Planking and the law

By Mr Justice P W Young AO

There are reports that it has become a popular practice within certain sections of our community for a person to emulate a plank of wood by lying stretched out in a precarious position. The practice has been dubbed “planking”. It is dangerous and seems to have brought about a few accidental deaths.

The Adelaide Advertiser of 26 May carried the sub-headline, “Planking ‘almost impossible to outlaw’”. It noted the South  Australian Attorney General’s view that it was “unfeasible” to legislate against planking.

If you were the South Australian Government and wanted to stop planking, how would you do it? Would you require people who intended to plank to get a licence after examination by a psychiatrist and merely make unlicensed planking a crime? Would you merely impose a stamp duty on a planking licence of sufficiently high amount to limit planking to the “ruling classes”? Would you authorise the Commissioner of Police to form an undercover planking squad to infiltrate groups that might be planning planking?

Perhaps one of our law schools might assist by setting an assignment to draft an effective anti planking Bill.