This year’s Nanny State Awards saw Australia and the AMA dominate a horde of strong international contenders for the dubious ‘honour.’
The winners were announced on 6 December 2022 by Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM, FASSA – a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and former Vice-Chancellor of Murdoch University, Macquarie University, and Brunel University in London – during an evening event held at the CIS in Sydney.
“The CIS created the ‘Nannies,’ as we like to call them, to highlight the year’s most ridiculous attempts by other people to mind your own business,” Professor Schartz explained.
“Each year, an army of food fascists, sanctimonious simpletons, and bureaucratic busy bodies slave away, just to make sure there are many worthy contenders for the Nannies. California is the undisputed leader in the field, but this year, the United Kingdom is a very strong challenger… can Australia match the UK’s level of Nanny-ism?”
And the answer it seemed, was yes, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), ACT politician Bec Cody, and ‘all those who wish to rename our towns, regions, parks, and landmarks,’ dubbed the overall winners for 2022.
“PETA (a repeat winner) wants Wool Street in Melbourne to change its name because … well, just because,” Prof Schwartz said.
“[While] Ms Cody has called for a government review of all Canberra’s 7,000 place names. Her goal is to rename all parts of Canberra, and I quote, that are named after ‘bad people.’
“Given that a lot of the parts of Canberra are named after politicians, we predict a massive bill for new signage.”
Second place was awarded to Australian traffic ‘experts’ who have been calling for an urban speed limit of 30km/h, making driving inefficient, with third going to the QLD government for its plan to phase out coal-fired power by 2035, in favour of pumped hydro storage.
“To achieve this vision, the Queensland government must create multiple pairs of large reservoirs one above the other all over the state,” Prof Schwartz said.
“Given the Queensland government’s record of managing water reservoirs, what could possibly go wrong?”
The crowning achievement of the night, however, was reserved for the AMA.
“The judges have given a Lifetime Achievement Award to the AMA and its cronies, for calling for a tax on sugary drinks every year since the Nannies were first awarded,” Professor Schwartz announced.
“The AMA has pointed to the UK, which began taxing sugary drinks years ago. However, the health benefits of the UK sugar tax are not immediately obvious: life expectancy in Australia is the third highest of any country in the world — while the UK does not even make the top 10.
“And the unintended consequences of a sugar tax are difficult to predict: two years after the implementation of a sugar tax, a recent American study found that sales of sugary drinks decreased a little, but beer sales increased markedly — not an obvious way to improve public health.
“Because of their persistent devotion to micromanaging our lives, the AMA is a worthy recipient of this lifetime achievement award.”
Professor Schwartz, who writes about education, freedom of speech and related issues, is also a Board member of Teach for Australia, an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and recently completed his term as Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Advisory Authority (ACARA), making him eminently qualified for his role as an arbiter of addled policy.
However, the CIS, an independent think tank founded in 1976, which has described itself as promoting ‘free choice and individual liberty,’ while defending ‘cultural freedom and the open exchange of ideas,’ could safely be considered to lean towards the right of Australian politics.
For example, an online letter by CIS Executive Director, Mr Tom Switzer – better known as the host of the ABC Radio National’s Between the Lines and as a regular contributor to The Australian, the Australian Financial Review and Sky News Australia – deplored the economic response to COVID by international governments, and appealed to “those of us who believe true liberty and prosperity can only be achieved with a small state that defends free speech and national sovereignty.”
“CIS supports a market-oriented reform agenda to help the Australian economy rebound and invest for tomorrow’s prosperity,” Mr Switzer wrote.
“A growth agenda that is not provided by politicians throwing money at favoured interest groups, but by the private sector being freed to invest by being taxed and regulated less.”
“The second aspect of the pandemic has been the expansion, or rather inflammation, of ‘cancel culture’…” Mr Switzer continued.
“It should be stressed that, at this stage, the cancel culture of the so-called woke left is predominantly confined to the US and UK. But as the CIS Culture program warns, Australia is hardly immune to these illiberal trends. If the cancellers strangle debate, they will suppress ideas and seek to standardise opinion.”
ED note: Which makes this journalist wonder if the awards might just have been a little bit biased against the poor old AMA.