This is for anyone who has come across stupid or contradictory laws made by idiots in government. Please feel free to add anything you come across. It is amazing what some governments do.
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The Australian government encourages people to quit smoking and reduce their drinking but they won't ban it because of the money they make from taxing these products. It costs a lot of money to treat the people that have been harmed by these products but they won't ban them.
Alcohol is a double whammy with 80% of Police call outs and half the motor vehicle accidents being alcohol related. Half the people admitted to the emergency department in hospitals on Friday and Saturday night are also alcohol related. They waste money treating the aftermath but won't remove the problem.
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My favourite is to do with homeless people living in their cars. In Australia the federal government made it illegal to sleep in your car anywhere except a registered campsite or caravan park. Local government (councils) enforce this no sleeping in cars law. So if a homeless person sleeps in their car on the side of the road or at a beach or wherever, they can be fined $100 on the spot or up to $1000 if they fight the matter in court and lose. However, because they are homeless, there is nowhere to send the fine or legal papers to summon you to court for not paying your bill.
In addition to this, if you don't pay the fine, which you don't get because you don't have an address for it to be mailed to, you lose your driver's license and can't drive anywhere so you are forced to live in your car wherever it is parked. Then you get fined each time you sleep in it. But you don't find out it has been cancelled until the cops pull you over.
If you drive your vehicle while your license has been cancelled for not paying your fines and you get pulled over by the police, you get fined again. But, you guessed it, they can't send the fine to your address because you don't have one. So they print if off and give it to you but you can't drive to the post office or court house to pay for it. So it gets added to the list of unpaid fines and you lose demerit points from your license, which is already cancelled because you didn't pay the first fine. And you can't legally drive your car to move it to a safer place so you get to live wherever the cop pulled you over instead. Then you will probably get more fines from the council for illegal parking and sleeping in your vehicle.
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If you are made homeless, you cannot change your address to NFA (no fixed address) at the department of transport (DOT) where driver's license and traffic fines are dealt with. So any fines you get are sent to your old address where you no longer live.
The DOT won't hold mail for homeless people and won't give you any bills or fines over the counter. They all get sent to your last residential where you no longer live at.
People will be saying, "get a PO Box". There are none available and haven't been any available for years. Australia Post has a limited number of PO Boxes and hasn't added any in 20+ years because people are using email.
So use email, sounds logical. You can't get an email address without a residential address. And the DOT will not send fines to an email addy.
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We have rest areas on the side of country roads that were built by state governments specifically for motorists to rest in. It is to reduce the number of accidents on country roads where people fall asleep at the wheel. This is a good thing, however the federal government made it illegal to sleep in these rest areas.
We have state governments saying rest, take 5 stay alive, get out and walk about every 2 hours, and the federal government creating Acts, letting local government enforce this law and fining people who sleep in their car in these designated rest areas.
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If you are on the public housing waiting list in Western Australia, they send you a letter each year asking if you still require somewhere to live. But if you are homeless and don't respond to the letter because you don't get it within 2 weeks of the date on it, they kick you off the waiting list.
The Department of Housing in WA also sends a letter to your residential address when they have a property for you. This is useless if you live on the street.
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And finally, if you lose your identification (ID) while living on the street, you can't get it replaced because you need ID to prove who you are and a residential address for the new ID to be sent to. It's a catch 22 scenario where you need identification to get your identification replaced, and one the governments have not yet worked out.
---------------------
The Australian government encourages people to quit smoking and reduce their drinking but they won't ban it because of the money they make from taxing these products. It costs a lot of money to treat the people that have been harmed by these products but they won't ban them.
Alcohol is a double whammy with 80% of Police call outs and half the motor vehicle accidents being alcohol related. Half the people admitted to the emergency department in hospitals on Friday and Saturday night are also alcohol related. They waste money treating the aftermath but won't remove the problem.
---------------------
My favourite is to do with homeless people living in their cars. In Australia the federal government made it illegal to sleep in your car anywhere except a registered campsite or caravan park. Local government (councils) enforce this no sleeping in cars law. So if a homeless person sleeps in their car on the side of the road or at a beach or wherever, they can be fined $100 on the spot or up to $1000 if they fight the matter in court and lose. However, because they are homeless, there is nowhere to send the fine or legal papers to summon you to court for not paying your bill.
In addition to this, if you don't pay the fine, which you don't get because you don't have an address for it to be mailed to, you lose your driver's license and can't drive anywhere so you are forced to live in your car wherever it is parked. Then you get fined each time you sleep in it. But you don't find out it has been cancelled until the cops pull you over.
If you drive your vehicle while your license has been cancelled for not paying your fines and you get pulled over by the police, you get fined again. But, you guessed it, they can't send the fine to your address because you don't have one. So they print if off and give it to you but you can't drive to the post office or court house to pay for it. So it gets added to the list of unpaid fines and you lose demerit points from your license, which is already cancelled because you didn't pay the first fine. And you can't legally drive your car to move it to a safer place so you get to live wherever the cop pulled you over instead. Then you will probably get more fines from the council for illegal parking and sleeping in your vehicle.
---------------------
If you are made homeless, you cannot change your address to NFA (no fixed address) at the department of transport (DOT) where driver's license and traffic fines are dealt with. So any fines you get are sent to your old address where you no longer live.
The DOT won't hold mail for homeless people and won't give you any bills or fines over the counter. They all get sent to your last residential where you no longer live at.
People will be saying, "get a PO Box". There are none available and haven't been any available for years. Australia Post has a limited number of PO Boxes and hasn't added any in 20+ years because people are using email.
So use email, sounds logical. You can't get an email address without a residential address. And the DOT will not send fines to an email addy.
---------------------
We have rest areas on the side of country roads that were built by state governments specifically for motorists to rest in. It is to reduce the number of accidents on country roads where people fall asleep at the wheel. This is a good thing, however the federal government made it illegal to sleep in these rest areas.
We have state governments saying rest, take 5 stay alive, get out and walk about every 2 hours, and the federal government creating Acts, letting local government enforce this law and fining people who sleep in their car in these designated rest areas.
---------------------
If you are on the public housing waiting list in Western Australia, they send you a letter each year asking if you still require somewhere to live. But if you are homeless and don't respond to the letter because you don't get it within 2 weeks of the date on it, they kick you off the waiting list.
The Department of Housing in WA also sends a letter to your residential address when they have a property for you. This is useless if you live on the street.
---------------------
And finally, if you lose your identification (ID) while living on the street, you can't get it replaced because you need ID to prove who you are and a residential address for the new ID to be sent to. It's a catch 22 scenario where you need identification to get your identification replaced, and one the governments have not yet worked out.
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