At what point did the West, including Australia, abandon common sense and reason in favour of decision-making worthy of the script of a bad 1980s dystopian horror flick? And why? That will be one for future historians to mull over, but it is clear that at some point in the last decade our politicians ceased to be motivated by cold hard facts and experience but chose instead to be guided by raw emotion and irrational, adolescent-type feelings designed to make matters worse, not better.