Once authoritarian governments have stripped away freedoms, they rarely, if ever, give them back without a fight. Anyone who thinks that the politicians who’ve ripped away our most basic human rights – freedom of movement, freedom to work, freedom to associate, freedom of speech – over the past 18 months are going to give them back in a hurry is kidding themselves.
As we are seeing almost everywhere, even populations who’ve complied with Covid dictatorships on everything from masks to vaccinations are still being held to pandemic ransom. The “fully vaccinated” are being told to line up for a third shot, masks are still being required and, despite trumpeting “freedom days”, old restrictions are merely being replaced with new and even more intrusive ones. French citizens are witnessing something they haven’t had to endure for generations: heavily armed goons swarming the streets and cafes and demanding, “Papers please!”
And it’s not going to end any time soon. Not in Britain, where “public health experts” (who also just happen to be lifetime Communist Party members) are demanding that social distancing and masking be made permanent.
And certainly not in Australia, where state governments are secretly trying to give themselves permanent dictatorial powers.
The Andrews government is secretly negotiating with three crossbenchers to introduce specific pandemic laws that would permanently replace controversial state of emergency powers and significantly change the way the state manages COVID-19 this year.
Bear in mind that these “state of emergency powers” grant the government extraordinary and arbitrary powers normally associated with the worst dictatorships. If they are made permanent, how are they not a dictatorship? No matter who happens to occupy the government benches.
Last year, it looked as if socialist premier Daniel Andrews was preparing to quietly exit leadership ahead of the 2022 Victorian election. A false hope, as it turned out: having got a taste of absolute power, “Dictator Dan” appears determined to enjoy it.
State of emergency laws have been active in Victoria since last March as the legal instrument that allows authorities to enforce a range of public health commands, including lockdowns, mandatory mask wearing and 14-day quarantine.
Human rights lawyers and opposition MPs say the sweeping powers, which are usually reserved for short-term disasters such as fires and floods, do not include enough safeguards to enforce proper government accountability and transparency.
The Age can reveal the government is designing the new laws to cover all future pandemics, not just the coronavirus pandemic. It is intended that they will be in place by December, when the current state of emergency provisions expire, and a first draft is expected within the next two months.
As if to prove that dictatorship is the name of the game, Andrews has completely bypassed normal parliamentary procedure. A triumvirate of micro-parties are running the show instead.
The pandemic legislation will be permanently shaped by the demands of three upper-house crossbenchers: Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick, Reason Party MP Fiona Patten and Greens leader Samantha Ratnam[…]
In an unconventional move that has infuriated the Coalition and other crossbenchers, the Health Department is negotiating the new legislation with only Mr Meddick, Ms Patten and the Greens, and has held a series of meetings with them behind closed doors in recent weeks.
The great irony here is that a supposed libertarian MP is enabling sweeping powers of the kind we once associated with places like East Germany.
In a move that triggered condemnation among opposition MPs and lawyers in September, Labor proposed an addition to the state of emergency powers whereby “authorised officers” would be allowed to pre-emptively detain somebody they suspected of breaking health directions[…]
Greg Buchhorn, a lawyer and policy committee member of civil rights group Liberty Victoria, said the broad State of Emergency laws have resulted in some extreme intrusions on individual rights, such as forcing new prisoners to do 14 days of quarantine – “effectively solitary confinement” – even with little to no COVID-19 in the community.
The Age
Of course, the new dictatorship taking shape in places like Victoria won’t permanently impose blanket restrictions and permanent curfews. Authoritarians are rarely that blunt, any more.
Instead, what we will see is a constantly-shifting kaleidoscope of Byzantine rules, under a permanent pall of looming punishment for transgressing whatever the rules may be at any given moment.
In this way, an authoritarian rarely has to send in the goon squads at all: a beaten-down, cowed and confused population will police itself.
Sound like a conspiracy theory? Sure, it does.
But then, so did vaccine passports and mask mandates, just 18 months ago.
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