Name and shame.

At long last the New South Wales government has adopted the practice of " name and shame " traders who rip off the public.
The first victim was a liquor retailer selling what was described as " a fine 40 percent by volume Scotch Whisky ". The only problem was that it wasn't Scotch - and it wasn't 40 percent. In addition to being named and shamed - there will also be the matter of a thousand dollar fine.
Hopefully this new approach will extend to food retailers who are found to have low health standards when preparing food. In the past, only those who managed to create a Salmonella outbreak got that treatment. The public has the right to expect that food offered for sale in a shop or restaurant will be prepared, stored and served under hygienic conditions.
Then there is the area of second hand goods - and that includes used car yards. From time to time the public learns of shady merchants winding back car odometers or selling re-birthed vehicles. The whole purpose of " name and shame " is to expose the shonks - and put them out of business.
The field for exposing bad practice is wide and all embracing. What about the real estate agents who misrepresent properties. In many cases prospective buyers spend their hard earned money prior to auctions getting property reports - only to find that the selling price is way above the level they have been led to believe.
Then there are the " bad tenant " embargoes - where vindictive and in some cases agents who are hopeless in keeping up to date book work - leave a family unable to rent because of a spurious black mark against their name.
" Name and shame " is a good policy that will go a long way towards improving business practices - provided vested interests do not succeed in having certain categories of trading excluded from it's reach.