There’s an oldish adage which says that anyone at 20 who is not a socialist has no heart, and anyone at 40 who is still a socialist has no head. From this you can safely conclude that Rob Davies, our Minister of Trade and Industry, is in an arrested state of development. In the presence of overwhelming evidence that the policies enforced by his department have made a major contribution to the contraction of our economy, he remains steadfast in his commitment to the principles with which Joe Stalin set back the Soviet Union by 50 years.
His latest sally into the field of taking a working industry and wrecking it is a draft liquor bill published for comment at the end of September with an end-October deadline. It contains almost all of the controversial clauses of the discussion document issued a year ago – which is a clear indication that no one at the DTI ever had any intention of taking cognisance of feedback. This in turn suggests that it would be futile for interested parties to engage now – on this ridiculously short notice deadline.
Michael Fridjohn continues
Many of the issues proposed last year and enshrined in the bill are unlikely to pass muster when the act is brought before the Constitutional Court – which is inevitable. It infringes on the rights of the provinces, it effectively expropriates property rights and it aims to impose vicarious responsibility on producers for the abuse of their products by consumers.
Haven't we seen this movie before. 550 comments were received about the revised codes and they were largely ignored. "The document is constitutional", Sesame boy told me. What he was really saying was "It's constitutional, go to court if you don't agree." There was no appetite to litigate against the DTI then but the stakes are much higher with liquor. Perhaps the court will find that the DTI is patently negligent in its lawmaking - this might ignite a desire to litigate.