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.

and I quote;

Before the widespread urban growth caused by industrialization, people kept dairy cows even in urban areas and the short time period between production and consumption minimized the disease risk of drinking raw milk.[20] As urban densities increased and supply chains lengthened to the distance from country to city, raw milk (often days old) became recognised as a source of disease. For example, between 1912 and 1937 some 65,000 people died of tuberculosis contracted from consuming milk in England and Wales alone.[21] In the early 1900s, in Arizona, Jane H. Rider "publicized the link between infant mortality and contaminated milk, and finally convinced the dairy industry to pasteurize milk."[citation needed]

Developed countries adopted milk pasteurization to prevent such disease and loss of life, and as a result milk is now widely considered one of the safest foods.[

>If Australia society wishes to accept a socialised health care system for the benefit of >us all, then let's also embrace the idea that human freedom and dignity requires that >we retain our autonomy and remain free to take risks. Let's stop using 'burdening the >health system' as a justification for controlling people's lifestyle choices.

Nicola you are a very dangerous person.

Australia's soils are low in iodine, so the salt we use has iodine added, low levels of iodine;
Goiter: Very low levels of iodine intake (50µg/day) are associated with goiter, which presents as an enlarged thyroid gland. Other symptoms include dry skin, fatigue and hair loss.

Cretinism: Severe iodine deficiency (30µg/day) during pregnancy can lead to cretinism in infants. This syndrome is characterized by mental deficiency, Spastic Diplegia, deaf mutism and shortened stature.

It was once common practise for butchers to add sulphates to spoiled meat and sell that meat to the poor.

We have building codes Why?

To try and stop our houses from falling down.

We have electricity standards Why?

So we don't get electrocuted

We have road safety rules Why?

To reduce the road toll as well as colect revenue for the government.

Ever noticed in low taxing America, that people get fined for lots of things.

We have regulations to do with pharmaceutical drugs, Why?

To protect you and me from adverse drugs.

We have OH&S regulations Why?

To try and reduce the injury rate at work

WollyB,

Building codes, industry standards, best practices, laws, regulations and the whole system of policing, administering etc all work well in theory, but there will always be someone who disregards the system at their peril and there is always someone willing to rort/abuse 'systems' for advantage.

The current situation whereby each and every mine site has its own 'Safe Systems of Work" i.e. Locking on to isolated plant to carry out work/repairs is a nightmare. XYZ mine company may use individual keyed purple locks with the paperwork accompanying needing to be signed on and off at completion, but ABC mine company will require individually numbered locks (all keyed alike) with blue covers and paperwork signed at start of shift but not signed off at completion. Even the definitions of Confined Spaces have been modified on some company sites, who are given exemptions from Worksafe.

The discrepancies evident create confusion especially when you have mobile work forces who may work on many different sites in a given month. Then there is the toll upon those working FIFO.
See:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/thefeed/article/2015/04/09/lost-miners-tragic-toll-fifo-work

& https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/government-wants-answers-after-17-deaths-in-mining-2/

The whole OH&S industry that sprung up like weeds during the mining boom was a prime example, with courses for ABC company costing several thousands and yet XYZ costing mere hundreds. There was at one time a uniform certificate called the MARCSTA which allowed you to work on all WA mines, gold, iron ore, copper and so on.

Go 10 klms down the road to ZZZ mine and it may be totally different again with reams of paperwork to fill out before you even get near the actual job at hand, with one paper tag tied through a hole in a switchboard "protecting" you.

As I posted earlier on OLO...safety is: "A risk mitigation strategy designed by lawyers at the behest of insurer's to minimise the losses to ordinary shareholders."

In today's NT News I read that 12 workers at Newmont Granites mine were hospitalised.

Even the 'Nanny State' won't protect you with its manifold rules, regulations and laws...you are on your own when it comes to safety, believe me.

Even the 'Nanny State' won't protect you with its manifold rules, regulations and laws...you are on your own when it comes to safety, believe me.
Posted by Albie Manton in Darwin, Friday, 25 November 2016 11:11:08 AM

I agree with what you have written.

Watching one of the documentaries on the building of an american dam, the death toll was horrific by todays standards.

Indeed Nicole. We're all here for a good time not a long time.
Unfortunately we've an ongoing problem with parlimentarians too afraid to say no when asked to support ever more meddlesome rules.

A M in D. Yep. I call it the regulation industry. Every underhanded salesman's out for a slice of it.
Can't sell your product on it's merits? No worries. Just claim it provides improved safety over existing products and like magic it instantly becomes the new standard everyone needs to buy.
Saw it myself as a younger bloke working at a prominent log trailer manufacturer. The owner loved showing his new latest design features to transport bureaucrats and discussing potential new standards.
Then worked as an industrial crane technician and inspector. That was all about standards compliance. A very large part with that employer was to use standards compliance to make the customer believe he had to pay for upgrades. Damn criminal imo. Didn't stay long in that job. It didn't sit right.

Apologies Nicola for getting your name wrong in my post above.
My bad.

An example of our nanny state, & the worst of bureaucrats.

In April 1974 I was sailing my 40 Ft yacht out of Sydney heads, heading for Mooloolaba, on my way to the Solomon Islands, when some sort of harbour board official accosted me from a 30 Ft game fishing type patrol boat.

He told me to turn around & proceed back into harbour. I was to be charged with sailing off shore without a life ring & danbuoy on the rail. It was evidently illegal do so.

I thought this was a joke, & explained that as a single handed sailor there was no one to throw me a life ring if I fell overboard. I also told him that I had found the rope involved with the life ring became very dangerous in heavy weather, when it was usually washed around the deck. My gear was stowed up forward in case I needed it to go racing at the various sailing clubs around the Pacific.

I thought this would be the end of this rubbish, but not so. I was threatened with being boarded & arrested If I did not comply.

Becoming somewhat annoyed at this rubbish, I advised him that my yacht was a British registered ship, & if he or his crew so much as touched it they would be committing piracy, & I as master would take all necessary action to defend the ship.

This fool shadowed me for about 5 miles, obviously having radio communications with his superiors, looking for a way to enforce his will on me. About Long Reef they turned back to Sydney.

The clown had a uniform, & was desperate to enforce his pennyworth of authority, regardless of any sense.

Obviously some lobbyist had managed to get this fool law demanding this gear be on deck on all yachts, regardless of it's usefulness, which probably increased their sales quite well.

This Nanny stuff is NOT Nannyism. Can you people not see that what parades as nannayism is nothing more than tyranny.

Tyranny people, tyranny is nothing less than plain simple tyranny. I has absolutely nothing to do with CARING ABOUT THE PEOPLE. CAN you stupid people not see this? Can you not see that by using the word Nanny you are falling right into their trap, their hands.

Who the xyz do you think made the term get used?

Just how stupid are my fellow Australians - like lemmings to the slaughter you think exactly what you are told to think and you think exactly how you are conditioned to think by the media don't you?

WHY will you not see?