AFTER a two-year battle, smokers will light up their cigarettes again when dining outdoors in Parramatta, after the council surrendered to restaurateurs concerned about lost profits.
”We are so relieved – this is great news,” said Omar Besiso, of the Parramatta Business Freedom Association, a group representing 50 businesses. ”It was never fair that customers could just leave and go to restaurants in Granville or Merrylands, where they could smoke.
”You can’t stop someone from smoking. We just didn’t want to be disadvantaged because our council won’t allow it.”
This is an example of competitive federalism – locals at a regulatory disadvantage advocate change.
I suspect that we’ll be seeing a lot of more of this – as people come to the realisation that the nanny state is over-reaching and trying to micro-manage every aspect of their lives.
We can only hope…
Yes, Sinc, but what happens when the Feds start funding local councils directly?
Someone with the Roxon view of life could make things appallingly difficult for ordinary people and small businesses from a very great distance.
I betcha any money the O’Farrell government will ‘close the loophole’ and enforce the Fred Nile anti-smoking laws by diktat.
He will of course cite the ‘passive smoking’ hoax in doing so.
If there were money to be made by allowing people to drive on the footpath at 200kph while under the influence of LSD, such “deregulation” would not lack defenders, including scientific “skeptics” who would deny any causal relationship between pedestrian deaths and speeding on the footpath. But some rules really are about public safety.
“Someone with the Roxon view of life could make things appallingly difficult for ordinary people and small businesses from a very great distance.”
Sorry but while you might be quite right about the likes of Roxon, councils don’t need any help from a distance to achieve this. They are already well practiced in making life hard for their residents.
Lets face it, outdoors ciggie smoke is about as much of a health hazard as a Gillard/Roxon speech.
The governments job is to inform people of hazards then piss off.
Where is the causal link between second hand tobacco smoke in outdoor areas and lung cancer?
Outdoor no-smoking laws are not about preventing second-hand smoke from killing kids, as the risk is absolutely tiny – it is about making smoking socially unacceptable and more difficult to do.
The NSW government’s tobacco strategy makes this very clear.
It is not about second-hand smoke causing health problems, it is about stopping smokers from exercising their right to smoke.
In my locality the council bans outdoor smoking at restaurants, yet forces the same restaurants to place outdoor tables at the kerbside, where carbon monoxide fumes are readily inhaled from passing traffic and vehicles arriving and departing.
To compound the lunacy, only seated patrons are prohibited from smoking. Those who stand up and move away from their seats, and those walking through the outdoor dining zone, can smoke freely.
The reason given for tables to be situated kerbside is this: disabled and blind or partially sighted people are placed in an unsafe situation if forced to walk at the kerbside. Bugger the diners seated there.
The local govt area?
Newcastle. Infested by more insane but covert greens than the island of Tasmania.
The same loonies are hard at work agitating for the closure of the coal industry, which has been the raison d’etre for Newcastle’s existence since 1798.
Believe it or not, they have faith that a population of half a million can survive on the yartz (much the same as Tasmania, same size population, same type of loonies).
Passive smoking hoax? You mean whereby antismoking activists argue that passive smoking is more dangerous than smoking even though every smoker is also a passive smoker?
(Sarcasm on) You are right Sinclair, there is no evidence of an externality from smoking. The government shouldn’t regulate to correct market failures that don’t exist. (Sarcasm off)
Your arguments against regulation would be far more effective if you didn’t completely ignore any rationale fore or benefits of regulation.
Nevermind, Section 6A of the Smoke-free Environment Act 2000 prohibits smoking in commercial outdoor dining areas from July 2015. So, yes, federalism does work – we will get regulation at the right level of government, in time.
An interesting observation from my daughter, who manages a restaurant and is a smoker (I’m not):
A coffee costs on average $4.50, a middy of beer costs around $4, and a cigarette costs $1 based on $20 for a pack of 20.
Given that the price of cigarettes and beer contains a large tax component, who’s making the profit out of coffee?
Food for thought?
Nonsense, There would be no externality with smoking if the government did not decide that they would have a taxpayer funded health system. The cost of smoking would be borne by the smoker as he would then not become a “Burden” on the health system. It is a funny how when the government wants to control your activity you suddenly become a burden. As for passive smoking, there is not study that has ever shown a significant link between passive smoking and health issues. In order to get any link they have had to lower the confidence level of the correlation to well below what is any sort of scientific standard of proof. Any imagined link would be even more tenuous in an outdoor setting. btw I myself do not smoke but, like a lot of people, I am sick to death of the do gooders and nannies using made up science to stick their noses into the personal business of the citizens.
