Nanny State Policies

WORST NANNY STATE POLICIES 10Chris Berg tallies up Australia’s most paternalistic ideas. 10: Plain packet cigarettes ready extraordinarily distasteful packages 9: ‘Clarity in Pricing’ less appealing is hard to imagine. The argument for plain cigarette packag- Believing that consumers are being Mandatory plain packaging seems ing is one of the most stark examples of duped into paying too much for goods to be predicated on the belief that at- how Nanny State regulations treat in- and services because the market doesn’t tractive packaging is enough to convince dividuals as childish automatons. Plain provide them enough information, the non-smokers to become smokers, or packaging involves the complete re- Rudd government altered the Trade that for smokers trying to quit, a good- moval of any brand logos, special colours Practices Act in 2008 to compel retailers looking logo is just too much to bear. or fonts, pictures or any other unique to display the total price of goods. That Undermining brand identity would no packaging design, to be replaced by only is, the law forces firms to add up those doubt change the attitude that smok- the brand name in a mandatory font, pesky ‘fees and charges’ and show a ers have towards cigarette brands—the complemented by health warnings. single, total price of products. public health research has convincingly But would it work? Supporters of In the words of Consumer Affairs demonstrated that—but, as to how this plain packaging cite studies which sug- Minister Chris Bowen, the amendment would effect the desirability of smoking gest that consumers would find plain was intended to ‘empower consumers to itself, the evidence just isn’t there. packaging boring and dull, and margin- make the best decisions about what they The National Preventative Health ally reduce the positive connotations of buy.’ Taskforce’s discussion paper on tobac- smoking. This certainly makes sense. But But this was easier imagined than co was titled ‘Making Smoking His- cigarette packages are already plastered implemented. In fact, in the case of car tory’. This is surely a new stage in the with images of rotten lungs and cancer- companies, it was nearly impossible to public health movement’s war against ridden body parts. How removing brand implement. The fees and charges added smoking—an open affirmation that the logos could significantly make these al- on the price of a new car include things goal of the government should not be like stamp duty, registration, luxury car to reduce risk, or to inform consumers taxes, and dealer delivery fees, all of of risks they should be aware of, but which can vary depended on jurisdic- to eliminate an otherwise totally legal tion, dealer or purchaser. product. As a consequence, many major car companies—Ford and Holden, for ex- Chris Berg is Editor of the IPA Review. ample—have concluded that they can- www.ipa.org.au not display any prices on their national Nevertheless, the government has GroceryChoice was a dismal failure. websites at all. deliberately fudged the distinction be- Increasing the amount of informa- tween the two issues. Indeed, Communi- tion consumers can access seems like a cations Minister Stephen Conroy argues no-brainer for many economists and that ‘if people equate freedom of speech policy-makers seeking to improve the with watching child pornography, then market. But it is policies with these sorts the Rudd Labor Government is going to of justifications that have led to financial disagree.’ product disclaimers which are so long The dangers of the internet have and complex that almost no consumers long been an electorally potent issue— read them—again, the totally counter- the 2007 election saw the Coalition productive result of mandatory informa- rest a lot of their electoral hopes on a tion disclosure is that consumers are less campaign for internet safety. But while informed, rather than more informed. many parents may be concerned about 6: GroceryChoice what their children come across online, When the plug was finally pulled on the capacity for those parents to moni- GroceryChoice in June, it was the end of tor and control internet access has never one of the biggest Nanny State failures in been greater. recent years. GroceryChoice purported to better inform shoppers about the rela- tive price of their supermarket shops. 