When I was a teenager, we used to joke about “Queensland: the Police State”.
This was, after all, the era when, as the Fitzgerald Inquiry showed, Queensland police and politicians were neck-deep in vice and corruption. The Bjelke-Petersen state government banned public assemblies without permits and police mounted military-style raids on hippy communes.
Hold my beer, says Dan Andrews.
Under the dictatorial powers the Victorian government has granted itself under the so-called “state of emergency” of the Wuhan pandemic, Victoria’s police have become increasingly brazen and brutal. Police are legally entitled to kick in doors without a warrant. Military-armoured goon squads are dragging people off the streets and beating down journalists.
And they certainly don’t want anyone filming them doing it.
During lockdown, Shayne Wicker was on his way to the grocery store when he saw four police officers detaining a man, so he stopped to document the situation.
This is the legal right of any citizen. Under Australian law, “private citizens have the legal right to film the police at work if they are in a public place and if the filming does not impede the performance of the police officer’s duties. In fact, although many may not realise, in many cases you even have the right to keep photographing or filming the police after they ask you to stop”.
The only exceptions are specific circumstances, such as counter-terrorism operations, or if they believe on reasonable grounds that you are obstructing another person, obstructing traffic, harassing or intimidating another person or persons, or causing, or likely to cause, fear to another person or persons.
Shayne Wicker did none of those things.
He stuck around just long enough to film the entire incident, but once police released the man, they turned their attention towards Shayne.
Emboldened by their overreacting emergency powers, the police began to hassle Shayne for being outside and issued him a $1,652 fine for allegedly violating the public health order to remain indoors.
Wicker was in fact exercising his right under lockdown restrictions to go to his nearby grocery store.
A $1652 fine is a crippling financial penalty for a person living in community housing. The cost of challenging the fine is even more prohibitive.
But, by a happy coincidence, Wicker’s local member of parliament happened to visit the estate where he lives. So, camera in hand again, he confronted her.
That MP is none other than Reason Party MP Fiona Patten.
Fiona Patten is one of three independent members of parliament responsible for extending the state of emergency that gave police the power to fine Shayne.
Patten seemed completely oblivious to the reality of the police powers she had personally helped pass through parliament.
In the video filmed by Shayne, the MP scoffs at the idea that Victoria is the most lockdown city globally.
“I tell you I’ve got mates in the UK, and they’d love to be in Melbourne”, you can hear MP Fiona Patten say.
She then promised to help Shayne but never followed through.
Fortunately for Wicker, others are more willing to help. Rebel News has set up FightTheFines.com.au to help ordinary Australians seek redress in the courts.
We’ve been fighting Shayne’s case for months. Our lawyer has gone to court twice now to defend him, and the state still refuses to drop the fine[…]
MP Fiona Patten admits to seeing the video of my unlawful arrest, and even after witnessing that, she’s willing to extend the emergency powers.
Rebel News
Despite touting themselves as “libertarians”, the Reason Party’s sole Victorian MP seems determined to side with socialist authoritarians.
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