Not many of us like being told how to live our lives, especially by those we don’t know and trust. It gets up our nose. Yet there is an endless number of people who want to do just that. When they enlist the support of the government, we end up with the nanny state.

This became very apparent during the Senate nanny state inquiry that I chaired four years ago. In addition to almost 500 submissions, hundreds of people communicated their frustrations in less formal ways.