Legal or illegal

Good luck with that.

Illegal use of my 30 seconds - yellow card - 10 minutes in the bin.

Maybe a poster could start with "in NSW the laws are ...................." or in SA the rules are.............

Include the state in the answer and that should remind people that rules and laws vary from state to state

Hey Aussie,

Mate you’ll get that in every forum. It is after all, a ‘forum’. These things need to be taken as a grain of salt or if you really need to, called for what they are in as ‘forum appropriate’ manner as possible.

Again the advice you’ll get here is both good and bad but one thing I have noticed is that there are some actual experts in the varied fields that get discussed. While there are often far more self-declared or unofficial ‘experts’ whose opinions are generally the most opinionated and loudest, the sage advice of an ‘actual’ expert is easy to identify.

Every now and then I get a bit steamed up over some post, usually by a first time poster who’s signed on that day to have a gripe over something or deliberately troll, but I’ve always found it best to let it wash over me. Take yourself too seriously and you’re asking to have the piss taken (and that’s about the same as any forum).

Given there are fairly strict forum rules around contribution, this little patch of the WWW is a pretty well behaved place which I like. Unfortunately a blanket “State the act, reg and section number” or ‘state your qualifications before making assertion’ rule is highly unlikely lol.

Cheers

Mick

Illegal - a sick bird.

Hey it's Friday.

I guess as with any advice we get, we should evaluate it and at the end of the day, make a decision based on what we know, the advice we get and our current needs.

Other than that, the forum isn't a legal advice service so check it all out before doing anything.

.
G'day Aussie,

It rather sounds like you have been reading the recent Thread on "15 amp to 10 amp cord".

This situation arises every time there is a thread involving electrical safety. The mere fact that many people are inexpert with electrical safety is the reason that Rules were created and legislation passed to control the risk.

As Mick O has answered.... "the advice you’ll get here is both good and bad" and you will also get conflicting advice on many other subjects. Tyres, oils, batteries, almost anything. After a while you get to know the responders who really know what they are talking about, but it can be confusing.

A real danger arises when incorrect advice is posted where safety may be involved, and that is certainly the case with electrical subjects.
It is here that the established Rules are given authority by legislation to protect persons from injury. With the protection of anonymity, some people will espouse beliefs and arguments that may encourage unsafe practices. As someone with qualified understanding of both the Rules and the laws pertaining to electrical equipment and installations I am obligated to challenge their errors in the interests of public safety.

The big problem that you and others have, is to identify the true experts so that you are not confused. To declare my qualifications each time I make a post would risk caustic criticism. There are some popular forums where moderators with (presumably) appropriate qualification control the behaviour or subjects such as electrical, but that is not the case on this forum. Here, everyone has a voice! lol

I am not sure that Mick O is correct when he says.... "the sage advice of an ‘actual’ expert is easy to identify." It may only be easy for another expert. But that is only my opinion.... not an authoritative view. lol

If you wish for something, you aren't supposed to tell anyone. Now you're going to have every Tom, Dick and Harry giving bodgy legal advice for sure. That's in the Birthday Fairy Rule Book right at the start, it's a well known statute.

This is making me think of the thread that has just been started on GCM.

Get the popcorn ready for that thread!

Aussie1,

Incorrect legal advice probably won’t kill you but incorrect technical advice can be shocking!

Skull

Ultimately, the assessment of the law may well depend on the court of the day. Lawyers after all can only given an 'opinion', not tell you what the court will decide.

While many of us know what is illegal, eg we know we can't discharge a firearm in a town, we may not have easy access to the references to prove it and place a link on a forum.

I can recall myself, many years ago, berating another (older, and pretty rough) earthmoving contractor, with regard to his overloaded low-loader trailer (which was seriously overloaded).

I said to him. "Your whole setup is illegal!'

His sharp reply to me? "Listen, I've been illegal since the day I was born! - and I ain't going to try and get legal, now!" LOL

Cheers, Ron.

Characterising any issue on the forum as illegal immediately shifts the issue away from any useful discussion into a back and forth reminding all of schoolyard level banter of "my legal knowledge is better than your legal knowledge". Legal or illegal can only be established in a court. Typically, a legal precedence is the first arbiter in arguing the situation. Precedence also typically discloses how an actual "act or statute" has been interpreted.

Declaring anyone's behaviour or method or setup as illegal is tantamount to Naming-and-Shaming; a practice supposedly prohibited on this site. Writing that someone is doing something illegal is defamatory and could lead to legal ramifications. Offering an opinion that something may not comply with regulations, or published rules, or in-force legislation, is acceptable. More than acceptable, presenting such opinion based in comparison of act or behaviour against regulation, advances everyone's knowledge. Readers of such comments can then make some personal determination of the credibility of the person offering the opinion. Simple judgements of "illegal" simply tell others that that person probably does not know how to show their opinion has value or are parroting some opinion they heard somewhere.

As said before, it would be good if the self declared experts infesting this site could confine themselves to technical advice and offering examples of how a practice or method is at odds with regulations or rules. The self declared experts can then leave declarations of legal or illegal to the properly qualified and who are supported by our legal system.

Iza

Me legal, him illegal. While ago running down the Capricorn highway and byway my friend and I were ambling along with him behind. Well I was pulled up by the transport inspectors, they had the usual look around and check of my book. Nice they said on your way. So I am legal.

They get mate who is half hour behind and he gets down for being illegal.

Now the funny part is we are both illegal because we are over length. I was was driving B triple with a big banger that had 2400l tanks and a 54" sleeper (proper sleep in that one) putting me over the 36.5m length for that piece of bitumen. He was running a double that was around .1 of a metre shorter than my configuration. Well he gets done for over length and I drive away with roses on my tail.

See, difference between legal and illegal is in the eye of the beholder.

I swear this person is from scienfeld the tv show.
Just like a show about nothing specific

A thread about nothing
In general
Or anything
Or anyone
Maybe a rumor
Maybe a fact

Thing is no one knows

If laws were black and white then we wouldn't need judicial tribunals to determine if they had been broken or not. This means that a lot of laws are subject to interpretation which varies according to the circumstances. I'm not religious, but a simple, yet ludicrous example, is God's law written in the 10 commandments "Thou shalt not kill", sometimes written as "Thou shalt not murder", who knows? How does that sit with soldiers at war? Perhaps God phoned up and gave them all a pass? It all depends on the definition of the words in the law and words can mean different things to different people.
For this reason, it's prudent for anyone with any sense, to put a "maybe" in front of any statement of legality or illegality offered up on an internet forum.