rising tide of red tape ‘a threat’, says IPA
Joe Kelly
The Australian
12:00AM January 2, 2017

Malcolm Turnbull’s government passed 4094 pages of legislation through the parliament last year, and the Institute of Public Affairs wants action to curb more costly red tape.
The conservative think tank’s research shows that the 4094 pages of legislation passed in 2016 — in 102 acts of parliament — was significantly down on the parliament’s effort in the previous year when 6453 pages were passed in 177 acts.

However, IPA policy director Simon Breheny told The Australian that less legislation was passed in election years and he noted the unusual length of the eight-week 2016 federal campaign.

“Each year the Australian parliament adds more red tape to the already enormous amount of regulation that strangles business and chips away at individual autonomy by passing thousands of new pages of legislation,” he said.

“Red tape costs the Australian economy $176 billion each year. $176bn is equivalent to 11 per cent of our GDP.

“That’s a larger proportion of the economy than the entire Australian mining industry, which generates 7 per cent of GDP.”

The IPA’s figures bear out a steady increase in the volume of legislation passed by parliaments since 1901 — a year in which only 21 acts were passed, coming to a total of 358 pages.

By 1930, this had risen to 78 acts of parliament although they were contained in just 233 pages. Even in 1950, the parliament passed only 281 pages of legislation in 80 acts.
The real increase occurred throughout the 1970s, with 1860 pages being passed in 1980 and 2747 pages being passed in 1985.

In 1990, 3029 pages of legislation were passed while, in 1991, this had risen to 6905 in 216 acts of parliament. Figures staying at about this level over the past 25 years.

The two years in which parliament passed the most pages of legislation were during the Gillard government in 2012, when 8150 pages were passed, and during the Howard government in 1999 when 8866 pages of legislation were passed.

Tony Abbott came to power in 2013 with a promise to cut red tape by $1bn a year and instituted a twice-yearly parliamentary red tape repeal day which the Turnbull government scrapped last year.

In 2013, there was a drop in the volume of legislation passed with 5069 pages being passed and a further drop in 2014 when 4607 pages were passed. This was followed by an increase in 2015 to 6453 pages.

Mr Breheny yesterday said the agenda of US president-elect Donald Trump to take an axe to red tape should be applauded and sent a good example to Australia.

  
There was also a comment from Rohan, which was almost an article within the article, that IMO could be a contender for the 1st 2017 QOTM... :

Rohan

Parliament could start with the tax act. Let's just simplify that. Isn't that greater than 13,000 pages? Who on earth could comply with or even enforce such an unwieldy document.

The public service love more regulation, Labor and the Greens love to centralise and issue commands, all of this requires more and more public servants.

We've become a culture of "tick a box" on a form and it's okay, irrespective as to whether the work is actually done.

When I was a child in the '60s we didn't have all of this regulation and things actually got done!

For all the political correctness and the virtue signalling people seem to be less tolerant of others and have very poor manners when dealing with one another. For all the advances with all the regulation and box ticking everyone seems to have less respect for each other and there is more violence. 

People worked hard at building Australia and that wealth didn't come from government but from the people themselves. Governments can't create wealth, they can only create the environment where wealth and job creation flourishes. 

The goat's cheese latte sipping circle may have good intentions but they don't understand human nature.

By overwhelming people with meaningless make work, suppressing what we can say think and do, they've attempted to turn us into dependent infants. We see our youngsters unable to read, write or add up, but they can tell us bewildered oldies that there are more than two genders. 

The "elites" with their undermining of education system have dumbed everything down enough that university graduates have no understanding of history and that communism/ socialism has been a massive failure for ordinary citizens where ever it's been practised. The more the government spends and over regulates the less innovation and wealth creation occurs. Many people don't understand that for Governments to spend money, it either taxes its citizens and / or borrows against the future. This lack of understanding that wealth can only be created by the private sector is a failing of our education system.

SA is a prime example of ideology trumping commonsense (with it's energy policy, a hospital that has cost billions and is yet to open). Without the support of the rest of Australia, SA would be as bankrupt as Greece. 

SA is followed closely by Victoria with the pursuit of an energy policy that will lead to less wealth and employment - again ideology overriding commonsense, the denigration and undermining of their volunteer fire service by a heavily regulated professional service, where the unions can override management is just going to end in tears. 

Now QLD are talking about going down the same path despite the evidence of SA's problems. QLD has been "growing" its economy by employing more public servants. None of this creates wealth, to justify their positions these people will just generate more red tape and meaningless regulations and engage in "make work".

While I'm not suggesting open slather, the less regulation and oppression the more individuals step up and have a go.  This is how employment and wealth are created.

The difficulty with our current crop of politicians is that they haven't developed a plan and a narrative to go with the plan of how they intend to turn things around, part of this I believe is that most of the current crop don't understand the long term damage to our society and economy of what's happening now. Paul Keating and John Howard were masters at imparting their ideas to us, irrespective as to whether you agreed with them or not, we understood what they intended.

The current PM is I believe way out of his depth, talking about innovation and agility is meaningless unless the government actually purchases from locals. This would be more useful than the government grants that handed out on some "tick a box" government formula. The alternative (BS & Labor) I believe have policies that are an outright danger to the country's future. The PM's failure to take the fight against Labor and the CFMEU shows a lack of "ticker" and a real lack of concern for the private sector and taxpayers.

Governments have never been good at picking "winners", rather than renewable energy maybe we should be setting a goal for "clean energy" then allow the market to develop based upon private enterprise and innovation.  

As Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine scariest words in the English language", "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

 
Yes IMO a choccy frog to Rohan...

OK thread drift over, back to the 2016-17 Summer series of - "Yes miniscule, you have NFI"

MTF...P2

Ps. This bit..

 "..twice-yearly parliamentary red tape repeal day which the Turnbull government scrapped last year..."

..I didn't know that - Err why Malcolm?