We turned against unelected leaders but we're still being overrun by bossy boots

There were, in fact, revolutions to get rid of unelected people telling everyone else what to do. Monarchs, aristocrats and autocrats were replaced by elected parliaments. It is arguably the great achievement and distinction of the West.

The parliaments weren't perfect and still aren't. Not everybody got to vote. Women were only able to join in and have their fair say much later. But the idea that citizens shouldn't just be bossed around willy nilly by people that weren't chosen took hold.

Odd then that we seem to have let the old "I'm here to boss you around" system not so much creep back as creep back and explode. Worse, most people don't recognise that it has happened.

We still have elected parliaments. The revolution you might have missed hasn't disposed of them. What has happened is a tsunami of even more bossy, but unelected, people has crept in to tell the rest of us what we must do. They don't identify as people in authority. It is much more sinister than that. They slink around among us, masquerading as people who can help.

They wield extraordinary and yet underserved power.

Who are they? They include, but are not limited to, experts going beyond their remit, self-appointed advocates and bureacrats. There are too many categories to detail here, but one worrying aspect is entry to each category is almost an open door. The numbers of people out there seeking to boss around the common man is exponentially increasing.

At least headstrong governments have oppositions and the machinery of parliament to try and keep them under control. What laws they pass and the money they spend is all subject to review.

Not so the actions of those who, while they may not pass laws that affect everyone, nor have enormous budgets, do nonetheless have extraordinary power. Alas, no opposition or parliamentary review to keep them in check.

Often they are people who have broken out of or extended their original role to give them the power they seek. Take experts as an example. We need them. The world, life in general and our growing knowledge base means we desperately need people who are indeed experts in a particular field or part thereof.

But imagine someone who has a PhD in one aspect of one field about which the rest of us are virtually clueless. That gives this person enormous freedom to extend their remit when holding court in public or private. After all, we have so little knowledge that we don't recognise the boundaries. Many jump at the chance. They hold forth publicly expressing their views as though we all ought to accept them without question. To them, we are the equivalent of commoners or serfs.

Too many experts forget that their role is to be a bridge between us and their storehouse of knowledge. The smartest use their knowledge and clear, plain English to let the rest of us in on the debate. They lift us up rather than themselves.

The current debate over nuclear power in Australia is an example. It's littered with tit-for-tat comments masquerading as debate between experts. Bald claims of cost or risk. Little to give the common man a chance of participating in the debate. No longer expected or wanted to think for himself, the common man is relegated to being one of the crowd at the Colosseum. He can give a thumbs up or down. That's it.

There's a smugness that shrouds so many with a university education. One of the saddest memories of being a minister for a decade or so was a high school visit. I was chatting with the kids and asking what they planned on doing when they left school, when one kid started his answer with, " I won't go to university". How devastatingly sad that a young person at the beginning of the great adventure of life defines themself in the negative. It's the smugness from so many with a university education that is such a put-down to those without.

Not all academics are condescending a-holes, not even the majority. For 10 or so years as a minister, a former bureaucrat with a PhD was my chief of staff. He made it clear that while he did know a lot about his chosen niche, it was in fact a niche. He was always working to get those junior to him to think for themselves rather than bossing them around. It was his life and public service experience, not the PhD, that we valued.

Having a healthy pool of specialist, university-educated people is vital to the progress of humanity. Every person with a degree, or even PhD, does not come into that category.

If the new class of bossy person was just limited to the inflated egos of some university-educated people, it wouldn't be so bad. But there's almost no limit now to those who want to boss us around.

Another category of unelected bossy boots is the advocate. Greta Thunberg comes to mind. The person who announces they are speaking up on behalf of a particular issue or the disadvantaged in one area or another. Whatever particular group they purport to speak for is, in fact, both their power base and their shield of armour. A very smart political thinker once commented that the poor are an indispensable asset to welfare advocates. Without the so-called poor, on whose behalf would they market themselves as a hero? So it is with domestic violence, mental health, Aboriginal affairs ... the list goes on. Provided you pick a group about whom most of us care, your bonafides is likely to get not so much as a glance. If someone disagrees with you, you can portray them as a hard-hearted meany not interested in helping this troubled group. Yet again, the common man is not asked to think but told what to think. Oh, did I mention you self-appoint as a spokesperson?

Greta, seemingly discontent with the lack of publicity she was getting for bossing us around about the planet, chose to make a foray into wider politics. Armed with whatever knowledge she has about Israel and the Palestinians, she set off to set the world straight yet again. For her, as with so many advocates, it's important to pick a base that will garner you sufficient publicity. It didn't go well.

Then there's the bureaucrat in governments, companies - in fact, almost everywhere. Good bureaucrats are priceless. We ask all of them to turn decisions made higher up into reality and it can't always be easy. However, so many are simply not accountable when things go pear shaped. After all, they're just implementing a decision someone else made. I've had a recent brush at a fairly low level with this kind of stupidity.

With no passenger drop-off in front of the city hotel at which my meeting was being held, we pulled in behind the tourist bus parks for maybe 30 seconds so I could exit the vehicle. Yes, we were right on the corner of a little side street and thus making it harder for someone were they trying to exit that street. Some $130 dollars later, one can't help but reflect on who, if anyone, would own up to having created that hotel drop-off nightmare.

MORE AMANDA VANSTONE:

It's a nightmare because the council have parks for tourist buses in front of the hotel, but not for people generally or those with a disability. In a stroke of genius, the passenger drop-off is in a little side street just after the hotel. Good luck figuring that out in morning peak-hour traffic. Surely, council members don't decide to set up such a revenue-raising trap. But bureaucrats might. That issue is small beer. But repeated around Australia and the world at that level, and indeed much higher, you can see how bureaucracy can wield power in such an enormous and anonymous way.

We need another revolution to scuttle the power these unelected bossy boots are wielding.

If we did it to monarchs, aristocrats and dictators surely we can manage to slay the pompous, the bureaucrat, the advocate and the Gretas of this world.

Ask the common man what he thinks. He does think ... you might be surprised.

The great redeeming feature of the common man is that he's out there in the real world where the rubber hits the road.