Worzels World - The Art of Compliance

 

We live in the age of regulation. New laws pour fourth from parlia-ment like holiday season effluent from wastewa-ter plants. I am sure that even the most morally scrupulous break sev-en laws a day; they just don't know it, and with any luck, no-body else does either. The prob-lem is there are too many trained in such things, usually at the public's ex-pense. These surrogate police require 'compli-ance’.

If a motivated fellow gets a rush of enthusiasm and wishes to do some-thing he must first make application to the appro-priate authority. They will furnish the appli-cant with a comprehen-sive list detailing why it shouldn’t be done along with advice on the vast swath of legislation out-

lining the myriad ways he is prohibited from doing it. Should an indi-vidual be foolish enough to persist further he will be issued, after payment of a suitably extortionate fee, with a consent to do something substantially different from what he wanted to do in the first place.

We have an army of hopelessly inefficient but mercenary bureau-crats paid to advise oth-ers about what they can-not do themselves. We must do as they say, not as they do.

There are many rea-sons or perhaps excuses for this. It is done in the name of safety or of pro-tecting the environment or some other unquanti-fiable pretext. Yet those who issue the consents, make the regulations, give the licences and

charge the fees do not accept any responsibility for their actions and ad-vice.

When CYFS takes a child with a few prob-lems from slightly dys-functional parents and turns that child into a disaffected sociopath, what responsibility do they take?

After Auckland Coun-

cil issued permits, col-lected fees and signed off building consents the consented homes leaked. Did the Council make good their mistakes?

When Transport

New Zealand mistaken-ly diverted both North and South-going traf-fic through the Waipu Gorge did they pay for the tow trucks and panel beaters that were the in-

evitable result of such an error?

When Kaipara District Council builds a waste-water system to clean up the harbour and the har-bour gets dirtier do they refund the money?

No, none of these things happen. If you write a well thought out letter you may get an apology and a promise of

further training or even a review of procedure. But only if you’re lucky.

So how do we com-ply with such stupidity? There are several ways. The first and most popu-lar is simply to avoid do-ing anything. If you do nothing you need not comply with anything. An excellent example

of this strategy is a fel-low I know who was di-

agnosed with 'mental

health issues'. This diag-nosis was made because he did things. Some of those things were deemed to be the actions of someone not of sound mind. The state now pays for his food and his flat. A counsellor visits him regularly and he is pro-vided with an ample sup-ply of prescription medi-

cation that ensures he will never actually do an-ything again. I can refer-ence him here as I know he will not read it.

I have considered this fairly attractive option myself but I find doing nothing very difficult. Writing this column is about as close as I get to it. It conflicts with my hy-peractivity disorder.

A far more productive

approach though is a lit-tle trickier. It consists of filling in all the appropri-ate forms, ticking all the necessary boxes, paying the required fees, listen-ing to the proffered ad-vice and being appraised of existing rules, regula-tions and requirements. After engaging in this process you can then go and do it your way with-out telling anyone. This method has worked in Maungaturoto for over a hundred years and is also popular elsewhere but it can lead to prob-lems when our coun-tries ever-expanding bu-reaucracy and increasing surveillance capacity de-tects that you have in-stalled an unpermitted shed or burnt some rub-bish during a fire ban even though you'd got 20 mils of rain the previous night.

And goodness knows what trouble you'd be in if OSH caught you mounting trestles with-out scaffolding or CYFS knew you smacked a naughty child.

There are also those

who choose to eschew the Art of Compliance completely and, raising a stiff middle finger, disre-gard it all. They go their own way. Some prosper, others end up like my mental mate doing nothing with food and accommodation provid-ed. They don't even have to do their own laundry. It’s just a shame about the iron bars spoiling the view.

As the state rewards those who do nothing and penalise those who do something, I have re-solved to do nothing out-side of what is necessary to stay alive and to meet the various commit-ments that I have made to others in moments of weakness. Looks like I'll be pretty busy. As for compliance, I reckon I'll just do the best I can and hope she'll be right. „ prof_worzel@ hotmail.com