Don’t you think that if we had small children and a swimming pool, that we might think to put a fence around the pool ourselves?
Have you ever noticed how laws are made in this country? It goes like this... something happens, usually something not very nice – an accident or something and a whole new law is made because of it. Then something else happens and another law is made until there are so many laws that they all contradict each other. Plus you’ll notice, these laws are all very ‘convenient’ and someone always benefits – imagine how the pool fencing people felt when the compulsory pool fence law came in? Whoopee! Unless of course you have an older pool, and then you are quite free to drown in it.
I have known sad situations where children have drowned because of pool fences, or, at least a reliance on them. But did they reverse the rule? No, not convenient. But what does this law say about us? About parents?About our level of responsibility? That we are all stupid? That we don’t protect our children properly? That we don’t recognise a danger when we see one? These laws say all of these things – so thank you law makers for those compliments.
Don’t you think that if we had small children and a swimming pool, that we might think to put a fence around the pool ourselves? Why are you involved? And are you the same people that put play equipment around unfenced lakes? Take Lake Jualbup for instance... no fence there (no, no, no please don’t!). Is it still ok for us to take our children to the beach? Isn’t it dangerous with all that water and no fence? What about the annual fair at UWA? Loads of children there running around the Winthrop Hall Pond having fun. No fence there.
And what about all these people that have no children anywhere around them, but still have to have a pool fence? Do Mr and Mrs Citizen with no children around have to spend a fortune to protect someone else’s child? Why? Oh yes, that old chestnut about children wandering down the road, into your front garden, down the side of the house and into the pool. They might also be run over by a truck, but do we ban trucks? No. Not convenient.
It is quite ridiculous to make a new law every time an accident happens, or even a deliberate act by some unstable person, come to that. Stuff happens in life, and yes sure we should learn from those things, and be alert to the possibilities, but this series of debilitating and expensive laws should be abandoned and every individual be given back a sense of responsibility and ownership, otherwise we will all end up to be a nation of lobotomized robots living in a hideously restrictive and horribly engineered environment.