We must be grateful to Independent Michael Moore and Labor and Green MLAs for their great concern over the games we play. It is obvious that playing paintball will lead to the hard stuff. Once they try paintball people will want the real thing. They’ll want bullets. They’ll want to kill people. And once they are allowed to drop washable paint in paddocks, where will it end? Farmers might use the precedent and demand to paint fences and sheds instead of leaving them in their natural state as they should.
And the people of the ACT clearly should be prevented from any possibility of hurting themselves while they engage in recreation. Where will it end? People might want to throw leather balls at each other with only the protection of a piece of willow to fend it off. They might want to engage in the dangerous practice of attaching wheels to their feet. Or worse, they might join together to see if they can get a larger piece of leather over a line that has been … shock, horror … PAINTED on the grass, and non-native grass at that.
The psychological damage from contests of all kinds is quite apparent. Heavens, it could lead to people shouting at each other and trading insults across a small chamber in Civic.
Further, the hospital and environmental costs of these pursuits are clearly too great for the community to bear.
We must be grateful to the Greens, Labor and Mr Moore for giving Canberrans such a sensible message: if you want to have fun, go to NSW.