Nanny State
Ideas & Liberty / Nanny State
A core focus of the Institute of Public Affairs is examining paternalist government regulation. Much contemporary social regulation is designed to shield individuals from voluntary risk-taking behaviour. However, having the government assume the role of risk manager is damaging to the principle of individual responsiblity.
Publications
Government will spend nearly 60 million this year lobbying itself for nanny state policies
The Commonwealth government will this year give $57.7 million of taxpayers' money to the Australian National Preventive Health Agency to lobby the government for Nanny State policies, according to a new paper by the free market think tank the...
The Biggest Vested Interest of All: How Government Lobbies to Restrict Individual Rights and Freedom
The Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan wrote in The Monthly in March 2012 that: Australia's fair go is today under threat from a new source. To be blunt, the rising power of vested interests is undermining our equality and threatening our democracy. But...
End the Nanny State to win
As the polls plunge and a tide of sleaze threatens the government, Labor has responded with a storm of class war rhetoric unseen in decades. The prime minister has declared the next election will be about ‘whether you stand for the...
Nanny State Taxes: Soaking the Poor in 2012
Nanny State taxes raised $13 billion in 2010-11. This is greater than the combined revenue forecast of $11 billion to be collected from the government's Clean Energy Future Package (carbon tax) and the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (mining...
Nanny state taxes: bigger than the carbon tax and mining tax combined
Nanny State taxes raised $13 billion in 2010-11, according to a new study by freemarket think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, Nanny State Taxes on Consumer Products: Soaking the Poor in 2012. This is greater than the combined revenue...
Australia's helmet law disaster
Australia is one of only two countries in the world with national all-age mandatory bicycle helmet laws (MHLs). Introduced by state and territory governments under threat of cuts to federal road funding in the early 1990s, the idea that it should...
Gambling away perspective? A review of the evidence justifying electronic gaming regulations
There is no dispute that some people bet beyond their reasonable means when gambling. But this doesn't necessarily justify government intervention, in and of itself. The extent to which governments regulate to protect citizens from themselves...
New poll: More Australians agree we are becoming a nanny state, 70% think food, tobacco & alcohol plain packs ineffective
‘A new poll shows the number of people who strongly agree Australia is becoming a nanny state has increased by a fifth over the past year, with 55% believing Australia is a nanny state and more than 70% thinking plain packaging won't be an...
Let kids be kids
An absurd over-protectiveness of our children is being encouraged by our media, culture and government. Our outdoor lifestyle, rugged country and self-reliant mindset served our elders well through tough times. Those being raised to fear a skinned...
The Biggest Loser is the Nanny State
The recently concluded reality TV show, The Biggest Loser, contains some surprising lessons for public policy. Of all the reality television shows bombarding us, The Biggest Loser best combines entertainment with the spectacle of social...
