This rates among the more bemusing headlines to attract the attention of the PoO team this week:
We followed the link to learn:
It will soon be legal to get trim milk in Wellington, and Dunedin fish mongers will soon be able to legally sell their catch. And yes, it’s been illegal (technically) to do both those things for more than 100 years.
These two often-broken laws are set to be repealed as part of a sweeping cull of the statute books, Attorney-General Chris Bishop announced on Tuesday.
Glenn McConnell explained that it has been illegal to sell “skimmed milk” and “adulterated” milk in the capital since 1919. Anyone caught selling skim milk and adulterated milk could be fined $20.
Wellington City Council had the job of policing milk sales and issuing milk licences.
And presumably the sellers of trim milk have not known about their misdemeanours because fines have not been imposed for decades.
McConnell goes on:
The strange law, which applies only to Wellington, was passed in 1919 during a time of heated competition between dairy farmers and factories in Wellington.
The closest dairy factory is now in Pahiatua.
The absurdity seems to have come to light as a consequence of the Wellington City Council facing a legal battle to enforce the Wellington City Milk Supply Act in 2021.
Local lawyer Tyrone‑Jay Barugh applied for a milk supply license under the act.
The licence would have made him the only legal distributor of milk in the region, but the council wouldn’t grant it because it hadn’t granted milk licenses for decades.
Rather than have the matter sorted out in court, Barugh and the council reached an agreement to lobby the Government to repeal the unused law.
Chris Bishop has agreed and included the act in a list of 152 other pieces of legislation which he intends to remove from the statue books.
“We’ve got layer upon layer of legislation dating back more than 150 years – a legal lasagne, if you will,” he said.
And:
“New Zealand’s statute book is full of fascinating relics from another era.
“Some are historically important. Some are genuinely bizarre. And quite a few are technically still in force despite almost nobody realising they still exist,” he said.
The Dunedin City Fish Markets And Empowering Act 1918 is another of the fascinating relics from another era. It requires that all fish sold and displayed in Dunedin be first inspected by the council’s fish market inspector.
The Dunedin City Council has yet to respond to Stuff’s question about whether it still employs a fish market inspector.
Anyone caught displaying or selling a fish, which had not been inspected by the fish market inspector could be fined $40.
The only concern raised by the PoO team about Bishop’s intentions is whether further legislative mischief might be done.
Legalising sales of trimmed milk sounds sensible only insofar as it allows the people of Wellington to do with skimmed milk the same as can be done to skimmed milk anywhere else in New Zealand.
But a case can be made for arguing that the best thing to be done with skimmed milk is to tip it down the drain (although the environmental implications need considering).
According to this school of thought, the law should demand that skim milk be sold as something else – coloured water, perhaps – because the goodies that made it milk have been removed.
Similar thinking should apply to oat milk, almond milk, and all the other milks that come from things without mammary glands.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
Wellington City Council had the job of policing milk sales and issuing milk licences.
And presumably the sellers of trim milk have not known about their misdemeanours because fines have not been imposed for decades.
McConnell goes on:
The strange law, which applies only to Wellington, was passed in 1919 during a time of heated competition between dairy farmers and factories in Wellington.
The closest dairy factory is now in Pahiatua.
The absurdity seems to have come to light as a consequence of the Wellington City Council facing a legal battle to enforce the Wellington City Milk Supply Act in 2021.
Local lawyer Tyrone‑Jay Barugh applied for a milk supply license under the act.
The licence would have made him the only legal distributor of milk in the region, but the council wouldn’t grant it because it hadn’t granted milk licenses for decades.
Rather than have the matter sorted out in court, Barugh and the council reached an agreement to lobby the Government to repeal the unused law.
Chris Bishop has agreed and included the act in a list of 152 other pieces of legislation which he intends to remove from the statue books.
“We’ve got layer upon layer of legislation dating back more than 150 years – a legal lasagne, if you will,” he said.
And:
“New Zealand’s statute book is full of fascinating relics from another era.
“Some are historically important. Some are genuinely bizarre. And quite a few are technically still in force despite almost nobody realising they still exist,” he said.
The Dunedin City Fish Markets And Empowering Act 1918 is another of the fascinating relics from another era. It requires that all fish sold and displayed in Dunedin be first inspected by the council’s fish market inspector.
The Dunedin City Council has yet to respond to Stuff’s question about whether it still employs a fish market inspector.
Anyone caught displaying or selling a fish, which had not been inspected by the fish market inspector could be fined $40.
The only concern raised by the PoO team about Bishop’s intentions is whether further legislative mischief might be done.
Legalising sales of trimmed milk sounds sensible only insofar as it allows the people of Wellington to do with skimmed milk the same as can be done to skimmed milk anywhere else in New Zealand.
But a case can be made for arguing that the best thing to be done with skimmed milk is to tip it down the drain (although the environmental implications need considering).
According to this school of thought, the law should demand that skim milk be sold as something else – coloured water, perhaps – because the goodies that made it milk have been removed.
Similar thinking should apply to oat milk, almond milk, and all the other milks that come from things without mammary glands.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
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