The notion might seem counter-intuitive to those of us who picture the idyllic beaches, who dream of the happy sub-tropical lifestyle, who grew up humming this – but it really is worse in Australia.
As Paul Sheehan makes clear in a searing article in the Sydney Morning Herald, whilst "Australians have this outdated idea of themselves as easy-going pragmatists…
we are becoming a nation of petty laws and fearful citizens, too gutless to confront this creeping, productivity-killing, initiative-destroying, community-sapping tide of compulsion and constriction, much of it driven by a corrosive ideology of the need for government control and intervention.
As in all things, the argument is made best by telling example rather than argument alone – his piece is full of them. Perhaps the most striking is this, an insurance requirement sent to a group of women wanting to run a fundraising fete for their school -
''The applicant must provide a copy of a certificate of currency prior to each event showing public liability insurance to the value of $10,000,000 for each fete …'' That is not a misprint.
There's more where that came from. Head down under to the SMH site and have a look.
By Alex Deane