The Senate nanny state inquiry, which I chaired, has ended due to the election. Its seven short reports, available on the Parliament House website, make sobering and even disturbing reading.

Throughout the inquiry – during public hearings and in submissions – three things about Australian public health lobbyists came to worry me: a conceited arrogance in the face of evidence from overseas; a desire to make laws "for the greater good", and the belief that "appropriate" intellectuals know better than the rest of us.