Marc My Words - 15 June 2007

Nanny state is like a visit from an unwanted mother-in-law that never ends.

A government is often a group of like-minded people who individually can do nothing but collectively decide that nothing can be done. And then prove it with legislative interventions 'for the good of the people'. Time and time again we see this Labour government utterly incapable of doing those things the public really wants but instead chooses to micro-manage our lives so that it appears to be doing something...anything...to look busy.

Most people, if you ask them and actually listen, want the government to get on with the basics well rather than the superfluous. That means quality educational opportunities that doesn't presume everyone is cut from the same cloth. Different approaches to teaching, discipline, subject matter and school character providing genuine choice to reflect the variation of aptitudes and personalities of students would be a good place to start. But this government doesn't like that because it would necessitate loosening their control of how schools operate.

A health system that got on with the job of fixing people rather than deferring small medical interventions until they become major and costly ones would also be high on the list of priorities. Greater participation with private healthcare providers would obviously help - but only if there were long-term contracts that would make it economically viable to invest. We know how many heart operations we need, and if we increased our capacity to treat them, perhaps many patients would then be dealt with before they become life-threatening. The public system on its own will never be able to deal with all the infirmities presented it. We need some surgery on the system itself.

The justice system has been tinkered with for years without any effect on our escalating crime rates. The problem isn't a matter of fine-tuning at the margins; it is the system itself which is incapable of the success we want. Changing light-bulbs may make for greater efficiency but if the power grid is stuffed, it's all stuffed. So too with the justice system. It needs a radical re-building from the ground up.

Our energy requirements are rapidly running into the brick wall of ineptitude. A lack of rainfall is what stands between power and power cut. Not only irresponsible, it is a sick joke that this government has all but made it impossible to secure solutions with an RMA which encourages a range of the dumbest reasons why projects to alleviate our infrastructural energy shortage can't go ahead. Escargot anyone?

Other bedrock issues abound but you get the point. Meanwhile we have had a number of outrageous attempts to undermine personal responsibility. We've banned smoking on private property if used for a commercial purpose because it's good for us. We've stopped parents disciplining their children because it's good for us. We've legalized the pimping of prostitutes because it's good for us. We've micro-chipped Chihuahua's because it's good for us. The latest war being waged is on obesity because...you've guessed it, it's good for us.

The first shot across the bow of commonsense was the idea of imposing fat and sugar taxes. They've put that to one side for the moment but believe me, when the time is right they'll roll that one out again. Now it's a set of guidelines on what schools can or can't provide in their tuck shops. Apart from the obvious difficulty in policing what may or may not be a 'healthful' meal, these regulations assume that kids don't know where the nearest dairy is. I suppose even socialists like Steve Maharey aren't that dumb that they haven't got a Plan B up their sleeves. And I bet it's this: they'll pass new legislation mandating that no dairy or other food outlet may stock unauthorized foods within a five kilometer radius of any school.

Plan C will be to include all government buildings then, in a triumph of re-packaging the obesity debate in terms of an illness of epidemic proportions (like typhoid or smallpox) Plan D - restrictions and/or financial imposts on all foods deemed to be injurious to public health.

Of course by that stage the Maori party's private members Bill to ban all smoking will have been passed by some future Labour-Greens government. So too probably a Tall Poppies Bill to ensure that no-one is allowed to be successful for fear of making everyone else have issues of inferiority. Then we can perhaps imagine the Enforced Dissolution of Marriage and Relationships Act so that single people won't feel socially excluded.

Oh, and while we're at it, why not the Children's Emancipation Bill that would literally make the whole village take responsibility for a child's nurture rather than the archaic and clearly out of fashion idea that parents matter.

Look...I don't want to minimize the damage and cost of obesity, or smoking, or rabid dogs but at some point we have to empower people to figure it out all by themselves.

And that cannot be achieved if successive governments assume public stupidity and enforces 'what's good for us'. Because what's really 'good for us' is to leave us to make mistakes, to fail, and to lose, because that's the price we should individually be prepared to pay in order to get it right, to succeed, and to win. Life is precious and belongs to us, not the government. We should be allowed to live it - all of it, the good, the bad, and the in between. The harm minimization approach of this government is nothing less than life minimization. Time to go home Super-Nanny.

ENDS

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