THE Melbourne Australian Grand Prix is over for another year but not out of the headlines which started before the actual race with Lewis Hamilton being caught red–handed – and red-faced – by the Victorian Police doing burn-ups in his Mercedes in one of the inner city suburbs close to the track.

His car was confiscated by the police and from then on the media frenzy threw the spotlight on the Victorian police clamp down on what they term as ‘hoon’ driving.

The race as we all know by now was one by Jenson Button with his team mate Lewis Hamilton way back in sixth place after being hit from behind by an over-exuberant Australian Red Bull driver Mark Webber, desperately trying to secure a podium placing in front of his home crowd.

Afterwards Mark Webber apologised to Lewis Hamilton only to end up making a controversial statement about Victoria and Australia claiming his native country to be a “nanny state”

This has caused a major storm in this parochially-minded sports-mad state. Firstly a high-ranking Victorian police officer responsible for road safety dived in feet first in defence of their tactics to reduce the state’s increasing road fatalities.

It’s since gone further up the chain of political rhetoric with the Premier jumping in to defend his government’s policy on road safety, speed and drink-driving.

What sparked Webber’s comments is hard to pin down but the over zealous police looking for someone with a high profile such as Lewis Hamilton could well have been the key contender in the ensuing debate. After all there are many incidents of hoon driving taking place in Melbourne and other parts of the state every day and evening but these go unpunished.

All Webber did was challenge the nation and state law makers with their continual interference in people’s everyday lives.

The State of Victoria is not only over-governed but over-regulated as most Australian cities are and the laws are in some cases quite unnecessary, whereas important issues demanding harsher penalties remain untouched in the ‘too hard’ basket.

Being Australian Webber said while he loved his country he was disgusted at the way governments were using every opportunity to pass regulations stifling the freedom of the individual.

Living in Europe made him realise just how bad it was and he was quoted as saying that he hated coming back to Australia for that reasons mentioned and that is when he remarked about it becoming a Nanny State.

Obviously those in government firmly disagree with Webber’s statement and are quick to defend their policies in regards to road laws but there are more and more expressing their opinions and have come out to support the racing driver’s views.