The stupid thing is that the rule is probably the wrong way round.
A private business should be able to do whatever the fuck they want indoors but be subject to the fascist fist of the puritan pricks outdoors.
“(Sarcasm on) You are right Sinclair, there is no evidence of an externality from smoking. The government shouldn’t regulate to correct market failures that don’t exist. (Sarcasm off)”
Yeah, because the ‘externality’ of passive outdoor smoking isn’t exaggerated at all, I mean car fumes are fine but smoking? Hah! That’s just gross! Ban cars you say? Never, I need my car and walking away from a smoker is like, too hard and stuff.
You know what else? It’s my right to go into any venue I please, if I don’t like people smoking there I should be allowed to tell private owners that they should ban smoking. I mean, it’s my RIGHT to go into a venue, my grandfathers fought and died so that I could go into a venue and tell others how to run it. /sarc
“Nevermind, Section 6A of the Smoke-free Environment Act 2000 prohibits smoking in commercial outdoor dining areas from July 2015. So, yes, federalism does work – we will get regulation at the right level of government, in time.”
Yeah, because federalism is all about telling people what they can and can’t do with their own personal space on their own private properties. I mean, it’s OK so long as we are banning things that I don’t like then I totally agree with government intervention. Just don’t ban something I DO like, then I’ll be very angry! /sarc
(That’s how you do sarcasm mate. Hint: being a do good busy body doesn’t make you smart, it just makes you a tool)
Infidel Tiger:
Nonsense! Our grandfathers DIED so that we would have the RIGHT to go into someone elses property and tell them to stop people doing what they liked simply because we don’t like it! Didn’t you know that? They DIED so that we could have this right! /sarc
(I feel like Randy Marsh in Sarcastaball South Park episode)
It’s the lowest form of wit and still you couldn’t pull it off without using explanatory notes.
Made up science.
Just adjusting the message to suit the audience.
Ah, maybe next time you should just tell us you’re talking to yourself then, we can just ignore you.
Cancer council research?
Excuse me while I post a link from greenpiece and the IPCC saying CAGW is real.
Makes it true, honest!
Sorry MattR. I forgot to filter my google results to exclude all the lefy do-gooder establishments.
I redid my research and now understand you are right.
Nonsense
That would be the same cancer council who provide cover for the government every time they want to raise taxes on smokes?
The same pricks who are rolling out the same template to use for drinking?
I dont accord their ‘research’ any credibility beyond common sense, smoking is bad for you.
There i just provided the same message as a government funded Quango, now wheres my paycheck?
“we?” Oh what a wee little fascist.
mareeS – what is the input cost on a coffee? i think you’ll find the cost of coffee is mostly in the beans and labour for barista. Or maybe it is the carbon tax?!?!?!
Nonsense is a twenty first century neo-temperance nutjob.
In 10 years Nonsense will be here smugly quoting letter and section of the law regulating coffee, salt and junk food and quoting research by the cancer council as to why its ever so good and tutting about how bad anybody is for rejecting such wonderful laws.
Slightly wide of the mark twostix. I do not support regulation of coffee, salt or junk food.
I can actually support or oppose regulation of one thing without needing to similarly support or oppose regulation of everything.
There may well be an externality in equilibrium around smoking – although you haven’t made the argument merely asserted a claim.
My point exactly Sinclair.
But, you will.
Is “Nonsense” also “Grey” perchance?
Gab, I don’t think so, but I could suggest the government pass a law that “Nonsense” is “Grey”. That would confirm all of twostix’s, MattR’s and your presumptions about me.
Oh? You’re not sure then? Weird.
I didn’t want to be too emphatic, lest Sinclair question my evidence for the claim.
Matt is a Fred Nile disciple.
Respect his right to a belief sustem of his own.
Drinking should also be stamped out.
Dirty dancing too.
… swearing as well.
How is that your point? Resturanteurs want to sell goods and services to smokers but are prohibited from doing so by local regulation. These same resturanteurs are confident that they will increase their profits by allowing smoking in their venues. That suggests there is no priced externality in equilibrium and no market failure. In other words, the non-smokers who (still?) attend the now-smoking venues do not care about the passive smoking risk or the smoke smell on their clothing (I have always found this argument strange – people who bath/shower daily and wash their clothes wouldn’t need to worry about this) etc.
