Op-ed by Peter H. E. Coxhead
There is a simple principle that has served free societies well for centuries. Whenever a government proposes to restrict the ordinary activities of peaceful citizens, the burden of proof rests not with the citizen, but with the government. It is government that must demonstrate that the proposed restriction will produce a measurable public benefit that outweighs the loss of individual liberty.
That principle is worth remembering as Tasmania considers new horticultural food safety regulations.
There remains debate about exactly how the final regulations will apply, and the Government has already revised aspects of the original proposal following public consultation. Nevertheless, the discussion has exposed a much broader question that deserves careful consideration. How much freedom should citizens surrender before government is required to justify that surrender with convincing evidence?
Like most Tasmanians, I have no quarrel with sensible food safety standards. Commercial growers supplying wholesalers, supermarkets and the public have a responsibility to produce food safely, and governments have an equally legitimate responsibility to establish standards that reduce genuine risks to public health.
The challenge is not to choose between food safety and personal freedom, but to ensure that protecting public health does not unnecessarily diminish freedoms that carry little demonstrated risk.
The difficulty arises when regulations developed for large-scale commercial enterprises begin to drift towards the activities of ordinary people.
At what point does the regulation of commerce become the regulation of everyday life?
For generations, Tasmanians have grown vegetables in their backyards, exchanged fruit with neighbours, donated surplus produce to community organisations and encouraged children to sell vegetables from a table beside the driveway. These activities were never viewed as commercial enterprises. They were expressions of self-reliance, generosity and community spirit.
The concern now being expressed by many small growers is that these simple acts may become entangled in regulatory systems designed for a completely different purpose.
Every regulation, however well intentioned, carries a cost.
Some costs are obvious. Registration fees, inspections, accreditation and record keeping all consume time and money. Those costs are easily identified because they appear in budgets and balance sheets.
The less obvious costs are often the greater ones.
A person who decides not to plant an extra row of beans because they are uncertain about the rules will never appear in government statistics.
The family who decides not to donate vegetables to the neighbourhood house because they are unsure of their obligations will never be counted.
The child who never experiences the satisfaction of growing produce and selling it from a roadside table will not become part of any regulatory impact statement.
Yet these losses are real.
They represent a gradual erosion of the independence, self-sufficiency, and community resilience that governments so often claim they wish to encourage.
In recent years we have heard repeated calls for greater food security, stronger local communities and increased resilience in the face of economic uncertainty. Those objectives cannot be achieved solely through government programmes. They depend just as much upon citizens who possess the confidence, knowledge and freedom to produce food for themselves and to share it with others.
None of this is an argument against regulation itself.
Civilised societies require rules. The question is whether those rules are proportionate to the risk they are intended to address.
If non-commercial sharing of home-grown produce presents a significant public health risk, then the evidence should be presented openly. Tell us how often illness has resulted from such exchanges. Show us that the proposed restrictions will materially reduce that risk. Demonstrate that the benefits exceed not only the financial costs of compliance but also the social costs that inevitably accompany every expansion of regulation.
If that evidence cannot be produced, then perhaps we should pause before extending the reach of government still further into the lives of ordinary people.
One of the hallmarks of a mature democracy is that freedom is treated as the default position. Restrictions require justification; liberty does not.
The issue before Tasmania is therefore much larger than food safety.
It is about the relationship between citizens and the State.
It is about whether every perceived risk should automatically become the subject of regulation, or whether we still believe there are areas of ordinary life where responsible adults should be free to make their own decisions.
A society does not lose its freedoms all at once. They disappear incrementally, each restriction defended as reasonable, each new requirement presented as modest, each additional form regarded as insignificant. Viewed individually, none seems especially important. Viewed collectively, they slowly redefine the relationship between government and the governed.
If we now require government oversight for the ordinary exchange of home-grown food between neighbours, where should we draw the line?
That is the question Tasmania should answer before these regulations become law.
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