Hello Roebear. New Zealand is a suffocatocracy, run by women. Women like things very safe. Which, paradoxically, makes things dangerous.
Here's some reply on "But the government has now made it illegal to build your own house. Which is an interesting law."
Message 23396597
I'm not sure if it's already illegal to build your own house. I now assume that anything I want to do is illegal. I am not kidding. Mowing the lawn is still okay, I think. But maybe there are laws on lawnmowers which may be used and where one is allowed to mow lawns. Driving on roads seems to be acceptable because lots of people do it. But there are more and more and more laws to comply with to do it.
I think in a few years it will be only professionally trained, checked and licensed tax-paying hired drivers who will be allowed to do such a dangerous thing as drive a car.
Already, I lost my truck driving licence which I had since I was 18. I had to start getting medicals and I think they were bringing in regular testing. It was going to cost a lot of money and I very rarely have need to drive a truck. So I'll just have to do it illegally now or hire somebody to do it for me [who will no doubt do a lot worse job of it at greater expense than I could do myself].
I expect they'll ban motorcycles one of these days as being too dangerous. They don't have air bags, seat belts, crumple zones, and other safety features. People have to make sure they don't crash and that people don't crash into them. They made crash helmets compulsory decades ago.
I used to wear one before they were required because I didn't want my brain mashed too easily. I got seat belts installed in my old wreck of a car long before they had to be in cars, because I didn't want to be impaled on the steering column or cut by glass or smashed into metalwork. I replaced glass in our house with safety glass so any children making a mistake didn't get slashed. And so on. So, I'm mindful of safety. But I I take our 1 year old grandson for rides on my motor scooter, just down the driveway and along the grass verge, around the pole, along the footpath, back up the driveway, stopping at the passion fruit, around the house, stopping at points of interest such as the gate, the feijoas, lemons, plums, yellow daisies, going "over the bump" [a hollow in the lawn], up the path on the other side under the tree tomatoes [aka tamarilloes], compost container, under the clothes line, past the grapes and grapefruit, through the gate with the bolt hole ... etc. We go round and round and it's fun. He can now reach the handlebars.
No crash helmets. If I make a mistake [which I did once] I hold onto him and the motor scooter can fall over [not that it did]. We are going very slowly. I'm sure if police see me, they'll put me in the newspaper as an evil-doing child endangerer. I think he'll be competent and sensible and able to do lots of things as he gets older. He already can do a lot.
We had a little fire, in a little square of bricks and I cooked an egg in a can of boiling water and he helped me peel it and he ate it. I know the fire was illegal and some wet behind the ears greenie kid would no doubt lecture me about the greenhouse effect, carcinogenic smoke and so on.
I hesitate to admit it here, but it's possible I cut a sacred tree without a permit. I didn't check the law to see if the particular tree was in fact sacred, but I suspect it was.
Life in NZ is a pale imitation of the real thing.
At least airport security isn't checking my undies yet. But in a week or three we will have to carry very limited liquids in a transparent plastic bag. On a flight from Oz a week ago, we had a metal fork, metal spoon, but a plastic knife. Pathetic. As though somebody could use a little knife to hijack an aircraft.
Several years ago, I sat behind a cockpit, with the door open flying over the USA. I thought "This is absurd. Any nut case could stand up, take two steps and be inside the cockpit with malicious intention". I didn't say anything to the air crew about it being a safety hazard because aircrew are not noted for intelligence but are noted for authoritarian mindlessness, as are other government people. I thought they'd most likely think with my weird accent that I was threatening to attack the pilots and that they would grab me and put me in prison or at least make my life unpleasant for a few hours.
A year or three later, the 911 attacks were done.
Now, they have shut the cockpit door after the horse has bolted. And, totally stupidly, they don't allow people to use cutlery.
In NZ, we have what's called "Leaky building syndrome". All government approved, inspected, signed off on. Houses have been leaking and rotting in droves. Governments were in charge. That's the result they gave us. If I built my own house, it wouldn't leak and it wouldn't rot. It would be safe. It would be cheap. It would do what I want.
Ah, here's some on "approved builders" : boinz.org.nz
More here: dbh.govt.nz
There is a LOT of legalism, bureaucracy and muck to wade through. You will run out of time before the bureaucrats run out of paper and rules and demands for money with menaces.
Mqurice
PS One of my 'to do' things is to invent a really good crash helmet for regular wear. More or less a beanie, but to really protect brains and just avoid head bumps, which can really hurt. It would keep sun off and be warm too. It could have a visor, ear piece, antennae. |
