And growing political interference in people's private lives goes on because we are apathetic and fool ourselves that we live in a democracy. The latest tax-payer funded nagging in TV is about backyard BBQ hygiene, with some twat muttering about how 'clean' he is, and shoving a thermometer into a steak, when people have been grabbing the leftover, cooled- down meat and eating without any effect for a long, long time. Kids pick things out of dirt and eat them. But the badgering and nagging goes on at great cost to us all. Most Australians have far more knowledge and commonsense that the wacko politicians and elites who think that 'ordinary' people are too stupid to live their own lives without the godlike advice handed out by them. A good article, full of common sense that politicians and stupid power brokers should have rammed down their throats. Government is just to big and too meddling in Australia for anyone but an idiot to call the country democratic any longer.

Just dumb rubbish masquerading as an article of intellectual worth! Dumb folk need to be protected from themselves!

As for the author, (with an IQ roughly equivalent to the ambient temperature?) she can take a running jump off a cliff if she accesses the considerable health risk first!

Don't forget to pack the shute love and ensure brain is engaged before putting mouth into gear!
Alan B.

Having grown up on a dairy farm and been brought up on milk that was not homogenized, pasteurized or even always refrigerated, I can agree with the sentiments of this article. When I first went to Singapore, a paternalistic regime was telling the populace via billboards that "two is enough" (children). When I returned, they had decided that the environment was too sterile and they were urging children to "get your hands dirty". Pictures were displayed of children playing in the dirt and that's what we did as children on the dairy farm. Must have built up lots of immunity because six decades on, my several siblings and I are a fit and healthy lot. The role of government is to educate its population so it can have the information to avoid mistakes or to knowingly make them.

Nicola, are you sure those dairy regulations are to protect us from our poor choices, or the large dairy corporations & the supermarkets from the small dairy trying to earn a living off grid so to speak? We actually survived, & we were getting home delivery of raw milk until I was 15.

Yes big government bureaucrats do want to enforce their ideas on us, but do you think they have actually had those ideas generated in their own heads? Could most of them have come from lobbyists, looking to give yet another industry a clear run at our wallets, without the competition individualists generate?

Would bike riders be subject to those hot horrible helmets, if someone had not wanted another volume market for their styrene foam, & or their foam moulding capacity?

I do agree with a lot of what you are suggesting, but do think you are perhaps being a bit to kind to the bureaucracy & their motives?

Hey Alan. I hope you've not been swigging on raw milk, & got SOL for your trouble? Sounds a bit like it with that post mate.

Hey Hasbeen, I absolutely agree that the government is lobbied by special interest groups and industry bodies which I why I advocate for smaller government. Smaller government has less power to influence or control our behaviour with the aim of benefitting these special interest groups.

Nicola

Firstly, many bureacrats are rigid concrete thinkers and if it is written they will follow it rigidly, if someone wrote a requirement that they all jump off a cliff, they will follow that directive to the death.

Secondly, I used to holiday on a dairy farm and also drank raw milk and cream. However recently in Victoria a child died from drinking raw milk.

Thirdly, there are some very good reason that particular regulations were put in place. Mind you they were put in place before our modern refrigeration techniques were reliable.

Fourthly Cows, can get TB, anthrax, and the invention of pasteurization reduced the bacterial load in cows milk. and I quote

>Milk is an excellent medium for microbial growth,[14] and when stored at ambient temperature bacteria and other pathogens soon proliferate.[15]

>The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says improperly handled raw milk is responsible for nearly three times more hospitalizations than any other food-borne disease source, making it one of the world's most dangerous food products.[16][17] Diseases prevented by pasteurization can include tuberculosis, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and Q-fever; it also kills the harmful bacteria Salmonella, Listeria, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli O157:H7,[18][19] among others.