Caleb Bond: If you want something sensible muddled, ask the government

A boatie has been grounded because some bureaucrat reckons kayak oars are different from dinghy oars. It makes you weep, says Caleb Bond.

If you want something to never be done, just give it to a government.

You’ll have to pay through the nose for the privilege but at least you can get a warm, fuzzy feeling from knowing you’ve helped employ someone who wouldn’t cut the mustard in the private sector.

Poor old boatie John Peek discovered this after floating his tiny dinghy in the Myponga Reservoir.

See, there’s a sign that says you can only launch kayaks and canoes into the water. End of discussion.

So some overly officious sod at SA Water saw Mr Peek out in his 2.2m dinghy – hardly a monster – and decided to tell him to scram.

He wasn’t motoring along with an outboard motor, churning up all the sediment below – he was rowing along with oars. How this could be any more disruptive to the reservoir than a kayak or canoe is beyond me. But the sign says you can’t do it and we’ve paid someone handsomely to enforce the rules, so that’s that.

John Peek says he has been mistreated by faceless bureaucrats after a tribunal ruled that he would not be able to launch his dinghy on the Myponga Reservoir. Picture Matt Turner.

Myponga Reservoir

He tried to challenge this through the SA Civil and Administrative Tribunal but it found there was little chance of his case succeeding because, again, them’s the rules and there’s no way a government outfit like SA Water would understand flexibility or common sense.

There are some stories that just make you put your head in your hands and despair for the state of the world. This is one of them.

Let the bloke row his bloody dinghy. There is no legitimate reason to prevent him doing so if the concern is water quality. In fact, you’re less likely to tip over in a dinghy than a kayak, thus ensuring you don’t churn up dirt.

Why is it that you can see what ought to be done, I can see what ought to be done, yet the people we pay with our taxes to deal with these issues are seemingly oblivious?

It’s not like this is a rare case. Remember the treehouse in Seaview Downs that Marion Council ordered be removed, only to say it would work with the homeowner to ensure all development rules were met and the treehouse could stay?

Then the council sent them an enforcement notice anyway threatening a $20,000 fine.

Or when, in December 2020, planeloads of people who arrived in Adelaide – half a day before the border was shut to Sydney – were told they had to go back or quarantine for 14 days despite the rules not having come into effect?

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens put that down to a communication error. That was an error that stopped people seeing their families for Christmas.

Over in Sydney’s west, raising the wall of the Warragamba Dam – which has again burst its banks and caused the fifth flood in two years – was suggested nearly 30 years ago, but the federal government is still waiting on environmental assessments for the project.

Sadly, given the way bureaucracy is designed, it doesn’t matter how much we complain.

Nothing will change because the bureaucracy itself would have to change it.

Yes Minister was meant to be a comedy, not a how-to guide.