Still a lot of people in my notes going on about how they can’t be stopped in re: Rhys Darby, and I regret to inform them that after doing some research on a tip-off from a friend, finding Rhys Darby hot (”a bit of all right” in New Zealand legal parlance) was officially regulated in Section 6.3c of the Domestic Garden Control Amendment Act (2005), replacing Fred Dagg, who was originally identified as a promoter of farming in the 1976 version of the Act.
(Obviously from a legal perspective it would have been ideal to split comedian regulation out into its own Act, but Maggie Barry’s member’s bill was never drawn from the ballot and since the notorious gardening advocate left Parliament nobody has chosen to take it up - this seems unlikely to change since legalisation of gardening was narrowly defeated in the 2017 referendum).
The provisions of the “garden ban”, as it is commonly known, are unusually severe and thirsting after Rhys Darby is in fact punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and 500 hours of community service. Obviously this is hard to enforce outside New Zealand’s borders, but it is taken into account in visa applications and administration, and the last recorded deportation on these grounds was as recently as 2019. If you ever intend to visit New Zealand, I would strongly recommend developing an attachment to legal comedians such as the Topp Twins or Dai Henwood.
Rose Matafeo is, of course, regulated separately under the Promotion of Flowers (Prevention) Act (2013).
I would just like to clarify that the punishment for thirsting after Rhys Darby is in fact, under section 54 of the Domestic Garden Control Act 1976, in the case of an individual, a fine of up to $100,000 or community service of up to 500 hours, or both; and in the case of any other person, a fine of up to $500,000.
Thirsting after Rose Matafeo, regulated as you say under the Promotion of Flowers (Prevention) Act 2013, attracts a much smaller fine - up to $5,000 in the case of an individual or up to $10,000 in any other case - because that Act largely covers the commercial production of flowers for deterrent purposes, such as Valentine’s Day and hospital visits.
Happy to discuss.
Another point to consider is that a group of people thirsting after Rhys Darby en masse can be treated under the Domestic Garden Control Act 1976 as a body corporate for infringement purposes. In R v Morse, Coffey, Greene & Others [1986] NZLR 411, the Court of Appeal found in a majority decision that a group of individuals who had developed a community garden together were a body corporate for the purpose of the Act and could therefore be held collectively to the larger penalty. Cooke CJ dissented.
This is very unusual in New Zealand law, and was further upheld by an amendment to the Domestic Garden Control Act 1976 in 1992, which added a section that deems individuals who “reside in different dwellinghouses” acting “collectively for the benefit of gardening occuring outside of the grounds of a single dwellinghouse” to be a body corporate for the purpose of the Act.
No other statutory regime has a similar provision that treats otherwise unrelated individuals as a body corporate in the absence of an underlying legal entity such as an incorporated society, company, or unit title body corporate.
