I found my collection of Santas in the bottom drawer and they are now sitting on the side table. I’m not sure I would have bothered getting them out were it not for the fact that the grandchildren love Christmas ‘decs’.

The Santas are staring over at me as I type this piece – all dressed in red and white but of various shapes and sizes. Weirdly, some are quite slim – maybe they’ve been on a Keto diet. I’m pretty sure one is laughing at me.

Let’s face it, it has been a depressing year for anyone who believes in classical liberal values and the limited role of government.  One might have assumed that after the years of lockdowns, restrictions and mandates, people would want to spread their wings and find their self-respecting sense of autonomy. Alas, it doesn’t seem to be.

In this context, it was interesting to note one of the main findings of this year’s release of the Household, Income and Living Standards Dynamics in Australia survey – yep, HILDA (is she Santa’s girlfriend?).  This longitudinal survey contains lots of interesting information, including the fact that people’s satisfaction with their lives is essentially static over time. Be it good times or bad times, we are seemingly wired to revert to the long-run average – which is a little over 7 out of 10.

But when it comes to reported mental health, it was clear that Covid – or at least the associated restrictions – took a big toll, particularly on young people. Against this perverse trend was the fact that, over the whole course of the 20-odd years of the survey, people had never felt as financially secure as during the pandemic.

With the government chipping in big time to counter any potential hit to our finances – think here JobKeeper, expanded JobSeeker and other measures – watching Netflix all day under the doona became the equivalent of saving the country. Is it any wonder that lots of people thought that this was a pretty good deal?

Let’s not forget those young’uns who had casual jobs often working only a few hours a week who were suddenly in receipt of $750 per week, courtesy of nice Mr Frydenberg.  It was truly a Christmas miracle – a massive pay rise and no requirement to do any work.  It doesn’t get much better.

These findings have got me thinking more generally about changes to the way that children are now raised. (Am I sounding like some sort of Uncle Arthur-old fogy?) The most common sentence uttered in my family when I was growing up was: you’ll be right. Feeling unwell and not wanting to go to school: you’ll be right. Don’t want to do my homework: you’ll be right, just get on and do it. Don’t feel like going to my part-time job: you’ll be right, see you later.

In other words, we were expected to put in and not complain. Of course, we didn’t really mind; it was just a way of getting something off your chest and then getting on with the tasks at hand.

As for helicopter parenting, my mum and dad wouldn’t have known what that meant.  We were left to roam the neighbourhood – there were plenty of other children in the post-war baby boom – returning home for meals at set times.

Fortunately, we lived near a local race course and we had great fun playing in the pond on the flat – yabbies, anyone? – and galloping around the track. Very dirty children and clothes were inevitable outcomes, but what the heck. There was always lots of mercurochrome being applied and sprains – OK, the occasional broken bone – were common.

Most parents these days would have conniptions if their children got up to our antics.  Close supervision, play-dates (again, mum and dad wouldn’t have a clue) and overscheduling – that describes many childhoods these days. And instead of ribbons for first, second and third, everyone gets a participation sticker.

Is it any wonder then that young voters, having had mollycoddled and protected upbringings with nary a critical remark spoken to them, would easily embrace the idea of government in loco parentis? Is it really surprising that these pampered young voters expect a great deal from governments but don’t get the idea of mutual obligation? In turn, it’s not unexpected that politicians respond to the demands of these babied voters by (pretending) to cater to their every need.

I read that ‘gaslighting’ has been selected as the 2022 new word/term of the year. It’s not a bad choice and it is easy to think of examples, particularly in politics. Just check out the gaslighting of Senator Jacinta Price that is going on by bullying elites.

But my favourite new term is ‘motivated reasoning’. So what is motivated reasoning, you ask? In plain language, it’s putting the cart before the horse, determining the conclusion before you even start the analysis.  It is often undertaken by so-called ‘experts’ who can use the trappings of fair dinkum research – reports full of citations, tables, charts, even equations and multivariate analysis – to draw conclusions that suit their personal and political agendas.

Of course, this has been around for ages. Well-known economist, Hal Varian, who left academia to work for Google, used to talk about torturing data until you get what you want. But motivated reasoning has become even more prominent as politicians seek to use reports from ‘experts’ who endorse what they intended to do anyway.

The most obvious example is in the climate field. Who can forget that report used by Labor that sought to demonstrate that a 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 would reduce electricity prices – a saving of $275 per year, no less – as well as create 600,000 new jobs? Is it any wonder that our Prime Minister would declare that he ‘stands by the modelling’? (The fact that half of those new jobs were the result of assumed lower electricity prices is a fact quickly overlooked by supporters of the government’s climate/energy policies.)

Another glaring example of motivated reasoning was the Regulation Impact Statement on Tony Burke’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments. To disprove any connection between real wages and productivity growth, one reference is cited – a newspaper article! Just because the reasoning is motivated doesn’t make it good, of course. Frankly, one of my Santas could have done better job.