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Hutt River Province did it in the 1970's
I'm gonna claim Caloundra to Noosa as an independent Sovereign State.
I'll drop taxes and revoke these life-jacket rules.
In WA the community had advanced notice and protested and got rulings dismissed.
In NSW the community had no notice, some 20 NSWKBA paid members had some notice who turned up to a local NSWKBA meeting.
But the rest of NSW was let down.
The only preparation that seemed to be made was Life vests where put in stock...
Hi Kozzie
Feel free to give me a call on (+61) 431 229 171 so that I can explain how KA works as a not-for-profit sporting association.
Otherwise if you email me at contact@kiteboardingaus.com.au, I'll organise to call you when it suits.
Of course, anyone else who is interested is more than welcome to get in touch if you have any queries around KA's funding or advocacy strategies, or even if you want to get involved in KA/KNSW activities.
Cheers
Alexandra
GM Kiteboarding Australia
Sorry, the information about is a bit unclear - was KA (and the windsurfers) asked for feedback before the new regs were created?
I'm coming from the windsurfer side. When they tried to get this through a few years ago, the Windsurfer One Design class, Windsurfing NSW and the kiters managed to maintain the old rules; that is, if you were in the surf you didn't need a PFD. God knows what it's going to be like trying to duck under a mast-high wave with a PFD on.
In their response to submissions, Maritime admitted that the windsurfer and kiter submissions were sensible - it will be interesting to see why they did the about face - apart from the fact that Duncan seems to hate anything without an engine.
I predict in 3 or 4 years we will have to carry photo ID and wear a helmet while kiting... just like bikes. In the time being, I am going to tll the water ploice my name is John Wayne Gacy or some other famous serial killer... they cant make me carry ID at the present time.
Spearfishing is time effective and fun.. the whole boat/trailor/petrol/bait etc thing just never made sense to me :)
" The only 100% effective way to prevent drowning is to stay out of the water," says Chucklehead.
If manually inflatable belt devices are ok, what would it take for a surfboard to meet PFD requirements?
My surfboard is a hell of a lot more bouyant than any PFD out there...
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/…/ma…/licence/boating-handbook.pdf
The sections relevant to kiting are on pages 22 and 85. FYI: "Open Waters" is essentially anywhere in the ocean.
It now seems unambiguous that kitesurfers in NSW are required to wear a Type 50S lifejacket at all times on Open Waters, and during these circumstances on Closed Waters:
Level 50S or greater at all times on closed waters when:
• Boating between sunset and sunrise
• Boating on alpine waters
• Boating alone (without an accompanying person 12 years of age or more)."
On Open Waters:
"Level 50S or greater at all times."
Clearly a case of absence of consultation with the community.
A bit of history here: About 10 years ago NSW Maritime released a draft of the proposed new guidelines. NSWKBA Committee met and drafted a reply to the draft proposal. Clearly NSW Maritime didn't understand kiting and like they have done now, proposed a blanket regulation for all water users.
We argued that kiters already carried a flotation device that provided safety that was similar to a type-3 flotation jacket: the kiter's harness; and that there were at that time (and perhaps still) no known cases of kiters who had drowned who would otherwise have survived had they been wearing life jackets.
Conversely, the same could not be said of surfers, body boarders, swimmers, etc. and that based on existing data, there was no evidence to support a need to require kitesurfers to wear life jackets.
In light of such data, we argued that the evidence would support a case to require surfers, bodyboarders and swimmers to wear life jackets, but the same evidence could not be brought to bear to require mandatory lifejackets for kitesurfers.
NSW Maritime proposed a compromise: that life jackets only be required on open waters (ocean) when kiting alone and more than 400m off shore. Rather than becoming embroiled in a protracted fight with NSW Maritime, we decided to accept this and move on, which was what was enacted in the legislation.
It now appears that this has been disregarded for whatever reason in the new legislation. Would appear that NSWKBA might want to make an urgent approach to see if they can renegotiate these original terms back into the legislation, as from what I am aware, there has been no change to the evidence.
If anyone is interested, I'm sure I could dig up the letter we sent to NSW Maritime back then.
The NSW government doesn't have the resources for this nuisance law to be effective. Are they all of a sudden going to allocate somewhere between $ 5 - 10 mil to enforce this silly law. I'm sure NSW Taxpayers aren't going to be thrilled to pay for this petty civil servant power game. When did this become a Police State. I for one am not going to be wearing a jacket. They can arrest me and take me to court. No Way am I going to allow them to restrict my leisure activities.They tried with Surfing in the 60's and it didn't work. I'm also a Surfer and we don't wear life jackets. So why discriminate against Kiters.Bugger Em !
Please sing the online petition that will be taken to roads and maritime.
us10.campaign-archive.com/?u=2ff5579144193069ad4343c42&id=9d6c9af362
I was,out the back 600m ..? the other day three metre and messy and hard to get thru then came back in to ask my friends for a ljacket.think I did the right thing really could have been a gonner.....
But self choice
Signed..
Thanks for signing!
Completely agree. Especially northern beaches I tend to go very far out and a lifejacket or PFD will be comforting ... but my choice.
Signed.
Over-regulation never makes anyone safer. That's nothing new.
Btw. does an impact vest count as a life vest? I assume not, but worth asking anyway...
If all fails, I'll wear my impact vest and I reckon any reasonable water police would look the other way.
So you know what exactly happened. This ruling was posted on a website not easily found and despite NSWKBA having dealing about this previously we were not aware about it until a few days before deadline. Emails about all previous correspondence were sent with no response.
The ruling looks like it was wanted to go through unchallenged, this is why we were the committee were not alerted to it. KA have been doing what they can about this. At the end of the day we are a minority and just because we don't like it or stamp our feet wont mean we can get a law changed. It looks to be the same minister that did the bike laws behind this one.
Please do not think KA or the state committee has done nothing, it is not the case.
Get everyone you can to sign the petition and see if something can be done.
poor fella
how could you not be a miserable killjoy twat
with a name like Duncan Gay
YAY this is still going
got banned for another 2 weeks for ranting about the KA being a business with only business intrests ultimately at heart and that if they didnt exist then we wouldnt have to be wearing life jackets right now yaaaaayy but i was banned for swearing technicly so what i just said still stands right? WILL i be banned and will this post be deleted for stateing the obvious? that a business is a business for business reasons? that theyre business depends on everyone being signed up and paying annual fees to enjoy there own goddell damned weekends with there own bloodymary hobbies?
the doctor should be banned for calling duncan gay
So many real world issues come to mind,
Climate change, Threats to global peace, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, local armed conflicts, deforestation, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, organized crime and corruption, overfishing, barriers to education, homelessness, violence against partners, torture, social and cultural exclusion, human trafficking & prison overcrowding.
And the powers to be make their mark on the world by legislating floating devices on competent swimmers.
Why dont these decision making economic business jnana yoga(mind people) dudes get kiting or surfing or diving whatever themselves and find out what its really like.
Or do they
people just meandering around walking past them, pretty incredible really
