Jessica Colby
Liberty Itch
The 27th of March 2025 marks the five-year anniversary of Covid lockdowns in my state of South Australia – a policy that brought suffering and derailed the lives of many people including myself. In this article, I will discuss measures that could be taken both now and in the future to ensure it never happens again.
First, we must make it more difficult to enforce lockdowns. This can include measures to defund the police, as funding helps police departments acquire resources and manpower that can be used to enforce lockdowns along with other unjust laws.
To further reduce police capabilities, we can also make recruiting new officers more difficult. One way this could be done is by increasing the requirements to become a police officer along with increased police accountability, which has the added benefit of deterring police brutality. And if you have a family member or someone you care about inform you that they want to be a police officer to serve the community, tell them to become a firefighter instead.
Second, we must object to government efforts to install surveillance technology in our local area, such as cameras and facial recognition technology. It doesn’t just invade our privacy: it can be weaponised against us. Facial recognition technology also often makes mistakes leading to innocent people [being] accused of crimes.
Ensure you have the phone numbers of your family and friends, or at least multiple ways of contacting them.
Third, come up with creative ways to protest during lockdowns. I remember reading a suggestion that all people who oppose lockdowns go out into their front yards or open their windows or balcony and bang their pots and pans for 30 minutes in protest each day. You will certainly get a feel for how many people in your community are with you on the issue.
Car protests are also a good idea. In Australia we may not have the first amendment, but we are meant to have ‘freedom of political communication’ guaranteed by our constitution. Government agencies will override this in the name of ‘public safety’. Despite this, it is very difficult to argue that a disease can get through the exterior of a car and any effort to [bring] car protests to court may have limited prospects of success.
Another form of protest that could be useful to protest lockdowns would be hunger strikes. These are a peaceful form of protest that can be done in the privacy of your own home. The very nature of lockdowns makes it more difficult for the government to prevent or to crack down on this type of protest. On top of this, the prospect of a hunger-striking family member or friend can act as a deterrent to supporting lockdown policies as many pro lockdown people have NIMBY tendencies.
Fourth, ensure you have the phone numbers of your family and friends, or at least multiple ways of contacting them. I know someone who got a 30-day Facebook ban for some random reason during lockdown and was unable to contact many of their friends. Social media are private companies that have the power to ban you for petty reasons. Also, this measure is helpful when organising anti-lockdown protests.
Fifth, if you intend to attend an in-person protest during a lockdown, make sure to livestream or at least film it. If no one is recording what is happening, it increases the chances that police will resort to brutality like they did with the Melbourne anti-lockdown protests. There is a reason the Melbourne police tried to prevent the media from filming those protests.
In Australia we may not have the first amendment, but we are meant to have ‘freedom of political communication’ guaranteed by our constitution.
Sixth, in the event of a lockdown, support smaller businesses and avoid larger corporations when possible. Smaller businesses are more heavily affected by lockdown policies while large corporations can benefit from lockdown policies and tend to be given more leeway and allowances by governments.
A notorious example of this was the AFL, which was given special concessions and exemptions to operate during lockdown periods while other businesses and community groups were expected to remain shuttered. It is important whenever possible to boycott businesses and individuals which promote and profit from lockdowns.
It is an unfortunate reality that governments will again attempt to implement lockdowns if a new disease causes social and moral panic. I believe by instituting these measures, we can help fight lockdowns and reduce their length and severity. Some of the measures also have the added benefit of reducing the power and reach of government in society.
This article was originally published by Liberty Itch.
