BYLAWS CAN BE BLIND AND DEAF

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 78, 2 April 1935, Page 8

BYLAWS CAN BE BLIND AND DEAF

Municipal councils have, it seem 3, power to make bylaws dealing with "loud late jazz" and other, radio sounds that float out of bounds, to the annoyance of neighbours. This statement, made in a debate on the Broadcasting Bill in the Legislative Council, conveys knowledge to the aggrieved, rather than comfort. The average citizen is inclined to believe that the inertia of local bodies in the matter of making bylaws, and in the matter of enforcing them, is such that when a nuisance becomes clamant it is better to go past the local body and to Parliament itself for the kind of publicity which will "get something done." That is why Parliament has dog debates and why (if the movement for cat-iicensing gathers force) it may presently have cat debates. Local bodies could—if there were not various reasons to the contrary —use their powers very effectively in such matters as cat nuisances, dog nuisances, rubbish dumping, and various other practices carried out by some people to the detriment of their neighbours. Recently, A when a protest arose in Sydney against sundry noises, including radio noises, somebody discovered that a local body could if it wished deal with the owner of a howling dog—the investigator was evidently- proceeding along the line of analogy —but he could not discover that local bodies do in practice maintain any effective, control of the howling of dogs or of any other noise-making organism. The unused power of a local body to prohibit seems to be, in fact, a safe insurance that the prohibited thing will continue. If Parliament is appealed to, Parliament says: "Go to the local body." The local body also says "Go to"; —but wraps it up in the sort of polite letter that some officials have been writing all their lives.