So while it is easy to imagine an externality existing, it’s not so easy to argue that externalities persist in equilibrium and if they don’t persist in equilibrium then there is no economic justification for a public policy intervention.
All that is wrong with the world is neatly shown by people who would never go to a bar under any circumstances demanding that the people who currently do enjoy attending bars, stop smoking.
It makes them feel better. It makes me want to light them on fire. Bars have always had the option to go smoke free, but funnily enough none ever choose to.
Gab – nonsense is not grey – but he does normally post under a different pseudonym.
Appreciate the clarification, Sinclair. Good to know you keep up will all the aliases.
No n in Restaurateurs, please; if we must use French, let’s get it right.
Right, which is why the government comes bouncing along restricting freedoms becuase they know what’s best for us, just like our mummies did when we were kiddies.
How much did the “Parramatta Municipal Nicotine Nazis” reduce the rates by on commercial premises while their intolerance was killing business?
The shopkeepers should have insisted that the grossly over-generous Mayoral and Councillor’s allowances be set at zero for the duration of the ban.
I recently spent a few days staying in Parramatta, and have done a few times in the last couple of years.
It leaves the CBD for dead. The restaurant strip has something for every taste and wallet, and there must be at least 50 restaurants and bars within a few blocks. On Friday and Saturday nights it is teeming with people of every hue and kind, including whole families, out strolling and calling in here and there for a coffee, a drink or a meal.
There are non-smoking restaurants for those who prefer them, and non-smoking zones in the others.
At a time when the hospitality industry is struggling elsewhere, the permissibility of smoking is almost certainly an advantage there, and doesn’t seem to be doing the businesses any harm. You could count the number of areas in Sydney that are as vibrant and successful on one hand.
Smoking bans are killing the clubs and pubs. Now the State government has restaurants in its sights as well, all because of junk science about second-hand smoke and inability to stand up to the straighteners and Puritans who seem to have taken over everywhere.
I recommend a stay in Parramatta to anyone visiting Sydney. For shopping, it has everything from a massive Westfield to tiny little hole-in-the-wall computer shops staffed by earnest nerds, where I bought a new mouse (located by emptying the contents of a large cardboard box on the counter) for $15.
Oh, and it also has an excellent military bookshop with a sideline in old car manuals and motor racing memorabilia – Battlebridge in Church St.
This kind of successful operation of the market is just the sort of thing that gets up the noses of jealous competitors and advocates of a well-ordered society.
Hang on, what about Cigar Venues? There is no food served, just top shelf Scotch and cigars. How the fuck is that against the law? A group of like minded people who enjoy tobacco smoke in a premises and understand the risk are denied their right to congregate in a group in a place which is ”substantially enclosed”. Not to mention the new highly inflated taxes.
Exactly, I also can’t count the number of times I’ve had militant non-smokers say that smoking should be banned so that THEY can enjoy a beer without cigarette smoking around. Somehow it never occured to them that pubs are privately owned and that they could very easily start their own non-smoking pub.
If the majority of pub goers were non-smokers then a non-smoking pub would make a killing!
Logic and nanny-state do gooders do not mix.
You could say that about 95% of what passes for regulation in this godforsaken unflushed toilet.
One feels sorry for those who can’t afford to escape the tyranny with an overseas jaunt every once in a while.
Lots of anecdotal evidence of elderly people who used to socialize who now sit at home on their lonesome due to smoking bans.
“You’ll live longer you silly old coot, but you’ll do so on your own in your kitchen.”
The Town of Vincent in Perth has stuck up a sign on private property in East Perth saying parking on the property will incur a fine. The owners apparently mind people parking on what is a vacant lot.
ANy lwyers out there, do councils even have the power to do that?
I’m going to a corporate dinner tonight and my missus has just handed me profiles of some of the other attendees so I can bone up. Fuck I hate networking.
City Of Nedlands tried to ban people privately leasing their garages.
My comment should have read, the owners apparently DONT mind people parking there.
Councils are basically money hungry wankers.
Makes you wish they were more interested in anti nuclear zones and such.
Smoking is an unpleasant and antisocial habit. It has adverse impacts on smokers and on those with the misfortune to encounter it. It is a serious issue for those (a non-tivial number – rather more than the number of elected politicians or econ PhDs in the country) with this condition:
http://www.nevdgp.org.au/info/lungf/alpha-1-health.html
Then fuck off to some place that’s smoke free, you pantywaisted poof. Try the temperance union and order the cream cake.
