NZCPR Weekly: Replacing Damaging Regulations

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look into the damage caused by over-the-top regulations - including meth testing and the ban on fireplaces and wood burners, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Mike Butler investigates the methamphetamine testing scandal, and our poll asks whether you believe there should be a greater requirement for law makers to produce evidence-based research before passing new laws and regulations.

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Pat Palmer: The bureaucratic beat-up on home fires and wood burners

In 2007 the Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand report (HAPiNZ) from the Ministry for the Environment estimated that fine particles (PM10) in the air in New Zealand caused 1,170 premature deaths each year. 

This estimate was based on an epidemiological study from Europe and assumed that PM10 from all sources - blast furnaces, diesel trucks, petrochemical industries, or from your toaster - are all equally toxic. Most PM10 in the New Zealand air has been fairly reliably measured as coming from home fires.