Of course, knowing Sue Bradford’s history, it is much more likely that she considers her non-arrest to be a negative, rather than a positive. After all, “Ex-MP arrested at National Conference protest” would have been a very useful headline indeed.

Although I don’t expect subtle debate at such a protest, the level of responses given to interviewers can only be described as abysmal. Bradford could muster little more than that the proposed law changes were an “attack on workers”. Matt McCarten was more hyperbolic, declaring than Key was waging “a war on workers”. Neither seemed to be able to elaborate on these fantastical statements. Least you think the media were just selectively reporting soundbites, at least one interviewer tried to get something more intelligent:

Asked if the changes were necessary to stimulate job growth in a tough financial climate, Mr McCarten said that was “bullsh**”.

Such a powerful argument. But McCarten’s garbled rhetoric continues:

He said the Government’s changes were about restoring power to employers and they amounted to a return to the Feudal System.

“They want to make us slaves in our own country and they know where they can stick that,” Mr McCarten said.

Say what? A return to the Feudal System? Is he serious? Does he know anything about the feudal system and slavery? All Key is proposing is that larger firms are offfered the opportunity to take on workers at lower risk to themselves. Can he not see that this means that people can be given the chance of employment that they may not have had?Only an idiot would think that employers would use such a rule to circumvent the ERA. A 90-day turnover of staff would be massively disruptive even in the low-wage section of the service industry. Even MacDonalds would find it too disruptive.

Sadly, McCarten’s bizarre remarks are amongst the more “sensible” ones. John Minto’s contribution is to insult John Key, by comparing his face to a rat’s. Mr. Minto, of course, is not noted for rational argument. Maxine Gay had this gem:

Maxine Gay from the National Distribution Union said the issue was about “who owns the workplace”.

She said denying workers the right to choose who to invite into their workplace “amounts to slavery”.

I am unable to follow this bit of illogical nonsense at all. Adam at the Inquiring Mind has a similar problem.  The person who owns the workplace is clearly the employer and s/he has the perfect right to refuse entry to anyone s/he likes. How is this in any way slavery? It is not as if the owner of the workplace chains up his workers and has overseers whipping them. It is not even as if the business owner refuses to let their employers join a union.

Helen Kelly, National President of the Council of Trade Unions, attempts to suggest that people are being dismissed during their 90-day probation because they join a union or raise workplace safety concerns. She produces no evidence for this assertion. This seems wildly unlikely to me. After all, there is nothing to stop someone from joining a union 10 minutes after the 90-day period ends, so I can’t see any advantage to the employer in firing someone for this reason. Only a very stupid person would think that this would produce an un-unionised workplace. As for the latter – that raising workplace safety concerns might get you fired – I have the same observation. There is nothing to stop the employee raising this at day 91. I also fail to see how the workplace safety problem, so obvious that a 90-day probationer can spot it, has not been brought up by regular employees.

Ms. Kelly goes on:

she said 22 per cent of those employed under the existing 90-day scheme were dismissed and 47 per cent of those were people under the age of 23.

She fails to mention that 40% of employers who have used the 90-day probation provision would not have employed that person without that safety measure. The high rate of dismissal therefore suggests that this provision is working, especially the very high rate of dismissal of young people, a group that employers are notoriously reluctant to employ – with good reason. Ms Kelly bewails the fate of the dismissed saying:

she had seen many of these young people in her offices and the “impact was devastating”.

“They have no idea what happened.”

While I sympathise with young folk who are dismissed in this way, at least they have had an opportunity to try something. That something did not work out. Now they should try something else. And I suspect that most employers would be happy to tell people why they are being dismissed, if they ask. But then they would not be able to portray themselves as victims, as Ms. Kelly is so willing to do.

A point often overlooked about the 90-day probation is that the reason for dismissal is not recorded on a person’s work record. A young person who may initially have a bit of a problem with authority, or the concept of normal work hours, is given the opportunity to correct these behaviours without attracting a very negative work record. Of course, this is not a “get out of jail free” card, as a string of 90-day dismissals would speak just as loudly. But at least a young and inexperienced worker does not have to get things right the first time round.

I don’t expect that any of my points above will carry much weight with the persons who took part in this violent protest today. Unions have proven time and again that they prefer disinformation and disruption to discussion and debate.

Related posts:

1. Another ACC Myth
2. Yes, Baas
3. Big Bullies

It is therefore my opinion that Russell Norman was lucky.

Firstly, he was lucky that no New Zealand police officer saw fit to move him back to where the rest of the protestors were standing (the ones the media did not focus on!). Yes, I know he is an MP and leader of the third biggest party in parliament, but he was clearly not there in that capacity. He was there as a protestor and should not have been allowed so close to the Chinese Vice-President. Of course, any police officer who moved him back would have spent the next several years in an inquiry, despite that being the correct call. Norman is most welcome to make all the protests he wants (and I have some sympathy with him on Tibet) but he should not have been granted any special privileges simply because he is an MP.