Although I don’t smoke any longer, I’d not be put off going to a restaurant by smoke.
I am, however, put off going pretty much anywhere by the ridiculously stringent DUI driving laws.
So the vintners get my dollar, I enjoy good home cooked meals with the wine of my choice at very reasonable prices, and the restaurants labour to save what they can of their businesses from the depradations of do-gooders coming at them from all directions.
@ Infidel Tiger – try finding any public place in an Australian city that is smoke free. Remember the real point Coase made – if you’ve heard of him – the allocation of property rights matters. In this case, I’d prefer to promote the health of my countrymen over the “rights” of those who wish to impinge upon it.
The road to anti-liberty socialism is paved with “for the good of all” intentions.
CyrilH, you have hit the nail on the head – the root cause of this is our socialised health care system which gives people the ‘right’ to impose prohibitions on others for the perceived public good. Remove the socialised aspect of health care by replacing it with a private system and their arguments are systematically deconstructed.
Gab – as a general rule I agree … “law of unintended consequences”, increasing dependency, state as general utility etc.
But opposition to smoking, at least in places frequented by others uninterested in it, seems pretty non-ideological to me – a bit like suppressing smallpox – one of the few great achievements of, inter alia, the post War international institutions.
changing topics – anyone else see NSW state line? Paradigm example of ABC “evenhandedness” in dealing with taxi regulation … and completely missing the adverse effects on consumers from restricting producer numbers, limiting product diversity and of course limiting the number of low skill jobs. But of course, that would cost the “investment” of the plate owners.
Pyrometer
Smoking is a great and perfectly normal habit. If it bothers you, go jump off a clif. Seriously though, if somebody near you lights up, then move along. I’m offended by your lack of respect for my choices just as much as you are mine.
Suck it up princess
Odd how a bunch of self described libertarians who object to government intervention and restraint think their own actions ought be immune to criticism: for example, F&I, why is government socialization problematic (which I think it normally is) but private behaviour with a similarly negative consequence immune to criticism? That seems less libertarian, and rather more fascism of the “might is right” kind.
You’re not making any sense at all, Pyro. Give up.
Back to the previous discussion of made up science. This link and also this link, goes to a discussion of the unreliability of Academic research from Universities. This is also prevalent in the environmental science field and I bet my bottom dollar that this corruption of scientific research is widespread wherever Government is lavishly funding research to support some policy development. This is called policy driven science and is a perfect cover for the creeping implementation of socialism. All political parties in Australia are at this as they are all socialist to some degree.
Pyro, if people don’t like smoking they can always move away or not go to restaurants/pubs/clubs that allow smoking. People like you are nothing but do-gooder, nanny-state morons who think you have a right to tell me what I can and can’t do with my own space, simply because a few people find it offensive or uncomfortable.
Well guess what? I find your views and your attacks on my liberty even MORE uncomfortable. Therefore I would like to ban you from saying them anywhere!
See how that works? Funny how you don’t look at your own annoying habits when demanding those of others be banned.
For the record, I am an ex-smoker.
Thank you for, one again, showing us that big-government, do gooder, busibody nanny-statists have absolutely no idea what a libertarian is. You even make the idiotic claim that we are somehow ‘fascists’ simply for wanting morons like you (the actual facsists) to leave people alone?
Honestly, there is no point discussing things with people like you. People just need to tell you to fuck off more.
Another thing caning small hospitality businesses is well-meaning charity ‘boycotts’ such as alcohol-free February. Again, unintended consequences.
No one is forced into participating in these sorts of events. So some money that would otherwise have been spent on alcohol gets voluntarily spent on charities instead. And some people voluntarily go a whole month without drinking alcohol and perhaps discover whether they are dependent on alcohol or not. What a horror!
@ MattR – when “L” libertarian means “signed up to the noxious Rockwell/Rothbard/Lost Cause paleoconservatism” – I certainly want nothing to do with it.
When it means a profound scepticism about coerced collective action and respect bordering on reverence for the outcomes and processes that emerge from markets and a free society – there is a great deal too it, although it is shared with classical liberalism, and is different to the “might is right” anarchism some seem to propound here.
I mean, do you guys accept that it is wrong to drink drive?
Yes – but not just because it is illegal.
