For months now, any criticism of Daniel Andrews’ government over the Victorian outbreak and subsequent lockdown has been portrayed by progressive and Labor partisans as a kind of right-wing plot aimed at undermining a popular premier and restarting the economy at any cost.
Jibes about “Dictator Dan” and “Chairman Dan” from Victorian Liberals — who claimed Andrews was too tough before the outbreak, then attacked him as too soft after it, before reverting back to the “too tough” case now — have certainly reinforced that view.
But the #IstandwithDan crowd on social media has been strangely silent over the absurd, and scary, arrest of Ballarat mother Zoe Buhler over a Facebook post she made proposing a protest against Victoria’s lockdown.
Buhler’s house was raided and searched by Victoria Police, and she was handcuffed until officers were satisfied the location was “secure”, presumably worried she might deploy a like button against them.
Police took her computer equipment and have banned her from using social media.
Note that Buhler, who is pregnant, wasn’t arrested for protesting, and thus physically breaching lockdown laws, but proposing a protest on a social media platform, which falls afoul of the “incitement” provisions of the Victorian Crimes Act.
That she was arrested and handcuffed in her own home by multiple officers is goon squad stuff.
Buhler’s views on lockdown might be idiotic and extreme, but her treatment was a wild overreaction by a police with real form in persecuting Victorians for lockdown breaches.
The treatment of Buhler has been the subject of criticism from such far right wing bodies as the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Victorian Bar Association. Not so much, though, from the Andrews crowd on Twitter*.
The case of Buhler — a dill who has apologised for her “bimbo moment” — and those of other noted targets of police raids, journalists Annika Smethurst and Dan Oakes and Sam Clark aren’t directly comparable.
But they all show up an ongoing theme of police overreach, at the behest of governments, justified by “security” concerns — national security or health security, in Buhler’s case.
More to the point, they show up the relative indifference of most Australians to that overreach.
The outrage about the raids on Smethurst and the ABC was more or less confined to the media and some politicians.
Anger about the vexatious prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery is limited to a small group of supporters.
Australians simply don’t get outraged when goons in uniforms raid and harass citizens without cause — and especially not if they support the government that does it, or they think the victim holds different political views to them.
As I’ve argued before, this is partly because we don’t have a tradition for debating civil rights in Australia, we don’t have the institutions, or the legal and constitutional framework, or even have the language with which to discuss it. And increasingly, wingnuts like “sovereign citizens” are stealing these issues to deploy in their own interests.
A bill of rights would at least put police forces on notice that there’s a legal structure in place to protect the basic rights of citizens from the kind of government-mandated harassment that the AFP and Victorian police feel they can engage in with impunity.
*(And for all the angry Andrews supporters queuing up to cancel their subscriptions/attack me in the comments/belt me on Twitter, yep, I’m a right-wing hack looking for a job at The Australian etc etc, just like I have been for the last 10 years that I’ve been banging on about this stuff.)
Yes, it is very disturbing that there are not more Australians up in arms about all of this overreach by politicians, security services and police forces. But you did not mention one of the most significant abuses of all – the smearing, torturing and detention of Julian Assange.
All else pales, noelferg.
Yep, I’ve never mentioned JA once in 12 years. A real oversight. My bad.
I appreciate that you have mentioned Assange many times. It is such an important case & such an abuse of law, that it needs to be constantly mentioned, partly to prick the consciences of other journalists & media organisations, who are failing to support JA.
This article is definitely you at your best, Bernard. Why?…Because you kept it apolitical, balanced and entirely focused on the issue.Please pay no attention to those unhinged commentators who as you have probably already noticed have completely changed the subject matter of the article and turned it into a support rally for Genghis Dan. As they incessantly do.
Why does this have such a high score?
Can I assume by your logic, that if someone doesn’t bring something up every second of every day that they support it, that you are a huge supporter of the arrest of witness K? No? Then why did you type this garbage?
I think our views of Dan are a bit more nuanced than you like to think. There are a number of things I don’t like about the Victorian Government’s policies – their lack of interest in social housing, the preference for putting people in prison rather than rehab, their logging and other lack of environmental policies, their preparedness to knock down sacred trees rather than slightly reroute a road, for example – but I support his strong stance on Covid-19 because it seems sensible.
Agreed There are things wrong with the Andrews’s government, as you have outlined.
Incarceration, logging, all the things you mention are real marks against them.
Otherwise Andrews is competent, consistent, communicates, plans and is accessible; all positives in the pandemic.
He makes for a more palatable Dictator than Morrison.
Bernard. The Ballarat woman was obviously made an example of. Cack handed, but intended to make a point.
It will be interesting what the magistrate makes of it.
Andrews is an incompetent state leader with zero care factor for the people of his state, and 100 percent care factor about getting re elected.
By gee Shonky, Andrews has certainly got your gander up. Lucky we’ll get to vote him out next election.
When will you commentators stop praising Dan Andrews? i swear he could be an axe murderer and you lot would still fall down at the throne of King Dan and slurp in his Gramsci-ism while ignoring his police-state brutality. Too much is too much. Your collective comments are totally unbalanced.
