It is not unusual for lawyers to hear someone claim that the law is worthless, especially when it is time for that someone to pay their lawyer’s bill – but to be honest, they may have a point (about the law I mean; there is nothing wrong with their bill).
There are, for example, some laws that appear to have no apparent function, like those relating to journalistic ethics, or Bob Hawke’s 450,000-page tax laws, which are even longer than Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, albeit without being anywhere near as boring. There are also laws which seem to address a mischief that does not seem particularly malevolent, such as the law in Georgia preventing chickens crossing the road, or the one in Victoria that used to prevent people other than licensed electricians changing light bulbs.
(These are real laws, you can look them up – although the Victorian one has been changed now because requiring an electrician to change a light bulb was clearly inappropriate; Victorian laws now require that light bulbs be changed by a qualified engineer assisted by an electrician, a certified change agent and a support person, and only after an environmental impact statement has been provided and a social worker has confirmed that the light bulb wants to change.)
So we can agree that these laws serve no real purpose, other than to ruin some of our most beloved jokes (“Why did the chicken cross the road? He couldn’t, he was in the watchhouse!” “How many [insert offensive stereotype here] does it take to change a light bulb in Victoria? 27! Ha ha!”).
Some laws are very important though, far more important than chickens, light bulbs, tax or environmental protection laws. I speak, of course, of State of Origin eligibility rules. For those who don’t understand rugby league (that is, people from New South Wales), I should explain that State of Origin is a rugby league competition which pits Queensland against the dregs of humanity in an annual series (which, by the way, Queensland won last year).
Only those players who are from Queensland (or happen to be really good, like Greg Inglis) are allowed to play for Queensland; and only intellectually unremarkable reprobates are allowed to play for New South Wales. Now, however, those rules have been changed, so that anybody born on Earth, or any planet fairly close to it, can play – which seems, to smart, good-looking people who understand rugby league (that is, people from Queensland) to miss the point.
This is because now, we face the prospect of a game between Queensland and New South Wales which features no players born in Australia, unlike now when all players are usually Australian born, unless they are really good or come from New Zealand, which doesn’t really count (I mean doesn’t count for eligibility, not as a country; also, as a country).
There was a time when we rugby league fans enjoyed making fun of rugby union eligibility rules because of how loose they were. Basically, in rugby union a player can play for a country if they have (a) ever been in the same hemisphere as that country, or in a hemisphere adjacent to the hemisphere of that country, and (b) could find the country in question on a map in fewer than five attempts (this second requirement is why so few rugby league players switch to rugby union).
So we can see that we should leave State of Origin eligibility alone, and that the people who proposed the changes should be given an appropriate reprimand, such as death, or for those in charge of the process, something worse, such as being locked in a poorly ventilated cupboard and forced to watch reality TV.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t consider bringing in really useful laws, and by ‘useful laws’ I mean, ‘laws which ban things that I really hate’. For example, I would enthusiastically support a law banning playing, singing, humming or thinking about any Meat Loaf song, ever. In the interests of ensuring the law is enforced humanely, any Meat Loaf fans would be sent to Donald Trump’s press conferences, since they clearly don’t mind listening to drivel.
Another good thing to ban would be a certain reality TV show which is so awful I wouldn’t wish it on a rugby league executive (it is fine for Meat Loaf fans). This show is based on forcing ‘celebrities’ to go through (unfortunately non-fatal) trials for some reason that is unclear to me since I have only seen the ads. I should point out that the ‘celebrities’ are only ‘celebrities’ in the same sense that you and I are celebrities (that is, not at all; this is why I keep writing ‘celebrities’ like ‘this’). These are the people who played fat guy number three, and second tree from the right, in Police Academy #37.
This show bases its success on the charm, wit and acting skills of a certain employee of a crocodile-themed wildlife park, whose performance makes it easier to understand why his father once used him as crocodile bait and whose acting style can best be described as ‘second tree from the right, but worse’. I think a law banning this show would be well-supported by the public, and the Federal Coalition should consider making it the central plank of their policy agenda, especially as there seems to be a fair amount of room in that space.
In closing, let’s all hope that the government is reading this and starts passing good laws, that bad music and bad TV shows are banned, and most of all, that the Queensland Martians are victorious against the New South Wales Alpha Centaurians in the upcoming State of Wherever.
© Shane Budden 2026
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