Pyrmonter
Please tell me how this quote doesnt apply to you?
(yes i post it a lot, but we keep getting new net-nannies who need educating)
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
“I mean, do you guys accept that it is wrong to drink drive?”
yes its not a good thing to do.
However jailing or fucking people over because their actions MAY have a bad consequence is distinctly unjust.
prison should be used for conduct that has actualy caused harm, not stuff which may, possibly, cause harm.
@ SD – wasn’t asking about the legality – it obviously is illegal conduct here, but for the reason that increasing the risk of harm to others, especially where that harm is catastrophic, is itself wrongful.
In some, indeed many, instances it is fine to have “negligence in the air” with no loss, and to focus on limiting loss by imposing penalties when, and only when, it eventuates.
But there are certain courses of conduct – drunken driving is a good, but not the only example – that seem so disproportionately risky to the potential benefit and risk of loss, that the conduct itself is worth penalising as a means of achieving an overall reduction in the total “social” loss: focussing on harm-increasing behaviour, for example tends to overcome the ineffectiveness of deterrence where a party can make itself “judgment proof” or play the legal odds of prosecution failing.
There is of course a slippery slope here; and that there is a real risk such “procedural” constraints are abused, either from mis-placed utopianism (vide Lewis) or, more likely given those who govern us, for less legitimate reasons (Obeid, the public choice of pseudo-scientific “nudging” etc). But it seems equally consistent with the idea of markets (private or public policy) as “discovery processes” to say that, there are also matters where “we” [big can of worms but please persevere] can say that some experience dictates that “risk reduction” is better than post hoc penalisation?
Its an interesting argument Pyro. On the other side are things like the constraints that are put onto the sale of food at school fairs etc, which is now a regulatory nightmare.
I’m inclined to think that government shouldn’t have the capacity to regulate activities unhindered; there should be some sort of public referral for anything that inhibits individual action, and it should need be regularly revisited.
@ DF – and of course it involves arbitrary limits, and tends to create rents – fairly sure they are at play with food labelling (consider, for example, the non-tariff barriers implicit in different food disclosure panels, and the endless campaigning about place of origin labelling.
Yet in a legal system where much notionally prohibited “harm” can go uncompensated either because of uncertain law, procedural difficulty, or rules, such as the voluntary administration laws, that allow wrong-doers to evade payment of established claims, “practicality” suggests some legislative intervention may be warranted.
Drink driving is your example? Goodness you really have no idea what you are talking about do you? A drink driver puts the public at risk through their own actions, the public are unable to determine that many ate drink driving and are put at risk without the means to avoid risk. The drink driver makes the choice and the public have to deal with it regardless.
You can easily move away from a smoker, just as you can easily avoid venues that allow smoking. Nobody forces you to stand near them or go inside. These venues don’t travel around the city forcing unsuspecting victims to sit in them for hours on end.
You claim to be against might is right conservatism on one hand but on the other push might is right moral do gooder nannyism. And you do it with a clear conscience because in your mind its for “the greater good”. Individual liberty is the greatest good, why don’t you support this?
Mattr
I dont object to penalties for drink driving, I object to drink drivers who end up in jail for the offence.
A large proportion of older Aboriginals in jail in WA are there because of repeated infringements on trffic laws.
I saw one case in Kalgoorlie where a man had spent something like 5 out of 8 years in jail, ever offnce a traffic one (no MDL after suspension).
I think a law which is to prevent harm, but which can do that is just evil.
thefrollickingmole, I was actually responding to pyrmonter, however I do disagree. If someone is going to repeatedly consumer alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car, despite repeated punishments, should be taken out of society. Clearly banning them from driving is no use so they should have no access to vehicles at all.
That is to say, I wouldn’t approve of them being in maximum security prison or anything, just removed to a place where they can’t endager innocents by drinking and driving.
Laws shouldn’t be designed to prevent harm, they should be designed to prevent people doing harm to others.
I think there are other examples. Take probity regulation of lawyers: there are offences involved in trust account irregularities that involve no client loss; yet the risk of loss where trust accounting becomes sloppy is such that even minor irregularity attracts legitimate sanction. Or in the law of fiduciary duties – we require extensive disclosure of related party dealings not because every director of a public company is Madoff, Morgan or Maxwell, but because the losses incurred by those unable to get cost-effective protection against their behaviour can be high, the cost of detecting and preventing it similarly high, and the restrictions are comparatively low cost. Those requirements, incidentally, may be thought of as having a market-basis: in the days, not so long ago (mid-80s), when we had somewhat competitive stock exchanges vying for business, they all required, through listing rules, the protection of independent shareholders.
as a post script, MR – so, non-smokers can go to all those venues that freely enter into the trade of supplying hospitality … have you ever seen a liquor licence transferred?
