[robertlagrant]

> You answered it yourself. They're against the spirit of the law.

This is not right. If the spirit of the law is obvious, write it down.

Otherwise you're just advocating for people having to know the letter of the law (even when paying more money is against the spirit of the law, that will not matter; only when it's about paying less money), and the spirit of the law, whatever that is.

If a state's only job in this regard is to write down some rules that let it get free money from workers, it should take responsibility for writing the rules down properly.

[ehnto]

Most laws have some ambiguity, it's the reason we have courts that have the ability to make somewhat arbitrary rulings, so that they can enforce a fair and just outcome that supports, 'the spirit of the law'. It goes both ways too, sometimes someone breaks a law in literal terms, but by the spirit of the law it isn't actually important. Courts dismiss cases of broken laws all the time based on that.

You simply can't codify everything, just like in software, there are bugs in law, and people will take advantage in weird and unusual ways. Courts come in and remedy the outcome of the bug, and that ruling is used in future cases to make better decisions, so you can consider that a hotfix.

> (even when paying more money is against the spirit of the law, that will not matter; only when it's about paying less money)

The literal law is to not pay people below Australia's legal minimum wage. It's not a "target wage", so going over it is obviously not relevant, it is the bare minimum. The spirit of that suite of laws is to stop companies from exploiting workers.

[tchalla]

That can’t happen. This is why there are courts to interpret the law. Otherwise, the law would be an algorithmic decision maker.

[robertlagrant]

Well, that would be ideal :) But I think a loophole isn't "something that's not yet been interpreted by a court". It's "something that's agreed to be the case, but the people writing the rules to get money didn't foresee."

[kdioo88]

A whole lot of people would love to but legislatures across the globe are colluding with oligarchs to impede the legislative process.

Writing down law that would close loopholes with specificity is bad for business, which has symbolically been expanded to include other skin colors and genders so it can be argued the people having their agency back is actually regressing gains for some (gains in an intentionally manipulated ledger of exchange value thanks to loopholes).

Never mind the industrial mess threatens the species. The tribal fractal anyone happens to live in must never change!

It’s become a truism we want this because no alternatives are allowed to be.