I suspect that this is a large part of the reason why the police are so reluctant to prosecute, despite a pretty cut and dried case against the Chinese. It is the police’s poor decision making around MPs that has lead to this media opportunity for Russell Norman. It is much easier just to let this blow over than to run an embarrassing inquiry into poor police procedure. Perhaps this wasn’t so much luck as a knowledge of the way the police pussy-foot around politicians.

Norman is certainly lucky in another way, however. He is lucky the Chinese were so restrained. All he received was a bit of jostling and a scraped hand . It is clear from the first parts of the video (which the TV studios have now cunningly edited out ), that Norman determinedly approached Xi shouting “Free Tibet” and pushed his way passed the guards twice before the final scuffle. Consider if this had been Obama. Had Norman approached him waving an Afghanistan flag, shouting “Long live the Taliban” (not so far-fetched) and attempted to force his way past the bodyguards, can there be any doubt that the guards would have flattened him? Instead of the undignified sight of Norman petulantly crying “give me my flag back”, we may have seen him twitching on the ground from a Taser shot or, worse, dying on parliament’s steps with several gunshot wounds in him. Now that would have put a dent in our relationship with the US.

Instead, Norman gets major media exposure, embarrasses the government and gets to act all aggrieved and outraged at the cost of a little dignity and a scraped knuckle.

Is that not lucky indeed?

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A massive 50% increase in the excise tax on alcohol. This would result in an extra $500 million of revenue to the Crown at the expense of everyone who drinks.

Banning the sale of liquor at off licenses after 10 pm. So if you pop into New World at 10.30 pm to do your shopping (which I often do), you won’t be able to buy a bottle of wine.

Forcing bars and nightclubs to refuse to allow people to enter after 2 am.

A nationwide closing time for all outlets, probably at 4 am.

An increase in the purchase age for alcohol from 18 to 20, criminalising 130,000 18 and 19 year olds if they buy alcohol.

Apparently the report runs to over 500 pages. Presumably because they have to use big print so that politicians can understand it.

MacDoctor has a far simpler proposal.

Firstly, while Bill English may like the idea of a 50% increase in alcohol taxes, he should seriously consider an increase of 300% on RTDs. Ready-To-Drink mixes are the equivalent of Pina Coladas to tourists. Fun, easy to drink and dangerous. Kids will still get drunk if they can’t afford them, but at least they will know that they are drinking real alcohol, not a fizzy drink.

But that is not the proposal.

The real proposal is that all liquor outlets (bars, restaurants, supermarkets, liquor stores) have a mandatory breathalyzer test for anyone buying alcohol. If you blow more than 0.08%, it is illegal to sell you more alcohol. You are welcome to buy more alcohol before you are drunk, with the sole intention of becoming wasted, but no-one will sell you alcohol after you reach the magic limit. In addition, it will be illegal to supply anyone with alcohol after they reach 0.08%. If you are caught supplying liquor to such a person, the cop will check the BAC of the receiver and then arrest you, if the level is more than 0.08%.

Why 0.08%? No particular reason. I just want to take away the fuzziness of the current “illegal to serve intoxicated persons” law and make it concrete. Yes, there will be some at 0.08% who are in considerably better shape than someone else with a BAC of 0.05%, but that’s just tough. Most people at below 0.08% will still be reasonably sober.

No need to close bars early or cut off aisles in the supermarket. No need to raise the drinking age. Just make sure that the current laws are followed by making the limit concrete.

Just let me know before you decide to make this law, so I can buy shares in a portable breathalyzer manufacturer.

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This is in keeping with what we know about neurophysiology. The frontal lobe of the brain starts to develop at around 16 years of age and is only fully developed by about age 23 (age 20 in girls). This is the area of the brain in which we assess risk, so it is hardly surprising that a 16-year-old boy makes reckless decisions. Medically speaking we should probably be extending the driving age to around 25, but this is not particularly practical.

Most parts of Australia now have graduated licenses that start at age 17 or 18. It should come as no surprise that Australia has about 60% of our youth fatality rate per kilometer driven. That is more that a third less teenagers slaughtered on our roads. New Jersey has had a graduated license system since 2001 offering a restricted license from age 17 for a minimum of a year (full license from 18 years). The fatal accident rate for 16-year-olds has halved and there have been substantial reductions in 17 and 18-year -old fatalities. Clearly the system works.

