The WA government recently announced that it would be allowing up to 30 government schools (out of 768) to become ‘Independent Public Schools.’ These schools will have full management of their recurrent budget and will be given more authority over staffing appointments. They will allegedly have more flexibility in the curriculum up to Year 10 and will not have to apply to the education department for permission to expel students.

Regulation is supposed to encourage good behaviour and control it to maximise the public good. But regulation has become an entity unto itself. Regulation for regulation’s sake means we are increasingly being burdened by nonsensical rules. In Australia, some of our perplexing regulations must strike foreign visitors as very odd indeed.

In troubled times, the government loves to legislate. Whether it is climate change, terrorism or recession, in our modern democracy people demand that the government ‘Do Something,’ and politicians are usually happy to oblige.

Once upon a time in a community called Baniyala, the houses were old, there weren’t enough houses, and there was no house for the school teacher. However, the community didn’t have very much money and they didn’t know very much about building houses.