Dr Eric Crampton: Adventures in consumer protection

We all know we need to be prepared if we’re going to Australia.

Brisbane has spiders the size of dinner plates. One, perched a foot above our heads, woke us by scratching at the wall.

It was not pleasant, but at least the large ones are mostly harmless.

It’s the small spiders that will kill you. And the snakes. And the rival gangs that firebomb each other’s illicit tobacco and illicit vape retail outlets. Australia forgot that prohibitionist approaches have predictable consequences.

Patrick Carroll: Why Product Safety Regulations Should Be Scrapped

Consumer protection laws may be well-intended, but they have dangerous side effects.

A common objection to unfettered capitalism is that, left to their own devices, greedy industrialists would cut corners with product safety, resulting in tremendous harm to consumers. Dangerous products would flood the market, leading to a dystopia of preventable death and destruction.

Point of Order: Mahuta is back in the swim....

......with a Bill to spare us from sinking in water-supply costs

The government hadn’t done with legislating and regulating our water-supply systems, when we last reported on the flow of announcements from the Beehive.

Nanaia Mahuta (in tandem with Commerce and Communications Minister David Clark) had one more press statement to issue –