Nanny State: Australia’s Draconian Lockdown Laws

On the Intersection of COVID-19, Politics, and Media, with Australia’s Convict DNA

On a warm Friday night in Melbourne in 2010, Formula One star Lewis Hamilton was arrested for doing a burnout in his car. The news prompted Australian F1 driver, Mark Webber, to take to the media and blast Australia’s many rules and regulations.

He half-jokingly said that he had spent the previous few days dodging speeding and parking rules. “It’s a great country, but we’ve got to be responsible for our actions, and it’s certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do”.

He lamented that “we’ve got to read an instruction book when we get out of bed — what we can do and what we can’t do … put a yellow vest on and all that sort of stuff”.

How Australia Compares

Fare Evasion

When reflecting on my run-ins with Australia’s rules and regulations, two events come to mind. Several years ago, I forgot to ‘touch on’ my Myki card (public transport card) before getting onto a train in Melbourne’s suburbs. I had enough balance on my card to cover the $4 trip ten times over and admitted the honest mistake to inspectors at the gate (instead of simply getting back on the train to…