NSW is following Victoria’s lead and mandating minimum skills training for firefighters. It seems NSW has learned nothing from Victoria’s experience and will have no recognition of prior learning, forcing highly experienced firefighters to do the course and sit the test.
A NSW firefighter has written to the Land newspaper about these new regs and has managed to encapsulate in a couple of sentences exactly what is wrong with all these regulations.
“Something has subtly shifted. Instead of “our” brigade, it has begun to feel like “their” brigade. Bureaucracy is toxic to the volunteer spirit that has shaped bushfire brigades around Australia.”
The same can be said of food handling requirements for CWA and Red Cross ladies, much of the Working with Children regulation and the never-ending growth in police checks. No wonder more and more volunteers won’t take on leadership roles, get burnt out or just quietly retreat.
This afternoon I was a guest on the Counterpoint program on Radio National.
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Sometimes regulation is not the answer
At last, research that investigates whether some car safety regulations are worth it. The guys at Freakonomics have examined the available evidence to see if car seats for children aged 2-6 work better than seatbelts and found they didn’t. They went further and looked at those booster seat things for kids up to 10 and found they might actually cause more harm than good. Thanks to Andrew Leigh of Imagining Australia for the pointer.
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Compare and Contrast …
Over at Slashfood today I learned that to become a licensed food handler in Oregon you can take an online course. By contrast, where I live you have to attend a food handling course to become something called a food safety supervisor. Why can’t we learn online like Oregon? Are there any stats out there anywhere to show Oregon, USA has a worse record of public food poisoning than Victoria, Australia? Also, all organisations, including charity street stalls, have to have something called a Food Safety Program.
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Roquefort Cheese
The ten year ban on importation of Roquefort cheese to Australia is being lifted.
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Regulation, Rural Communities | Louise Monday, June 1, 2009 | 
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