Australia is perhaps my favorite country. In part this is because there have been some good economic reforms, such as personal retirement accounts.
But there’s more to life than public policy, and I like Australia because the people are so outgoing and friendly.
Though sometimes their outgoing friendliness, so to speak, creates opportunities for really stupid government policy. A judge in Australia has ruled, for instance, that a woman deserves employment compensation after injuring herself while having sex. Here are some of the remarkable details.
The battle for compensation is not over for a woman who was injured while having sex in a motel on a work trip. Comcare, the Federal Government workplace safety body, has lodged an appeal against the Federal Court decision that the public servant, aged in her late 30s, was entitled to workers’ compensation.Comcare is appealing the judgment on four grounds, including that the court was wrong in finding the woman’s injuries were caused “in the course of her employment”.She is claiming compensation for facial and psychological injuries suffered when a glass light fitting above the bed was pulled from its mount while the woman was having sex in November 2007.Justice John Nicholas said it was not relevant whether it was the woman or her partner – who she met about a month earlier – who pulled the light fitting from the wall.The Administrative Appeals Tribunal had earlier upheld Comcare’s decision, finding that sexual activity was “not an ordinary incident of an overnight stay like showering, sleeping or eating”.”…She was involved in a recreational activity which her employer had not induced, encouraged or countenanced.”However Justice Nicholas overruled that decision and found in favour of the woman.
I have two reactions to this story.
First, what am I doing wrong? How come I’ve never caused light fixtures to be pulled from a wall? That might be worth a facial injury.
Second, what sort of idiot judge concludes that an injury suffered during a sexual relationship entitles someone to get employment compensation money from taxpayers. Sounds like the Appeals Tribunal showed a lot more common sense in ruling that her sexcapades were a “recreational activity” and not “induced, encouraged or countenanced” by her employer.
I’ve come across lots of crazy government decisions in my time, but this is near the top of the list. Probably not as bad as the Greek government subsidizing pedophiles or demanding stool samples before letting entrepreneurs set up online companies, but still amazingly foolish.
It’s also at least as silly as the European courts that have ruled that there’s an entitlement to free soccer broadcasts and a right to satellite TV.
And it’s probably worse than the Finnish court that ruled there’s a right to broadband access, though not as nutty as the Bolivian decision that there’s a human right to receive stolen property.
In any event, at least the Australian government is appealing this moronic decision, so that’s another reason to think it’s a good country. Maybe when America falls apart and enters a Greek-style fiscal death spiral, I can emigrate.
Though I would still need to fight for freedom since Australia’s government does plenty of bad things, such as their version of wasteful “stimulus” and very shameful efforts to stifle political dissent on global warming hysteria.