Maurice Newman: State governments are getting too big for theirboots
The coronavirus pandemic has diminished freedoms andbusinesses but allowed our state governments to massively expand their power,authority and influence, writes Maurice Newman.
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DAILY TELEGRAPH - September 13, 2021 - 10:46PM
Talk showhost and writer Dennis Prager coined the phrase: “The bigger the government,the smaller the citizen.”
Anyone who forgot their mask at the coffee cart in breach ofhealth orders and copped a $500 fine will drink to that.
NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant and Health Minister BradHazzard see this as the “new world order”.Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeanette Young, agrees.
She admits to unnecessarily closing schools: “Sometimes it’smore than just the science and the health. It’s about the messaging.”
Pity about the children.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews needs no persuasion. He’s theoriginal control freak.
Should anyone be foolish enough to question his actions, hemakes it clear: “It is not for me to prove the efficacy of any one measure.
“No one has ever maintained that any one measure is the way outof this, so therefore it is not for me to provide hard data that establishesthat.”
So, with that sorted, he dictates unnecessary curfews, condonesbrutal police enforcement, capriciously closes down playgrounds and suspendsparliament. Who will argue?
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller also gets it. “We have toshape the behaviour of people,” he says to his subordinates.
“If you write a ticket and get it wrong, I won’t hold you toaccount for that.”
Any token easing of restrictions comes with a warning thatmisbehaviour will be punished with a return to harsh conditions.
Not long ago, our freedoms were inalienable rights. Now they areconcessions to be used as carrots and sticks.
With vaccine mandates under consideration, even our bodies maybelong to the state.
That’s big government. Unrepresentative and, unaccountable. No-onevoted to surrender their precious freedoms and, not even in wartime, did wesuffer such losses of liberty.
In this new world order, different standards apply.
Individual and business breaches are subject to extortionatepenalties.
Those responsible for the Ruby Princess and Bondi limo driver blunderswhich led to harsh lockdowns and many deaths in NSW get off scot-free.
So too those culpable for the quarantine and nursing homefiascos in Victoria, which still account for 80 per cent of national Coviddeaths.
The demise of accountable government has been creeping up on usfor some time.
It came with politicians promising everything we wanted whichmeant an explosion in unelected “public servants” hellbent on expanding theirinfluence.
Now, if their agendasface resistance, they simply wait for a more compliant government.
For politicians primarily interested in representing themselves,the notion of taking ondepartments and agencies becomes politically risky.
So power passes from thepeople’s representatives to the unelected and unaccountable offices of big government.
Take the weather bureaufor example. It costs $1 million a day torun and employs around 1500 people.
For years it has been “homogenising” Australia’s temperaturerecords, cooling the past and warming the present.
Its thermometers are shamelessly located next to busy highways,airport runways, atop coal loaders, or anywhere that will ramp up temperaturesto fit its climate change narrative.
In 2017, it was discovered the bureau’s card readers were pre-programmedto roundup any value below minus 10 degrees Celsius.
As the bureau’s senior manager Dr David Jones bellowed: “Truthbe known, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t needmeteorological data to see it.”
So why bother? Numerous calls for an inquiry have beendismissed, leaving the agency free to pursue its reckless agenda.
Like the ABC. With a $1.1 billion budget and more than 4000people, it operates in denial of its statutory obligations.
The ABC is more ideologically aligned with China’s Global Timesthan mainstream Australia. Dedicated collectivists persistently trash ourheritage and traditional values, relishing their roles as fifth columnists.
Should any government, chair or board, challenge its institutionalbias, they are arrogantly brushed aside. Meanwhile, the corporation continuesto give a megaphone to Australia’s haters.
Then there’s the Therapeutic Goods Administration, a $170million a year agency where 750 people regulate vaccines, medicines, medical devicesand other pharmaceutical products.
With giant regulators like the US Food and Drugs Administrationand Europe’s Medical Agency, responsible for the health of three quarters of abillion people, one wonders why Australia, with only 25 million people, doesn’trely on them.
Big government is back aspoliticians and bureaucrats create a new world order where accountability isnot required and 'freedoms' are offered as rewards.
A need for relevance may explain why Viraleze, which received $1million in Australian government grants to fast-track commercialisation, isreadily available in the UK, Europe and India, but not here.
Starpharma, the manufacturer, claims Viraleze reduces Covidinfection, including the Delta variant, by up to 99.9 per cent within 30seconds of exposure. But Australia’s health watchdog says no.
The pandemic has given an insight into how quickly today’sbureaucrats, in concert with political leaders, embrace dictatorship. Servantsare now masters.
With pay rises for politicians and public servants, the “We’reall in this together” slogan underlines just how distant those who govern arefrom the governed.
Self interest and authority justify the means. Democracy is asecond order priority.
We have been warned. To turn the tide involves arresting thegrowth of governments and demanding accountability for their actions. It meansinsisting on our freedoms as inalienable rights, not carrots. It requiressacrifices, but it’s the only way to stop citizens becoming ever smaller.
