OPINION: The Wellington bureaucracy is growing like a rash - and the rash is starting to itch.
You know when you lie in bed at night and you've got an itchy ear or leg and you just want it gone? You start getting angry and you can't sleep.
That's what the Wellington bureaucracy feels like for many Kiwis right now - frustrating. That's why so many people - tradies and farmers, market gardeners and growers, are rallying in their tens of thousands.
It's not that they don't want to tackle climate change - they do, but not with a one-size-fits-all, we-know-best approach designed by people who've never stepped foot on a farm.
The same goes for landlords - they don't hate what Healthy Homes standards are trying to do but are being forced to put a giant heat pump into a living room that's so well insulated the tenants have never even turned on the current, smaller one.
Are you feeling itchy yet?
It's these well-heeled boffins who've turned Mike King into a beggar with a cause - the same who recommended money for the mob.
And don't get me started on KiwiBuild - remember when they said they could actually build a house?
I know not all public servants are useless - nor are all regulations.
But sometimes when you're lying in bed at night with an itchy rash, you just want to yell and scratch it.
And that's what many Kiwis are doing at the moment.
Ryan Bridge is a fill-in host on The AM Show.