Oh dear. Just scrolled down. We would have to agree to disagree about who is unbalanced. Just thank whatever deity you worship that Michael O’Brien is not in charge.
Yes O’Brien would be scary right now, in an incompetent way, not in the cold Brutal way of Andrews though, coldly planning reelection whilst applying the blow torch to his state brethren. Reelection at any cost. Even at the cost of your total financial ruin.
The only deity I know would n’t restrict my travel to 5 ks from where I live. It would n’t gag me and stop me from speaking. It would n’t shut down my business and deny my right to earn a living. It would n’t place me under “house arrest” and it certainly would n’t arrest innocuous and harmless pregnant women because their political views differ from the Victorian Marxist State Govt. Now who is your deity?…would that be Theos Dan?
Elephant in the room Trevor. Andrews is a sociopath. Some people respect that.
I agree with some of what you say Bernard, but maybe not all. The bimbo, as I believe she described herself, ought to have known that her post had the potential to encourage others to defy lockdown, placing the community at risk of further spread of the pandemic. The footage I saw showed her being full of bravado, and prepared to give lip. The police, having learned she was pregnant, could have asked her to sit out of harms way as the warrant was executed, and having seized her computer, could have made a time for her to front the police station and explain her actions. Maybe she would have complied. I don’t blame the individual police who attended, however. Their standing orders, and the fact that there were (at least) two adult males present and also being confrontational, painted them into a corner from which it would take a skilled negotiator to move out. I doubt that kind of negotiation skill forms much of their training.
She did say afterwards that the police were nice to her after the initial confrontation.
The main reason for the outcry was because she was pregnant and in her PJ’s. Her facebook post wasn’t just a “like” or a simple “comment”. She was encouraging people to break the Law by attending a Protest.
Police are not stupid, and she, like a lot of others probably have a lot of followers that she is trying to influence. A search of her Facebook page shows a series of posts relating to all manner of conspiracy theories, including anti immunization, anti Lock down, Fake Virus, 5G, etc. Have you also noticed with most of these people being arrested that there is always someone else on hand filming the incident and berating the Police. It proves to others of their ilk, their resolve
The criterion is “harmlessness”. She is not harmless.
But then, again, a raid on Sky after Dark could be more productive. The poor Vic Cops have had a rough trot since the Eureka Stockade and Ned Kelly.
Some of their “clients” have come off much worse.
Often under very doubtful circumstances, especially if they are guilty of being aboriginal.
If you know anything about Australian history you would know the police during the Eureka Stockade period and during Kelly era were merciless and ruthless. Much like what we saw in Ballarat
In this case the law is/was protecting significant over reach. Other countries are doing quite well .. and there is reason to believe that many Australians are actually protected from the worst of the virus by their innate immunity, whether from previous virus challenges or maybe other vaccinations.
This was the police making an example.
‘encoraging people to break the law by attending a protest’. Listen to yourself!
Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.
Miss Ruthypegs – I am sure your lack of compassion for a fellow human being and your attitude to draconian lock-down compliance will change when it’s your turn and they come for you.
I can take responsibility for my own actions, and I expect you and others to do the same.
Since when is having an opinion and the right to express it a breach of taking reponsibility for your own actions?…Answer – when Marxist Dan says so.
He’s not a Marxist you muppet
As a counter point, what are the police meant to do? Melbourne is nearly through this lockdown, but we’re meant to let the QAnon folk organise dangerous rallies to potentially shoot the numbers back up?
The whole outrage smacks of white privilege. God forbid a white person experience consequences for their actions. It’s also worth mentioning that she is a QAnon believer (her Facebook is/was covered in #GreatAwakening content), so I’m sure she’ll be back talking about the deep state and all that soon enough. It’s also worth mentioning that she was warned to remove the content and said there could be consequences. Finally, the whole “bimbo moment” seems confected to get more people on side.
I am no fan of Andrew’s, but if this is the police brutality hill that people choose to die on, then I have genuine questions about what we think police brutality actually involves. It honestly was peak good policing. I’m sure if she was BIPOC, they’d have slammed her on the ground.
If people want to get mad about policing, then get mad about when cops continue to fail actual victims, racially profile minorities and abuse their power. I’m not going to get mad when a white person finally experiences a tiny bit of their privilege being extinguished.
Lost me at the word “white”, you’re grinding a different axe.
I get mad about those things too, you partisan brainlet.
Did Mr Andrews direct Victoria Police to take this action?
Bring proof that he did.
OR
just accept we still have separation of powers in Victoria
and so Vic Police acted under their own agency and remit.
It’s getting to the stage that when making breakfast, I drop the toast
and it lands marg side down. “it’s Dans fault and we are in a dictatorship!”
1/2 the state of Vic sagely nods their heads and logs into Facebook…
But Peter, hundreds of deaths ARE this government’s fault.
Apart from the Hotel Quarantine stuff up, more than 70% of the Deaths in Victoria have been in Aged Care Homes, which are under the responsibility of the Federal Government who have been told multiple times that there are significant problems that need fixing. Meanwhile the Federal Government has sat on their hands