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Yeah, we have a big problem with this kind of thing in Australia - a lot of legislation is being written in more and more vague terms, with more and more things

Yeah, we have a big problem with this kind of thing in Australia - a lot of legislation is being written in more and more vague terms, with more and more things delegated either to the cabinet ministers or (as in this case) unelected bureaucrats to make decisions. More and more laws have the fuzzy kind of "oh, also anything else that we feel like it applies, we'll know it when we see it" kind of clause in their definitions. The problem is that apart from making for literally just bad laws, it's actually moving away from the principle of "the rule of law" into more and more arbitrary territory - and this isn't just in areas like this, but things like but energy policy, awarding of grants, etc. More and more, Government tenders go as "preferred tenders" rather than open/competitive tenders, and there's just been a big scandal about over a billion dollars of grant programs (in sports, commuter car parks, regional development, etc.) being used around the last election specifically targeted to seats held by the party or marginal seats they wanted to win - with no merit based procedures being followed. But many people might have missed the whole thing, if they mostly only read News Ltd. papers (70% of readership) or watch Sky News here, which curiously didn't report on it... It's really a big mess, everything seems to be getting more and more corrupted...

chrismorgan 5y ago
On the other hand, if you try to be too specific about things like this, people will work around the legislation. In the EU, GDPR is deliberately rather vague in some areas because otherwise the whole thing would have been rendered useless. (Mind you, I think this one is probably too vague, because it leaves a vast range of possible interpretations open and really does say just about nothing about what will actually be required.)
Barrin92 5y ago
>a lot of legislation is being written in more and more vague terms, with more and more things delegated either to the cabinet ministers or (as in this case) unelected bureaucrats to make decisions. not necessarily a bad thing. Has somewhat of a democratic deficit, but these days in most countries the quality of legislators is horrid while most independent bureaucratic institutions are still relatively competent. who'd you want to write anti-trust legislation in the US, Lina Khan or Diane Feinstein? The political institutions in many countries are basically decomposing compared to the technical and administrative ones.
- stephen_g 5y ago
  Our executive and legislature is combined in Australia (the cabinet is made up of members of the House of Representatives or senators from the party with the majority) and our public service (which cabinet ministers oversee in their portfolios) used to be really good and fiercely independent but has been increasingly politicised (especially over the last six or seven years, given the party in power) so not so much here.

chrismorgan 5y ago

On the other hand, if you try to be too specific about things like this, people will work around the legislation. In the EU, GDPR is deliberately rather vague in some areas because otherwise the whole thing would have been rendered useless. (Mind you, I think this one is probably too vague, because it leaves a vast range of possible interpretations open and really does say just about nothing about what will actually be required.)

Barrin92 5y ago

>a lot of legislation is being written in more and more vague terms, with more and more things delegated either to the cabinet ministers or (as in this case) unelected bureaucrats to make decisions. not necessarily a bad thing. Has somewhat of a democratic deficit, but these days in most countries the quality of legislators is horrid while most independent bureaucratic institutions are still relatively competent. who'd you want to write anti-trust legislation in the US, Lina Khan or Diane Feinstein? The political institutions in many countries are basically decomposing compared to the technical and administrative ones.

stephen_g 5y ago
Our executive and legislature is combined in Australia (the cabinet is made up of members of the House of Representatives or senators from the party with the majority) and our public service (which cabinet ministers oversee in their portfolios) used to be really good and fiercely independent but has been increasingly politicised (especially over the last six or seven years, given the party in power) so not so much here.