Freedom curtailed for residents with wristbands
Festival wristbands are chafing, but shouldn’t be an itch on your freedom.
By David Leyonhjelm | Newcastle Herald
November 23, 2017
The freedom to come and go as you please, and particularly to enter your own home, is undoubtedly a right that no government can justifiably curtail. Yet that is exactly what Newcastle City Council has done to the residents of Newcastle East this week.
As of Friday, these residents will be virtually trapped in their homes for three days straight. If they want to leave (and many may do, given the Newcastle 500 Supercars race is expected to reach noise levels in excess of 84 decibels in some areas) they will only be permitted back into their homes if they are wearing an official identity wristband.
These wristbands may be familiar to young folk who have been to music festivals, but being required to wear a wristband in order to enter your home is another thing entirely. Aside from the fact that it is serious imposition, it is conceivable some might find they have nowhere to live until the event is over if they inadvertently leave the area without their wristband. Given the age of some of the residents, this is not a trivial concern. Yet the residents have been told the wristbands are for their own benefit, to ensure their safety.
It seems barely a week passes without a politician or bureaucrat trumpeting a new crackdown, ban or tax. Regulate first, ask questions later and with every new rule our personal freedom gets a bit smaller. This year in Parliament I have spoken against multiple bills that seek to dictate what people can or can’t do with their property.
Globally, Airbnb has just passed four million listings, more than the rooms of the top five hotel brands worldwide. Yet vested interests ranging from the all-powerful Australian Hotels Association to mere body corporates are lobbying governments to place restrictions and levies on homestay schemes, effectively dictating what a home-owner may do within the confines of their four walls. Needless to say, the government will always ensure it gets a cut through yet another tax.
Last week I spoke against the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Tax Integrity) Bill that will force non-Australians to pay a tax on their residential property if they can’t prove it is genuinely occupied or available for rent for at least six months in a year. And then there is the ongoing harassment of ride share providers, who dare use their private cars to transport people around more comfortably and at less expense than government-regulated taxis.
Protection of property rights is the single most important function of any government, and yet governments are constantly chipping away at them. The notion that we only relinquish a limited amount of our liberty in order to create a government that protects our lives, liberty and property has been lost.
It’s only when we look back that we realise how many restrictions on our liberty, from the petty to the great, have been foisted upon us by stealth. As the story goes, if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out, but if the pot begins with cold water the frog won’t notice a gradual increase and will eventually boil alive.
When governments restricted the freedom of movement of residents during the APEC summit in Sydney in 2007 and the G20 in Brisbane in 2014, it was bad enough. At least these events were one-off occurrences and known magnets for terrorists. But when a government curtails residents’ freedom of movement to host an everyday event (even something as fascinating as motor sport), the frog is well and truly cooked.
David Leyonhjelm is the Liberal Democrats Senator for NSW
