The Liquor Permit
p. 81 · Read in the full issue
Farce
[?] New Guinea
MIE heavy weight of bureaucratic machinery—or, in popular parlance, form-signing—which has contributed ore than any other single factor to the faculties of the local administration in ew Guinea, is well illustrated in the erritones’ Gazette of December 28.
There, set out in formal notifications, [tending over 11 pages of small type, •e all the applications made by the cretaries of clubs, sporting bodies, etc., ir permits to consume liquor on their •emises after 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve id New Year’s Eve.
Uuder bureaucracy’s idiotic, time-wast g system, each of these applications has be lodged with the local police; trans ited to Port Moresby with a report; ilemnly adjudicated upon by a Licensing ourt convened in Port Moresby; permits ilemnly granted; the permits sent back i the town concerned: and an announce lent carefully compiled and published i the Gazette.
These applications come along with the ’eatest regularity and, in 99 per cent, of ises, the granting of the permit is auto ,atic and immediate.
Why cannot the local police comman mt, who knows all the circumstances, ‘ given authority to grant such permits, ith a stipulation that anything out of le ordinary be referred to the local DO id, if he says so, sent on to the Licens g Court? It would save endless time id expense.
The present system is a farce—but pical of the machinery of centralisation id endless form-signing that has been •ought into operation in the Territories.