This is a strawman argument, the principle of the the argument and the facts of liberty don’t change simply because the government has made obtaining a liquor license too hard. People can still obtain one anyway, the government has just built so many ludicrious barriers to entry that it is very difficult to start a new bar.
Your point basically says nothing more than “we need to deregulate the hospitality industry.” Yes, we certainly do. You still haven’t justified telling private property/business owners what they can and can’t allow on their own premises.
MattR
We will have to agree to disagree on that. A victimless crime against regulation should almost never attract a jail sentence.
to put it another way, this bloke spent more time in jail for regulatory offences than many get for manslaughter.
This depends, if we are talking about going 5kms over the speed limit repeatedly, or failing to stop completely at a stop sign, or parking violations then yes, I agree. However, if you are under the influence of alcohol and you get behind the wheel of a car you are recklessly endagering the public. I agree, a first or even a second and third offense shouldn’t carry a prison sentence, but if you are repeatedly endangering peoples lives with your own stupidity then I believe you represent a chronic risk to society and should be removed from it.
Ditto for excessive speeding (although I certainly agree that the speed and alcohol limits should be increased as they are too low, especially speed limits).
The person you give in the example clearly didn’t learn the first time. He ONLY spent so much time in prison because he repeatedly put the public at risk and refused to stop doing so. Had he simply stopped drink driving he wouldn’t have gone to prison at all. He did it to himself, nobody else forced him to get behind the wheel of a car drunk.
We don’t know that he kept driving drunk, though. Far more likely he had his licence suspended and kept on driving, resulting in further suspensions and breaches. That’s the most common pattern of people who collect massive traffic records.
Anyway, while Pyrmonter has led some well-meaning readers into arcane byways, he lost me way back when he declared that smoking was disgusting and unhealthy (I paraphrase) and therefore smoking bans were justified. Notice that he has not returned to defend that proposition, which is actually the topic of the thread.
Always watch the pea, as one of my heroes, Steve McIntyre, wisely says.
MattR
He lost his liscense for drink driving, the prisone terms were all for driving without one after it was removed.
I would be happy for car srushing, lectures, financial fines etc, but repeated jailing for no-victim offences. nah.
OK, so if it was simply driving without a license I do tend to agree. Although you could argue that by driving without a license you are endagering lives as you aren’t competent to drive, etc…
Prison is certainly harsh, the punishments you suggest seem appropriate, however if he did cause serious damage to lives and property I would expect a hefty prison sentence.
MattR – losing your licence doesn’t mean that you are incompetent to drive. It is a punishment for an offence which may or may not reflect on your driving ability. The fact that someone was once caught DUI has no necessary relationship to their driving ability in general.
Yes I agree johanna, however if someone is repeatedly caught DUI then I feel they pose a genuine risk to society.
Keep in mind when I say DUI I mean inherbriated and unable to drive competently, not, say .07 (a little bit over the current limit), which I feel a reasonable person could still drive safely at.
CyrilH and Fire and Ice are on the right track.
At the moment we have a distorted health insurance system where premiums do not match the actual (and actuarial) risk.
If we simply (!) abandoned “community rating” in our health insurance / medicare scheme, then health insurance would adjust premiums to health risk on a non-distorted basis.
Then all this stupid regulatory and taxing stuff could disappear.
But Matt, the point the Mole made was that one DUI offence cascaded into years in jail because the guy kept driving, not because he caused accidents or was DUI again.
I think most people agree that repeat DUI offenders are a menace on the road and quite possibly should be jailed. But that is not what the Mole was talking about, AFAI can tell (please correct me if I’m wrong).
Still waiting for Pyrmonter (the great diversionist) to come back and defend his original statement about smoking and the regulations that are the subject of this thread.
No. They should be designed to punish people who do harm to others.
I remember the days when blowing 0.07 meant carry on sir, but it might be a good idea to go straight home.
@ johanna – actually my original point was that smoking has uncompensated external effects, citing at least one instance, and that these effects are pervasive in the society in which we live.
