Mood:
d'ohTopic: legal
We noticed 'the freedom party' candidate in Australian Big Media aka Miranda Devine tub thumping recently:
Nanny state helps to drown us in our own stupidity October 22, 2009Well as Forest Gump might say, stupid is as stupid does/writes, eh Ms Devine?
We have vague recollections of writing a legal briefing note on the original pool legislation in NSW in the early 1990ies. We suspect it may have been for the Environmental Defenders Office at the time, as we sniffed around which green group we might contribute the most.
Here is the current Act here:
And then we saw this above last weekend, picture taken today - and yes that is a childrens play slide about 5 metres from an unfenced/broken fence pool, albeit raised off the ground. And yes that is the open driveway from the street at left foreground theoretically accessible to neighbourhood kids.
We were hurried along by an occupier so we don't know if it was filled with water or not. Nor did we see any children nearby. A week earlier in another location we drove along a street in the Hawkesbury at 7 am on a Monday, street quite empty, and we noticed a 3 year old healthy happy child wandering the street alone complete with grubby barefeet and coloured pencils in one hand.
Suffice to say with the help of a local taxi driver - including brief report via taxi radio to the local coppers - we encouraged this brave little adventurer who apparently woke up with the early sunlight to go home quick smart . An old lady sweeping her front told this writer she had noticed this wandering angel several times and that "It's dangerous".
Get it? The reality of unsupervised kids and unfenced pools?
If the pool legislation saves only one child from drowning - will it be worth it? Probably.
We also noticed another property frontage in the local 'hood, we think 'freedom loving' Ms Devine would feel quite at home
