Maurice Newman: State governments are getting too big for their boots

The coronavirus pandemic has diminished freedoms and businesses but allowed our state governments to massively expand their power, authority and influence, writes Maurice Newman.

Talk show host 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 of health orders and copped a $500 fine will drink to that.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant and Health Minister Brad Hazzard see this as the “new world order”. Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeanette Young, agrees.

She admits to unnecessarily closing schools: “Sometimes it’s more than just the science and the health. It’s about the messaging.”

Pity about the children.

NSW chief medical officer Dr Kerry Chant has no problem with Covid fines at the coffee shop. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews needs no persuasion. He’s the original control freak.

Should anyone be foolish enough to question his actions, he makes 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 out of this, so therefore it is not for me to provide hard data that establishes that.”

So, with that sorted, he dictates unnecessary curfews, condones brutal police enforcement, capriciously closes down playgrounds and suspends parliament. Who will argue?

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller also gets it. “We have to shape the behaviour of people,” he says to his subordinates.

“If you write a ticket and get it wrong, I won’t hold you to account for that.”

Any token easing of restrictions comes with a warning that misbehaviour will be punished with a return to harsh conditions.

Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews is the original control freak. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Not long ago, our freedoms were inalienable rights. Now they are concessions to be used as carrots and sticks.

With vaccine mandates under consideration, even our bodies may belong to the state.

That’s big government. Unrepresentative and, unaccountable. No-one voted to surrender their precious freedoms and, not even in wartime, did we suffer such losses of liberty.

In this new world order, different standards apply.

Individual and business breaches are subject to extortionate penalties.

Those responsible for the Ruby Princess and Bondi limo driver ­blunders which led to harsh lockdowns and many deaths in NSW get off scot-free.

So too those culpable for the quarantine and nursing home fiascos in Victoria, which still account for 80 per cent of national Covid deaths.

The demise of accountable government has been creeping up on us for some time.

It came with politicians promising everything we wanted which meant an explosion in unelected “public ­servants” hellbent on expanding their influence.

Now, if their agendas face resistance, they simply wait for a more compliant government.

For politicians primarily interested in representing themselves, the notion of taking on departments and agencies becomes politically risky.

So power passes from the people’s representatives to the unelected ­and unaccountable offices of big ­government.

Take the weather bureau for example. It costs $1 million a day to run and employs around 1500 people.

For years it has been “homogenising” Australia’s temperature records, 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 temperatures to fit its climate change narrative.

In 2017, it was discovered the bureau’s card readers were pre-­programmed to roundup any value below minus 10 degrees Celsius.

As the bureau’s senior manager Dr David Jones bellowed: “Truth be known, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it.”

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

So why bother? Numerous calls for an inquiry have been dismissed, leaving the agency free to pursue its reckless agenda.

Like the ABC. With a $1.1 billion budget and more than 4000 people, it operates in denial of its statutory ­obligations.

The ABC is more ideologically aligned with China’s Global Times than mainstream Australia. Dedicated collectivists persistently trash our heritage and traditional values, relishing their roles as fifth columnists.

Should any government, chair or board, challenge its institutional bias, they are arrogantly brushed aside. Meanwhile, the corporation continues to give a megaphone to Australia’s haters.

Then there’s the Therapeutic Goods Administration, a $170 million a year agency where 750 people regulate vaccines, medicines, medical ­devices and other pharmaceutical products.

With giant regulators like the US Food and Drugs Administration and Europe’s Medical Agency, responsible for the health of three quarters of a billion people, one wonders why Australia, with only 25 million people, doesn’t rely on them.

Big government is back as politicians and bureaucrats create a new world order where accountability is not required and 'freedoms' are offered as rewards.

A need for relevance may explain why Viraleze, which received $1 million in Australian government grants to fast-track commercialisation, is readily available in the UK, Europe and India, but not here.

Starpharma, the manufacturer, claims Viraleze reduces Covid infection, including the Delta variant, by up to 99.9 per cent within 30 seconds of exposure. But Australia’s health watchdog says no.

The pandemic has given an insight into how quickly today’s bureaucrats, in concert with political leaders, embrace dictatorship. Servants are now masters.

With pay rises for politicians and public servants, the “We’re all in this together” slogan underlines just how distant those who govern are from the governed.

Self interest and authority justify the means. Democracy is a second order priority.

We have been warned. To turn the tide involves arresting the growth of governments and demanding accountability for their actions. It means insisting on our freedoms as inalienable rights, not carrots. It requires sacrifices, but it’s the only way to stop citizens becoming ever smaller.