Those external effects mightn’t be significant if we removed hospitality licensing, land use laws and all subsidy for health care, but given that in some form or another all of those restrictions have existed for over a century, that seems improbably utopian.
@ FMole – imprisonment is so expensive, both for the inmate, his/her associates and the taxpayer that it should be used very sparingly. But (barring some modern nonsense like the Small Business Guide in the Corps Act) law is law, and the subject is expected to obey it. What, in the face of serial disregard is the alternative? We’ve dispensed with corporal punishment, leaving “community service”, useless asset forfeiture laws or fines, all of which are both readily evaded and poorly enforced. If you believe (as I do) that it is rational to have “escalating” threats to maintain deterrence, you end up imprisoning people.
Like a not too-bright police sergeant, let me refer to my notes … oh yes, you said:
“Smoking is an unpleasant and antisocial habit. It has adverse impacts on smokers and on those with the misfortune to encounter it. It is a serious issue for those (a non-tivial number – rather more than the number of elected politicians or econ PhDs in the country) with this condition:”
So, you are speaking on behalf of the oppressed people who “have the misfortune” to encounter smoking. Let off lightly by the kind souls who inhabit this site, you then spouted a lot of crap about unrelated issues.
Espousing bullshit is an unpleasant and antisocial habit. It has adverse impacts on bullshitters and on those who have the misfortune to encounter it.
@ Johanna
Selectively editing (omitting the link), misplaced allegations of insincerity and ad hominem abuse aren’t signs you’re winning an argument.
What argument? You made a few assertions and then led people off into irrelevant highways and byways.
Let’s get back to the topic. Why should restaurant proprietors in Parramatta be forced to ban smoking across the board and irrespective of the circumstances?
pete m,
sorry for the late reply, I’ve been out on a job. I couldn’t guess the input cost on coffee, as I haven’t had a cup since 1975.
Back to the subject of smoking, our daughter and several of my lady sailing buddies are now doing rollies in objection to Roxie’s packaging.
I don’t smoke, nobody can smoke in our house or on our boat, but it’s very interesting to see how many girls are rolling their own ciggies, even growing their own tobacco.
If I was still writing, I’d do a piece about the fact that you can be fined $25,000 for growing a single tobacco plant, but a single marihuana plant is all good and clear for personal use.
Not kidding!!
try finding any public place in an Australian city that is smoke free.
In Melbourne last week and was quite impressed with the ease you could have a smoke. Started raining and an automated roof appeared over the smoking area (Mitre Tavern). Thought to myself “perhaps this commie hell that is Victoria hasn’t fully subjugated the people…yet!!”.
Let’s get back to the topic. Why should restaurant proprietors in Parramatta be forced to ban smoking across the board and irrespective of the circumstances?
Why can’t a licensed premises provide a smoking clientele who have consciously chosen to be there with a comfortable indoor venue to smoke premium tobacco at reasonable prices that include the cost of the tobacco product, a mark-up and sufficient tax based on something reasonable and transparent like the direct cost to the community of medical expenses directly linked to smoking?
That’s the sort of thing that would happen in a free and sophisticated country? Not in our totalitarian nanny-state.
“I remember the days when blowing 0.07 meant carry on sir, but it might be a good idea to go straight home.”
Some people older than me can no doubt remember the days (say until the early 1980s) when you could actually drive your car without sobriety checkpoints, speed cameras everywhere, speed limits set too low for road conditions etc. etc.
Freedom. It must have been good. But hey, living in a totalitarian state where every aspect of your existence is controlled and micromanaged is worth it if it saves just one life. Right.
The whole argument about drink driving misses the point. Of course alcohol consumption can have a detrimental effect on driving ability. But the same is true of many other things. Lack of sleep. Being angry about something. Yelling at kids in the back. Elderly drivers whose senses and reaction times are fading. There have been studies done in the United States that show that driving with a BAC of the legal limit causes no more impairment than other things like talking on a mobile phone (even with hands-free).
The point about drink driving is why should the state disproportionately target and criminalise one factor that may impair driving ability while largely ignoring all others? The truth is that hostility towards drink driving has more to do with negative attitudes towards alcohol consumption than with concerns about road safety. Somehow it is considered worse to drive less than perfectly due to alcohol than due to other factors. It is essentially old fashioned puritanical moral grandstanding at play.
There is a big difference between “drink driving” and “drunk driving”. I agree that getting behind the wheel when one is objectively drunk is inexcusable. But having a few drinks and then driving home while perhaps slightly over the limit does not make one a piece of criminal garbage who deserves to be carted off to prison and fucked up the arse. A bit of proportion and perspective please guys.