Interestingly, the increase in the driving age, somewhat immobilising 16 and 17-year-olds, has also been shown to reduced drug and alcohol use in these age groups, as an added side benefit. So when you hear 15-year-olds arguing that their freedom is being trampled on by raising the driving age, just remember that the freedom they are talking about is the one that entitles them to get slammed out of their minds on a Friday night and then wrap their car around a tree at high speed.

My idea of fun does not encompass digging bark out of the skull of a teenager in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Mr. Joyce should have ignored the ill-informed twitterings of Federated Farmers and raised the driving age immediately to 17. He will now have to engage in the same battle in a couple of years time, when it becomes crystal clear that this is what he should have done the first time.

Some journal references (sorry, only links to abstracts)

Voas, Robert and Kelley-Baker, Tara(2008) ‘Licensing Teenagers: Nontraffic Risks and Benefits in the Transition to Driving Status’, Traffic Injury Prevention, 9: 2, 89 — 97

McCartt, Anne T. , Mayhew, Daniel R. , Braitman, Keli A. , Ferguson, Susan A. andSimpson, Herbert M.(2009) ‘Effects of Age and Experience on Young Driver Crashes: Review of Recent Literature’, Traffic Injury Prevention, 10: 3, 209 — 219

Williams, Allan F. , Chaudhary, Neil K. , Tefft, Brian C. andTison, Julie(2010) ‘Evaluation of New Jersey’s Graduated Driver Licensing Program’, Traffic Injury Prevention, 11: 1, 1 — 7

Williams, Allan F.(2009) ‘Licensing Age and Teenage Driver Crashes: A Review of the Evidence’, Traffic Injury Prevention, 10: 1, 9 — 15

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The point is that the effect of alcohol is fairly linear. In fact, there is evidence that the largest deterioration in performance occurs at quite low levels of intoxication (0.01-0.03%) but this does not initially translate into increased accidents (One assumes that the deterioration – although large proportionately – is still not enough to cause a noticeable increase in risk). Because the increase in risk is quite linear, it follows that the setting of  a new BAC at 0.05% is entirely arbitrary. Indeed, the Japanese have shown that dropping the limit from 0.05% 0.03% produces a significant drop in accident and fatality statistics. It will therefore not be long after a drop to 0.05% that people (particularly ED doctors who bear the brunt of traffic accident injuries) will be calling for a further drop. It is not logical to go to all this trouble to fix the legal BAC at yet another arbitrary limit. There is no “safe” level of drink driving.

Worse still, the problem is actually not the amount of alcohol in your blood stream, but the degree of impairment when you drive. While there is statistical correlation between accidents and alcohol, alcohol is by no means the only reason why a person may be driving-impaired. Cannabis intake markedly increases driving impairment, as do most of the sedative and psychotrophic drugs. Some normally benign drugs increase drowsiness and decrease driving ability in the presence of a small amount of alcohol. Even individuals with the same levels of blood alcohol will have differing levels of impairment, depending on their ability to compensate for alcohol intoxication (but note that the reaction time of said individuals is still reduced to the same extent – they are just better at compensating for it).

The point here is that an arbitrary limit for alcohol intoxication is inadequate for determining whether someone is safe to drive. Even at a zero level of alcohol, other drugs may make the driver decidedly dodgy behind a wheel. It is also doubtful that any movement of the BAC limit, even to zero, will make any difference to the kind of people who get behind the wheel of a car with a BAC 0f 0.18%. As I have posted before, the only solution to that kind of fool is to change the current drink driving laws from a minor punishment to a draconian deterrent.

MacDoctor has a somewhat radical suggestion. Let us scrap the legal limit for alcohol altogether. Instead, we should substitute a legal requirement to be “fit to drive”. Should you be stopped at a police checkpoint and the cop has any reason to believe you may be impaired in your ability to drive (including checking your breath alcohol), he can insist that you take a “fit to drive” test. Failure (to take or pass the test) will get you arrested. The test could be administered using driving simulators in the back of a police van (basic tests administered by cops – such as walking a straight line – are simply too imprecise).

The advantage of a “fit to drive” test is that it catches all the impaired drivers, not just the ones impaired by excessive alcohol. It also avoids the problem of the margin where the person with the BAC of 0.052% is carted off to jail, despite being only mildly impaired, and the person with the BAC of 0.048% is let go, despite being high on cannabis and a liability on the road. It also standardises the drug tests that the new drug driving laws propose – making them considerably more objective. It will also prevent people from using portable breathalysers so that they can drink “to the limit” regardless of how capable they are of driving.

Some capital investment on the machines to test people will have to be made. I suspect you will find that the investment will be recuperated in reduced hospitalisations alone, let along the enormous ACC rehabilitation bill that drink-and-drug-driving causes each year. All that it requires is the political will to step away from conventional thinking and try an new approach.

Are you reading this, Mr. Joyce?

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