Rules were made to be made.

It's been said that when you create a legislature you can expect it to legislate but you'll have your work cut out trying to make it stop. Via Thoughts On Freedom, the depressing news that the government of Australia now creates more legislation a year than it managed in the half century following federation in 1901. They've got a graph too.  Aside from the fact that it nearly made me bite through my keyboard in frustration it looks like the peak was about 9,000 pages of legislation in the early years of the Howard government. Yes, the Liberal Party that, as I'm forced to note with depressing regularity, has a lot of difficulty with the definition of the word.

Liberal

Adjective
1. Showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions".
2. Having political or social views favoring reform and progress.
3. Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition.
4. Given or giving freely; "was a big tipper"; "the bounteous goodness of God"; "bountiful compliments"; "a freehanded host"; "a handsome allowance"; "Saturday's child is loving and giving"; "a liberal backer of the arts"; "a munificent gift"; "her fond and openhanded grandfather".
5. Not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem".

Noun
1. A person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties.
2. A person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets.

Yep, 9,000 pages of legislation that either tells people what they must do, may not do, can't have, need to apply for, or have to pay extra if you want more than one of it. Liberal? In what fucking way are The Liberals liberal? At least dealing with Labor can be hard work but the Liberals seem to have just picked out a name they liked and ignored what the bloody word actually means. Were they ever really liberal? Any Australian readers know?