A quick look at the ‘Repeal Day’ concept – almost right
The Australian Government has announced a ‘Repeal Day’, intended to be used to axe the existence of hundreds of outdated laws. The concept is a good one, though for me, doesn’t quite get the Australian Parliament into a forward looking setting in how it could develop FUTURE legislation. So what could be done instead and what are the Repeal Day risks?
Repeal Day is not a new concept with the US Government often spending time wiping out old laws in one big all encompassing sitting. The idea is both necessary and overdue and I can see this idea becoming an annual or ‘first event’ headline act of new Governments across Australia.
To give you a small personal example of outdated laws, in my first career out of school I had cause to use a piece of law, a by-law of a large council, which made it an offence for people to walk on the right hand side of the footpath. Yes, please do re-read that and then understand that the law dated back to the latter part of the 19thC. So there I was, in the late part of the 20thC applying a law from around 1865 or so. It seems ridiculous and I’m not sure if that law still exists, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was yet to be repealed – law and order for society and all that.
And so now we have a whole raft of laws that were ‘good ideas’ (or not) in their day. As a small business owner I’d really look forward to not having to do BAS every quarter or deal with the multiple requirements of superannuation payments. There’s many others. And so the Repeal Day appeals. But there are risks
The core risk is that in the passion for cutting red tape or intention to simplify the burdens of legal compliance, good laws get thrown out. There’s the risk that this idea of simplification becomes a political football where a repeal is targeted in a heavy handed fashion. That is as likely as it is unlikely.
Overall though the greatest risk is that laws with good intentions that are still valid, are scrapped because they were poorly constructed – a solid and worthwhile principal is discarded because of the existence of a clumsy or heavy handed nature in how the law applies.
Which is why Repeal Day doesn’t quite set us up for FUTURE legal developments. For those who’ve read some of my thoughts before, you’ll know that for years I’ve been calling for a ‘Sunset Clause’ on all legislation. The sunset clause would make all legislation self repealing making a Repeal Day irrelevant. It would also turn the focus of Parliament towards updating laws. Trying to keep pace with IT developments in Privacy for instance, is beyond the realm of most Governments. A sunset clause would see the law developed and then consistently reassessed to ensure the law is still meeting the intentions and relevancy framing. A refresh, new sunset clause and on it goes. If no longer required, the law would sunset and nothing else need be done.
I think the Repeal Day concept could be useful if treated carefully, and not as a sweeping of ideology. That’s its big risk. Developing Laws with a Sunset Clause brings Parliament up to date as a forward thinking legislative body
The MP3 file below captures part two of our chat looking at the Future of Sex. Picking up on the theme of new technology that popped up towards the end of our first discussion in week one, here we move onto haptics and holographics and the extension of that technology from beyond the bedroom and…
Read More >Who’s Been Sleeping In My House? is a new Australian series presented by archaeologist Adam Ford that looks at the stories behind some of our old homes. Adam is the man behind the recent ‘Ned Kelly’ dig among other great archaeology finds here in Australia and the UK. As a futurist I’m always interested in…
Read More >The Association of Professional Futures is holding its first Virtual Gathering, following the sun from Europe, across North America and finishing in the Australia pacific zone. It kicks off tomorrow and links to the program and registration (it’s only $45 for guests for a program featuring some of the worlds most prominent futurists) You…
Read More >I join Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin radio where we continue our discussion about the future of sex. We consider three main areas in this session – smart phone applications; remote relationships and the combination of haptics and holographics as one the emerging means by which we’ll maintain physical contact. You can download the…
Read More >In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on radio ABC Darwin we discuss the future of sex. This is the first of potentially three conversations where we look at the increasing reach of technology way beyond current online match making sites, the social pressures driving the use of technology as well as the use of technology…
Read More >There’s been a bit of discussion in recent months about a softening housing market around Australia but I wonder how much of it is more indicative of unrealistic expectations on behalf of sellers? In futures work we think in terms of Assumptions and Expectations and aim to test our understanding and so I offer this…
Read More >Unfortunately it looks like my main email address has been hijacked and has been used to send out a series of spam emails. I’d like to apologise to anyone who has received some junk email purporting to come from ‘desiredfutures’ with a series of html links asking you to go and have a look. You…
Read More >Given the amount of plastic swimming in our oceans and rivers and the volume littering our land, the NT Government is aiming to introduce compulsory returns legislation on soft-drink bottles (as happens in South Australia), something that has apparently raised the ire of bottler, Coca Cola. Although they’ve recently backed away from their initial statement…
Read More >Deciphering the hype from reality with regard to drug use can be a challenge for most of us. Professor David Nutt in the UK has given me permission to post a link to the paper he has co-authored with Ruth Weissenborn that looks at the reality of a comparison of harm caused by two common…
Read More >Vicki Kerrigan and I finished off our discussion about the Future of Clothing on ABC Darwin yesterday. We discussed invisibility style cloaks, singlets that monitor your heart rate and stress levels, runners that capture electricity to power your wearable electronics and a few philosophical questions regarding our ability to deal with stress. The file…
Read More >