The Thinking Man's Fridge

“In justice is all virtues found in sum” (Aristotle)

There’s been a lot of public whinging lately about the inappropriate penalties handed down by our nation’s judicial system. However, after some brief research, I’ve concluded that the problem is not with our justice system, it is with what the naïve and inexperienced public believe constitutes a crime these days.

To help you all I’ve compiled a list of more notable fines handed down by courts around Australia over the past 2 years. As the courts represent the highest purveyor of judicial legislature we have, it is only right to assume that the more serious the crime, the more substantial the fine will be. Right?

Fines and their crimes (from most severe to least severe):

• $5,500,000 - Sending spam emails
• $40,000 - Harvey Norman opening illegally on Sunday in WA
• $22,000 - Pirating 200 CD's and DVD's
• $9,000 - Fishing for abalone outside of permitted area
• $7,000 - Running onto ground during an AFL match
• $5,640 - Exceeding rock lobster fishing quota
• $5,500 - Wearing anti-Catholic t-shirt
• $5,000 - Selling used cars without a motor car trader licence
• $5,000 - Criticising an AFL umpire
• $4,000 - Baker supplying underweight pastries
• $3,500 - Streaking during Bledisloe Cup match
• $2,000 - Torturing kittens
• $2,000 - Killing a grey nurse shark
• $1,000 - Yelling 'Go Nazis' at an orthodox businessman
• $1,000 - Recording Simpsons movie with mobile phone
• $1,000 - Working as a crowd controller whilst disqualified
• $1,000 - Smoking on Qantas flight and not wearing a seatbelt during landing
• $1,000 - Shooting a western grey kangaroo
• $700 - Shooting a person to death over a $100 drug debt
• $600 - Supplying underage son with alcohol
• $600 - Driving without a licence
• $527 - Notifying 3 home owners that their neighbour is a convicted child molester
• $500 - Driving without a seatbelt
• $400 - Assault occasioning bodily harm
• $400 - Swearing and offensive behaviour in McDonald's
• $400 - Poking policeman in the eye with a lit cigarette
• $318 - Not stopping at an amber light
• $300 - Supplying cocaine causing the death of a prostitute
• $300 - Shoplifting from Woolworths
• $300 - Professional kick-boxer breaking policeman's leg
• $250 - Using a mobile phone whilst driving
• $250 - Choking a policeman
• $97 - Vandalising coal ships with environmental slogans

I find it particularly strange that the bigger the animal you kill, the smaller the fine. I’m also bemused that not stopping at an amber light is slightly more serious a crime than causing a prostitute to overdose on cocaine, that giving your underage son some alcohol is only slightly less serious than shooting him in the head, and that breaking a policeman’s leg is roughly equivalent to shoplifting from Woolworths. I can imagine the prison cell banter:

“I’m in here for breaking a copper’s leg. You?”
“I stole some Tim-Tams from Woolies…”

Chances are the second guy is going to be someone’s b*tch. But I suppose a $97 fine is a fair kick in the pants for a hippy.

The sooner we, the public, get a grasp on what constitutes a serious crime, as opposed to a misdemeanour, the sooner we'll find that our courts are doing just great...

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently" (Arens)

During a trip to Melbourne earlier this year, I learnt that the Queen Victoria Markets is in the process of harvesting the rainwater which falls on the roof of the enclosure, which is stored in tanks underneath the car parking areas. On average, they will collect around 10,200,000 litres of water every year, which is then used for the flushing of public toilets, among other things. Whilst it is not used as potable water, it replaces the use of potable water for these activities. Melbourne is a city famed for its rainfall, and is far from being in dire need of water restrictions.

So why then, here in WA, where we are burdened with television, radio and newspaper advertising 12 months a year about the drastic water shortages we’re facing, do we not have a similar scheme in place?

Let me think… we’d just need a building with a great, big, flat roofed area… if only there was – wait! That huge pile of s**t, the Perth Convention Centre, would be perfect!

The Perth Convention Centre has a custom BlueScope Steel roof measuring approximately 40,000m². One square millimetre of rain falling on one square metre of roof totals one litre of water. Perth’s average annual rainfall since 1975 is 791mm.

Therefore, the Perth Convention Centre would, on average, lay claim to 31,640,000 litres of water every year. So what happens each year to those 31.6 million litres?

According to the City of Perth’s Engineering Department, the roof stormwater is connected to the City’s stormwater system, which drains out into the nearby Swan River.

Way to go.

We’re chastised for spending the extra minute in the shower because it wastes 9 litres of water, but nearly 32 million litres falling from the sky gets flushed into the river!?! Way to run a City! Are we really that f*cking stupid? Apparently so…

And for those who would argue that rainwater harvesting would be too expensive because of the extra cost for the storage tanks and plumbing, keep in mind that the Perth Convention Centre cost $220 million dollars, so I’m sure the owners weren’t short of a few quid.

In comparison, the Queen Victoria Markets’ roof covers only 2.7 hectares, or 27,000m². And here’s the kicker – Melbourne’s average annual rainfall is around 650mm – that’s right, less than Perth! The total rainwater harvesting project cost? A miserly $800,000, or 0.36% of the cost of building the Perth Convention Centre from scratch. Potable water in Perth costs around 7 cents per litre, so replacing 31.64 million litres of potable water with stormwater runoff would save around $2.2 million every year. Sounds like a one-off outlay of $800,000 would be a pretty wise investment. And that's just one sh*tty building... imagine if we really got our act together...