Panned The Victorian government’s pandemic bill — described in these pages as “vital but flawed” — has been the focus of quite terrifying “debate”, with protesters targeting an MP’s home and several homemade gallows brought along to protests against the new powers (among many other things).
The Herald Sun‘s Susie O’Brien simply can’t fathom why this might have happened: “The sight of three nooses hanging off a makeshift wooden pole carried on the streets of Melbourne during weekend protests should repulse every single Victorian … Signs showing Premier Daniel Andrews mocked up to look like Hitler should also revolt us.” And yet, the piece’s next line may be illustrative: “I don’t resile from calling Andrews a dictator many times over the past 18 months, but it’s offensive to depict him as a Nazi leader responsible for the death of millions.”
Perhaps O’Brien’s fellow columnist Andrew Bolt has some idea how things got so out of hand, after former Victorian Liberal Party president called the bill “modern fascism” on his show (giving him a great headline), or the IPA’s Gideon Rozner accusing Andrews of trying to build a “COVID gulag“.
State of Origin Still on the pandemic bill, Labor MP Jaala Pulford has an idea for how to take the sting out of the debate: make it about state rivalry. The employment minister put together a list, the primary use of which is show all the stuff Victorians could get that those chumps in New South Wales can’t.
We’re twice as smart as the people in NSW, Pulford. Just tell us what’s in your pandemic bill and we’ll vote for it.
Inquiry to stop inquiries? You can set your watch by it. With the election likely to be about six months away, of course the government takes a wild swing at the ABC, proposing a Senate inquiry into its complaints handling process. Just the right time to intimidate journalists into not calling out Morrison. Combine that with the minute-by-minute balance measuring that happens during election campaigns, might just be enough to nullify the ABC’s reporting.
Meanwhile, in a jarring shift in rhetoric from the PM, he was asked (pretty much apropos of nothing) about whether he was the underdog in the coming election and said he was. In light of the power of incumbency during COVID and with large chunks of the media standing by him — not to mention all his apparent recent successes — it’s hard to know where he got that from. But hey, it worked for him last time, we suppose.
Yarra Council Will the red flag rise above the brown Yarra River tonight? The city of Yarra — Fitzroy, Collingwood, Richmond, Clifton Hill, an area with the GDP of whole nations — may be about to elect a socialist mayor. Or not. Last election the council became the first Greens-majority council in Oz, 5-4. Now Greens councillor Anab Mohamud has taken leave of absence while she deals with charges of assault. It ain’t your mung beans Greens any more. That ties it at 4-4, with no casting vote for the council-selected mayor.
A meeting last night couldn’t resolve the deadlock. Tonight it’ll try again. The council’s two socialists — Steve Jolly and Bridgid O’Brien — may be able to persuade one of the fracturing Greens quartet to back them for a term. Or they might back a community independent while the council faces a COVID revenue squeeze and services crisis.
Whatever happens, local member Richard Wynne will face an increasingly bolshie — small and big B — outfit.
Ita is finding out at last, it doesn’t matter how far to the right you steer the ABC, it’s never enough. Ever! Most of q&a, insiders, drum are already tainted with their version of ‘balanced’. For the likes of Scomo, Kroger et al, too much is never enough! I wonder sometimes if I’m just woefully old fashioned and out of touch or if the world around me has gone mad…
“…not to mention all his [Morrison] apparent recent successes…”
Which ones would they be? Submarines, vaccine cockups, lack of quarantine, climate, women’s safety, EV backflip, JobKeeper rorts, “I don’t tell lies”…?
“Orders are signed by elected officials” is not the selling point they think it is.
Well there have been a lot of complaints about ‘unelected bureaucrats’ making restrictions on our lives. You can’t have it both ways.
Isn’t the rule of law how our democracy runs? If a government wants to do something they have to pass legislation to do it. And the reason we elect politicians is so they can do this.
Regarding NewsCorp’s Herald Sun, with ‘freedom & liberty’ agitprop from the (Koch linked) IPA economic libertarians and more to the point Bolt, Crikey did good article few years ago on his comments about ‘tidal waves of immigrants’ (in Caulfield next to St.KIlda in Melbourne has a strong Jewish community):
‘There’s something deeply wrong with Australian discourse. We now have a media and political culture in which the pressure is to be ever more extreme — which is why racism is now becoming part of “civilised discourse”.’
https://uat.crikey.com.au/2018/08/03/andrew-bolt-australian-discourse/
It’s strategic discourse, while media have become so desensitised, along with Australian society, they do not even realise when they are dog whistling; the ‘great replacement’ trope is disguised by constant references to identity, language, religion, refugees, immigration, NOM and population growth. It’s neither original nor limited to Australia but is apparent in the Anglosphere UK and US, plus satellites of influence including Hungary, the latter is responsible for commissioning the now global anti-semitic and Islamophobic ‘Soros Conspiracy’.
Both former UK PM Cameron and Australian PM Abbott have been cited in the public sphere linking ‘migrants’ with the verb ‘swarm’, the latter normally being associated with insects, or biology or the science of eugenics; old tropes being reintroduced under different guises.
Berkeley legal Professor Dr. Ian Haney-Lopez, dog whistling expert, claims it came from the mucky segregationist ‘state rights’ Goldwater campaign of generations ago to denigrate democracy and race or Haney-Lopez described it as ‘strategic racism’. In his 2013 book ‘Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class’ (Recently, former UK Tory head Baroness Warsi claimed it had wrecked the UK):
‘Haney Lopez offers a sweeping account of how politicians and plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog whistle appeals generate middle-class enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration, and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and financial markets, and aggressively curtail social services. White voters, convinced by powerful interests that minorities are their true enemies, fail to see the connection between the political agendas they support and the surging wealth inequality that takes an increasing toll on their lives. The tactic continues at full force, with the Republican Party using racial provocations to drum up enthusiasm for weakening unions and public pensions, defunding public schools, and opposing health care reform.’
It has been posited that this is essential for radical right libertarian policies to benefit the few, and to be supported by nationalism, eugenics, authoritarian attitudes and dog whistling, plus other PR tactics, e.g. ‘street theatre’ mimicking Capitol HIll for media content.
All these rwnj are getting into very dangerous territory, they all need to pull their heads in. Especially as Guy agreed with the transfer of power from unelected to elected members not that long ago. Also noticed that nsw govt has announced a similar bill in parliament .
I am more terrified of having politicians making the decisions regarding the “Calling of a Pandemic” than a Chief health Officer.
Why??
A Medical Officer will call something on all the medical advice available to them at the time.
The lockdowns seem to have created some form of amnesia.
Does anyone remember when scottie from marketing was closing our borders to China and Iran and leaving them open to the US and UK? Ruby Princess, anyone??
The 1917 Pandemic law saved millions of Australian’s lives and now we have the political class being given medical powers with no medical degree to back it up with.
All this American “Freedom” and “Democracy” BS hot off the Face Book page firmly being pushed by the fusion conspiracy theorists.