On several occasions in this series I've gained the impression that if I were ever fortunate enough to visit (or stay) I might find Australia (a country that's always struck me as an appealing place to live) to be an over-regulated hell-hole. The most recent inditement comes from Martin Johnson... whose writing style is based on nothing BUT hyperbole.. but who has clearly decided he can't get out quickly enough.

As someone who sees red at the first sign of the nanny state (as when some administrative ******** uses barriers to suggest I cross a road at point 'x' rather than point 'y', thus treating me as if I am incapable of making that judgement for myself) I am coming to the conclusion that Australia might be even more ludicrously overladen than this country with folk telling you what you should and shouldn't do - and that's a scary thought..

Can this really be true? I hope not!

What do you mean? A zebra crossing?

When can you tell a plane load of Poms have landed at an Aus airport?
When they shut the engines off you can still hear whining.

It seems that the 'over-regulation' comes down to:

1. Measures to protect infectious diseases coming into the country. Australia has very unique flaura and fauna, easily affected by the importation of non-natural species. And given their reliance on agriculture, it's kind of fair enough that they don't want the risk of foot-and-mouth (or whatever) coming in from any other country. Same with the spraying of the plane - a bit odd but, I'm sure, evidence based.

2. Various instructions on how not to get hurt. I agree, these are ludicrous, but are symptomatic of the litigious society which the USA has become - and others follow. Can't blame cricket grounds themselves for not wanting to get sued.

3. Speed regulations. Similar things operate in the UK. Don't speed, don't get fined. Simple. More people killed on the roads than murdered etc etc.

4. Having to wait for the green man. Agreed. But, then again, I always wait if there are young children around.

5. Prescriptions in different states. It's a federal system. Different rules/regulations re medication - nothing to do with over-regulation as a whole. You wouldn't be able to use a Swedish precription in London.

First things first... I'm entirely with you in terms of the dangers of introduced species and of disease control: I used to focus on this sort of thing when teaching environmental education... so let's concede that Martin Johnsoin is just plain out of line in using that to illustrate his case.

Martin Johnson's writing style irritates more than it amuses... but his intention here is clear enough: to highlight an instinct to regulate rather than to document individual irritations. I doubt he's averse to people driving sensibly or crossing the road safely.. but this country has a reasonable tradition (sadly now being obliterated) of regarding this sort of matter as "common sense"...

We have a long tradition here of regarding the use of judgement and discretion on the part of both individuals and enforcement officers as critical to ensuring the crude instruments of rules and laws are kept very much in the background of out lives... and I know I'm not alone in treating the speed at which I travel as a matter I shoudl be judging in relation to conditions and specific hazards rather than as something to be fixed by "experts" and then unthinkingly enforced.

The barriers preventing one crossing the road at anywhere other than a designated "safe" spot is a small thing... but it's symptomatic of a retreat from this strong tradition: it irritates not because I would generally look to cross at "dangerous" spots.. but because it smacks of an "expert" trying to take these judgements out of our hands.

Treat folk like imbeciles and you get, IMO, a society of morons: instead of taking responsibility for making sound judgements, people blindly follow where directed... and the result is just downright unpleasant.

If you're on an empty, open road, then to some extent I agree with you. But not when your decisions effect (or potentially effect) the lives of other people. Your use of "experts" suggests that you believe those who work full time in road safety are anything but is disingenous. While the motorway speed limit may now be outdated, 30mph limits in residential zones (for example) are utterly evidence based. I'd draw a comparison with the new child safety seat laws. They were condemned by some as the 'nanny state.' Not the case - these were precise, evidence based regulations designed solely to save the lives of children. Figures are not plucked out of thin air.

I agree with the stuff about Australia. However, here, people may cross the road where-ever they so wish. Zebra crossings/pelican crossing etc are placed as 'safe spots' to protect and aid the vulnerable in our society - which is exactly what responsible governance should do.

What a load of tripe Johnson writes (if we exclude the comments about quarantine regulations: in that area, Australia leads the world these days, and if Johnson had wandered off the golf course and into the excellent Melbourne Museum - a place easily reached by tram if the taxi drivers find him so irritating to listen to that they pretend not to understand him - he would have found a great exhibition explaining why - the horrors which have been imported, starting with the forebears of Australia's estimated 300 million rabbits by an idiot Pom, have to be seen to be believed).

Speed limits? What a shocker! Only 201 other countries in the world have them, and even Germany has them on everything but motorways. Pedestrian crossings in cities - with lights on them? Well, swipe me!

Rachael - take my advice (OK: admittedly, I'm a biased Ausophile - but a jay-walking one at least!): get down there as soon as you can and find out for yourself what a great place it is! The only thing I can immediately think of that would improve it is rather fewer Martin Johnsons.

Incidentally, I have arrived in Australia on five different occasions and never once been in a plane that was sprayed. I have, however, been on planes which have been sprayed on leaving the tropics when they have been bound for the UK. So, even in this regard, Johnson is talking rubbish: it's not arrival in Australia that determines whether he gets sprayed, but the point at which the aircraft took off. I don't know where he went first, but arriving from Bangkok, Singapore or Hong Kong has never led to spraying when I have been flying. Quite conceivably he might have put down first in tropical Australia: it's a continent we are talking about here, Martin, and there's no reason to bring tropical unpleasantness from Darwin to the southern cities. Not much reason to bring you either: I wonder if they can make a spray for you?

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Now that's what I wanted to hear. I've always thought well of Australia (and Australians) but much of the appeal has been in the sense of a country where folk were basically free to get on with their own lives and determined to do just that, not a country where an over-bearing state's heavy hand shapes almost every aspect of ordinary, daily lives.

I take it, for example, that it's entirely my business where and when I swim in the sea... as regulation of that would really, REALLY get up my nose.... or would if I found people actually abided by them and expected me to do likewise.

I agree OF there are some strange articles this Ashes, well I would risk all that Johnson was warning about - a load of codswallop.

Every country has it's quirks, Europe is a good example. If Rachael likes to cross the road where she likes, then I suggest she dose not travel to Spain, the middle of the road verges means a good half a mile walk to a crossing point at times, and if you try and go over the verges, you WILL be done for Jay Walking, whilst Spain does not seem to enforce speed limits, try overcrowding a car by one person, and that's a hefty on the spot fine - four seater means just that.
Buying a home in France - several people can own that house, it can cost a fortune in legal fee's to seek out who really who owns a property.
And European bureaucracy in all departments is painfully slow.
And dear old England, the biggest nanny state of them all, if you a minority different from the norm, then you can expect all kinds of grants, I won't go into the more sordid details.
I think on balance I would take my chances in this terrible Australia that Johnson has painted for us.

__________________
Ern

Funny article, really I could write the same type of article for all the countries I have been too (Including England) due to the fact (as Ern stated) that all countries have there little quirks.

I give these type of writers the same respect I give to those people who write on toilet doors. Its a laugh, but it certainly tells you nothing about the place or the people.