If there is one overarching theme in the Department of Internal Affairs’ report on loopy regulations, released this week, it is that our regulations have become so complicated that nobody really knows what the rules are any more.

The Rules Reduction Taskforce set out last year to collect examples of “loopy” regulations in need of updating. The report finds some truly strange regulatory artefacts, like councils continuing to require consents for activities where the underlying rules had removed the requirement years before.

But the real problems lie in the interface between woolly regulatory drafting and council liability when things go wrong. If a building fails and the builders have closed shop, councils are left on the liability hook. When regulations leave councils to interpret just what is meant by “reasonably practicable”, and when councils fear that the courts will saddle them with substantial costs if they err on the side of letting property owners do anything, the system bogs down. Nobody quite knows what is meant by “reasonably practicable”, and everyone then errs on the side of excessive caution.

This is most evident in the recent WorkSafe interpretations of that which is practicable in ensuring safety when working at heights. The Rules Reduction Taskforce says there is no rule mandating that scaffolding be used for working at heights, but where councils or corporate directors are potentially on the hook for huge costs if a court deems that a scaffold could have been practicable, nonsense ensues.

And so the DIA’s report falls rather short of the mark in its mythbusting section. Is it really a myth that standing on sawhorses to work is banned if they’re “not generally recognised as suitable work platforms” and WorkSafe inspectors can be, well, officious?

But the real tragedy in the report is that it misses the most officious, capricious, and just downright awful bureaucrats of them all: council swimming pool inspectors. We had Christchurch Council inspect the pool at the house we bought in 2005; they gave it the all-clear. Three years later, with no changes to our pool or to their regulations, the harassment began and lasted until the earthquakes. The existing approved gate was apparently no longer good enough to guarantee nobody could ever reach our backyard pool.

Meanwhile, two blocks away, Council worked to improve the paths leading to the unguarded, unfenced Pacific Ocean.

Loopy.

The New Zealand Initiative today released Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Costs, a report identifying regulations that need amending or scrapping.