7: Banning junk That was, at least, the theory. In food ads practice, the website was grossly defi- cient. Totally unable to effectively moni- There are literally dozens of proposals to tor the price of individual goods, or even deal with Australia’s love of junk food. individual outlets, the GroceyChoice in- 8: The internet filter The National Preventative Health Task- stead offered up ‘typical’ baskets of goods force has recommended everything from Few Nanny State initiatives have had in a region. subsidies for gym memberships to sub- such bipartisan opposition as internet Furthermore, it was never clear that sidising fresh fruit. But the most promi- filtering. Both the Coalition and the there was a demand for the service. Gro- nent proposal—and one which has had Greens Party oppose the Federal Gov- ceryChoice revealed a supermarket in- the longest running support from the ernment’s scheme, and the Institute of dustry that was actually highly competi- public health community—is a ban on Public Affairs is joined by organisations tive. And the information the website junk food ads targeting children, or a such as Electronic Frontiers Australia and was able to provide was totally dwarfed ban on junk food ads broadcast during Get Up! in arguing that the filter will be by the information supermarkets provid- childrens’ programming. costly, ineffective, and a breach of basic ed as part of their advertising campaigns, Would this materially shrink our principles of free speech. and their individual websites. children? The lead editorial of a 2004 The primary justification for the While the concerns that led to the edition of the Journal of the Royal Society internet filter, like so many Nanny State GroceryChoice project involved the of Medicine argued ‘there is no good evi- measures, is the protection of children— apparent ‘duopoly’ of Coles and Wool- dence that advertising has a substantial protecting children from ‘inappropriate’ worths over the supermarket industry, influence on children’s food consump- internet content, like legal pornography the results of GroceryChoice actually tion and, consequently, no reason to or violent websites, as well as the policing further encouraged shoppers to favour believe that a complete ban on adver- of child pornography. But these are two the big two. In any given region, either tising would have any useful impact on totally separate issues, demanding two Coles or Woolworths may be cheapest childhood obesity rates.’ It continued: separate approaches. Protecting children option, but the nationally consistent ‘the claim that food advertising is a ma- against inappropriate content is the sort result of GroceryChoice was that inde- jor contributor to children’s food choices of task parents can easily perform—apart pendent supermarkets such as Franklins and the rising tide of childhood obesity from basic supervision of what children or IGA were always significantly more has obvious appeal, but as an argument look at online, there is an extremely wide expensive. it does not stand up to scrutiny.’ variety of filtering software that can be GroceryChoice may have been well- But inevitably, public health criti- installed on computers which children intentioned—who doesn’t want a mar- cisms of junk food ads eventually reduce may access. Child pornography is how- ket with better-informed customers?— to vague claims about ‘pester-power’, ever an issue for police. Because child but like so many Nanny State proposals, which perhaps says more about parent- pornography is not generally trafficked completely fell apart in its implementa- ing than it does about advertising. on openly accessible websites, a filter will tion. do nothing to disrupt child pornography networks. www.ipa.org.au IPA Review | August 2009 15 5: Street parties communities, which rely on volunteers to support the also-voluntary Country Nanny State regulations don’t just have Fire Authority. The IPA’s Louise Staley negative economic consequences or found this out for herself when she tried erode personal liberty. The stock of regu- to help the Red Cross feed firefighters lations from federal, state and local gov- during the 2006 bushfires. She wrote in ernments that affect all aspects of public The Age: gatherings are critically eroding our capacity to form communities. When I was helping the local Red Take local street parties. Local gov- Cross make lunches for the fire- ernment regulations are making it near fighters, it all had to be done in impossible to hold a community gather- a registered kitchen and a person pand their purview into social issues. Lo- ing, and making it certainly impossible who had done the food-handling cal governments seem eager to become to hold an impromptu one. As the IPA supervisor’s course had to be there regional Nanny State fiefdoms. Review pointed out last year, navigat- at all times. What that means in Many councils have also weighed ing the complex bureaucratic hurdles to practice is nobody is allowed to heavily into the debate over alcohol and hold a party takes a lot of work. Party make a slice or biscuits at home. public health, trying to use their surpris- organisers have to fill out safety plans—a Governments are increasingly talking ingly adaptable planning powers to enact typical one, from Stonnington Council about the importance of social capital to social change. This, of course, has been in Victoria, is 25 pages long. alleviate the causes of poverty and iso- encouraged by the historically ambitious The safety plan makes event co- lation and strengthen civil society.

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