OK, Admit It, Who Voted For The Idiot?

In an environment where Western Australia’s prisons are overcrowded, the police are overstretched, and with no sign of any easing of the pressure, what would be the most obvious thing to do?

Apparently, according to our “esteemed” State Premier Colin Barnett, what you should do in this situation is insist on 3% “efficiency savings” across government, and then proceed to tighten every piece of “easy target” legislation that you can ensuring even more pressure on the justice system.

Cannabis for example. Colin, mate, get real! People have been using the stuff for as long as humans have been around, and it will take more than an alarmist dickhead or two to change that. What is it about right-wing numpties (I’m not biased incidentally, I also believe there are plenty of left-wing numpties as well) that they home in on soft targets like this instead of trying to effect REAL change?

I’m not going to get into all the details of why this is a bad move, and why cannabis is not the evil monster it is portrayed to be, you can find all that easily enough with a Google search or two. What annoys me more than anything is the way idiots make these decisions, pat themselves on the back for being “tough on crime”, and all that really happens is they criminalise something that doesn’t matter, while doing sweet f**k all about the not-so-easy targets.

The latest thing apparently is some new legislation that will, allegedly, bring in tough new restrictions on supplying controlled weapons to minors. I imagine that selling a machete to a kid is pretty illegal already? So how the hell does making it even more illegal do anything? I’m not advocating that people should be allowed to sell machetes to kids, far from it, but think about it – what IS this tough new legislation apart from a bunch of populist headlines that will make stuff all difference, except perhaps to make people a bit more sneaky in how they conduct this business?

Still, in an age where you can win a Nobel Peace Prize for /talking/ about peace, maybe Mr “I reversed my plans to retire so I could have a go at playing premier” should indeed be lauded for such positive changes to the WA justice system.