Wednesday, 10 February 2021 10:00

Parkinson's Law

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: A mate of the Hound reckons he’s recently discovered Parkinson’s Law and believes it explains much about bureaucracy and the workings of government that simply don’t make sense to a practical farmer.

“We recently ‘entertained’ an employee from the Ministry for the Environment, who is/was part of the Freshwater f*** up,” he explained.

“This person asked what I thought of the Freshwater Policy. I was able, with a broad sweep of my arm to say: ‘this is what you have classified as low slope, which now by law needs to be fenced off to stop intensive farming’”.

He believes Parkinson’s Law applies in this case because if you give someone a timeframe and a limited budget to get a job done, they will get that job done for better or worse – which may be ok in a government bureaucracy, but not so good, or practical – in the real world.

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