THIS WEEK’S RUNNING BATTLES on the streets of Melbourne are a stark reminder that ideas have consequences. That the protesters constitute a minority of the Victorian population is indisputable, and yet their vociferous response to the Victorian Labor Government’s policy of compulsory vaccination have dominated both the news media and the consciousness of the Australian public. Even in New Zealand, the images of anger and violence have given the advocates of compulsory vaccination pause.

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Known principally for his political commentaries in The Dominion Post, The ODT, The Press and the late, lamented Independent, and for "No Left Turn", his 2007 history of the Left/Right struggle in New...