Leyonhjelm’s Nanny State Inquiry starts by attacking sin taxes

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
News.com.au
IT IS a big day for the senator who believes we should be able to celebrate gay marriages by firing our lever-action shotguns into the air and passing around joints at the reception.
It’s a libertarian Lollapalooza at Parliament House.
A soapbox is being provided for people against things being compulsory. They want to read what they want, watch what they want, and not have to wear bicycle helmets.
More formally, it is the Senate Economics References Committee’s Inquiry into Personal Choices and Community Impacts.
But its originator, Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm who today chaired its opening public hearing, calls it The Nanny State Inquiry.
When news.com.au asked if this was a big day he said, “It’s just the start”.
But his office is excited. It today suggested the theme song for the inquiry was Robyn’s Don’t F***ing Tell Me What to Do.
The inquiry might appear merely a platform for people who don’t want limits on tobacco sales and hate seatbelts, but it is an important investigation of the common good versus the individual liberty.
The broad question is whether people can be made to do things they don’t like because it is to the benefit of a community at large. In short: How much choice should we have about personal behaviour?
The first witness, by video link, was British journalist Christopher Snowden who long has campaigned against “sin taxes” on cigarettes and alcohol. He also doesn’t like plain packaging laws on tobacco and “rather silly behavioural experiments” to determine whether these practices have worked.
Mr Snowden today quoted Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 inaugural address: “If man can’t be trusted with the government of himself, how can he be trusted with the government others?”.
But his theme was more about taxation without justification.
Said Mr Snowden of sin taxes: “It would be a fair rule if the amount the government gets from these taxes was commensurate with the amount the government was spending as a result of these activities.
“My point is, they are not. They are very much higher than the actual costs are and most of this money is going into the common pot, which means that the general taxpayer is being subsidised by people who are being picked on by discriminatory taxation.
“I don’t disagree with the premise of it (a sin tax) it’s just that by any reasonable estimate the amount of tax being paid on these sinful products is far greater than the actual costs that these sinners impose on society.”
Mr Snowden supported penalties for drink-driving and didn’t oppose vaccination.
But like Senator Leyonhjelm, he saw penalties for making a personal choice an expensive form of puritanism.
There will be a lot more talk about the liberty of the individual ahead. The committee will not report until June next year.