''If this legislation is passed by the Parliament, and if we then form a government, I predict that we will rescind it,'' Mr Abbott said, even though he probably had no business doing so. For even if he does win the next election, Mr Abbott won't control the Senate - he'd need to win a double-dissolution poll to do that. Yet, there he was over-promising again just to avoid being seen as Mary Poppins. Which, although unsurprising given his record, was still a pity. Because, if previous Liberal leaders had adopted the same hairy-chested approach we'd be much worse off.

Leaders like Sir Henry Bolte, for instance. The government of Victoria's longest-serving Liberal premier took the world-first step of making the wearing of seat belts compulsory in all vehicles the same year the state's road toll reached an appalling 1061 deaths. At the time you couldn't get more nanny state than telling people they had to buckle up in their cars, and a good many people told him so. But the legislation went ahead in 1970 and within four years Victoria's road toll had been cut by almost 40 per cent.

Bolte's successor, Sir Rupert Hamer, didn't shy away from controversial social policy either. In 1976 he stared down the civil libertarians to shepherd through legislation to allow random breath testing of motorists. There's little doubt that if either Bolte or Hamer had given in to pressure to delay or rescind their road safety initiatives, lives would have been lost. Last year, a full four decades on from that appalling 1970 figure, Victoria's road toll was 288.

The same year Hamer allowed random breath testing, prime minister Malcolm Fraser could have backed away from the Whitlam government's commitment to ban all radio and television advertising of cigarettes. Fraser could easily have rescinded Labor's four-year phase-in of the ban, which had started in 1972. After all, the tobacco industry was calling for it, as were some government departments. But despite the pressure, Fraser went ahead.

The government of Jeff Kennett, not noted for nannying, moved to reduce the appalling number of backyard drownings by phasing in from 1993 the compulsory fencing of residential pools. On one level this broke the golden rule of liberalism - stay out of people's homes - but was almost instantly effective. By 1997 the phase-in was complete.