Unfortunately decades of state brainwashing about the evils of drink-driving leave deep psychological impacts, even among those who fancy themselves freedom-lovers and supporters of less intrusive government.
Another point about drink driving is that the proportion of accidents that are caused by drivers being under the influence of alcohol is often vastly exaggerated. When compiling statistics, the category of “alcohol related fatality” or “alcohol related accident” is often expanded to include cases where anyone involved in the accident has been drinking (even if they were not even driving, such as a passenger or a pedestrian). And they ignore cases where the driver who had not been drinking clearly caused the accident or violated traffic laws. (I believe in the United States they classify any such incident as “alcohol related” if anyone involved registers any BAC, even if it is under the legal limit).
The idea that all these accidents are invariably caused by a driver being under the influence of alcohol is bullshit. It assumes a 100% relationship between correlation and causation, and expands the net of correlation as wide as possible.
Yet such phoney statistics are then used to generate exaggerated claims like “drink driving causes x,000 deaths on the roads each year!”. And all the useful idiots clamour for drink drivers to be strung up by the balls.
@ IT
I don’t have any evidence but I imagine a life of loneliness and isolation would do far more damage to your health then cigarettes would.
Absolutely not. At least not until “drink drive” is clearly defined; one drink, 2 drinks, .05 alcohol level? However I think it is morally wrong to drive dangerously where by doing so risk the lives of unwilling participants. Speed limits, breathalyzers, fixed speed cameras and the like are terrible implements for protecting the citizenry, as well as being perfect tools for implementing a nanny state.
One personal anecdote when I was a young driver was being caught on a 3 km stretch of straight road, with no intersections or the like at midnight, with no other car on the road and being fined and losing points (well mum did for me) for going 80 on a 4 lane highway in a 70 zone. What danger did I pose to anyone else?
at the risk of being accused of “trolling” and extending a discussion which has already ranged off topic …
@ Adam D – why DO you have a “right” to drive on roads on terms other than those imposed – however arbitrarily – by the owner? I should have thought a good Libertarian would accept that roads were owned (usually by some limb of government I’ll allow, but there is still property in them – they might even, sensibly, be privatised) and that the owner should be able to impose whatever restriction it thinks fit. I’ll allow there is a long tradition of free passage on the highway stemming from the common law, but that never allowed any person to cause a nuisance to another, or the traffic generally – such nuisance (in the public, rather than private tortious sense) fairly readily encompasses a whole range of behaviour that is not inherently damaging, but tends on average to be so.
For a less emotional example, there is nothing intrinsically harmful with driving on the wrong side of an empty road; yet it exposes other road users who enter the road to risk of fairly significant harm, and I’d have thought most road users would regard enforcement of that rule fairly sensible.
I have to say that the right to drive on an empty road while half-cut is a long, long way down my list of liberties worth defending. And attempting to defend it blows political capital.
‘Sides, if the road were empty you wouldn’t get caught.
Pyrmonter,
one of the problems with speed limits is that the speed at which it is safe to travel on a given road varies considerably due to road conditions, the number of other cars on the road, stopping distance from the vehicle travelling ahead, the skill and alertness of the driver etc. Speed limits are highly arbitrary and often set too low. The idea that speed limits invariably represent the maximum reasonable or safe speed is silly.
That said, I agree that at some point there is an argument to say that if an individual engages in behaviour that is particularly risky, even if they have not caused an accident or nuisance or clearly done anyone any harm, there is a case for prior restraint and imposing penalties. The problem is that when it comes to things like speed limits and BAC limits, that level is often set far too low. Too often exceeding a speed limit is a technical foul, not reckless endangerment.
As for the whole idea that the government owns the roads so they can set whatever restrictions they wish, and that individuals have no automatic right to use the roads, that is somewhat circular and tautological. The whole debate on any given issue is what should be the proper relationship between the state and the individual in any society that values freedom and human rights. I guess the government also owns the footpath, so they can put whatever restrictions they like on people walking down the street (such as having random stop and search etc.). And if the state owns the apparatus of state, they can pass whatever draconian laws they wish. People should have some default freedom to use the roads, but with all freedoms the debate is about what limits should be placed on that freedom. We should not approach things from the opposite end, and say people have no freedom to do anything until permission is granted by the state.