It’s crunch time for the Victorian government and its ‘no Nazi symbols’ laws. Are they a genuine effort to stamp out extremist imagery in public, or a politically expedient knee-jerk gesture designed solely to whip up a bogey man and win cheap public approval? Any churlish suspicion you may nurse toward the latter view will soon be put to the test.
Because this time, it’s not a handful of black-clad, LARPing edgelords touting Nazi imagery to get their facile political jollies, it’s died-in-the-wool lefties. Will the Victorian Labor government apply their own laws to their own tribe?
Victoria Police are investigating whether an anti-Israel sign at a pro-Palestine protest on Sunday breached the state’s ban on displaying Nazi symbols or gestures in public.
Police estimated about 2000 protesters attended the rally at the State Library shortly after midday, before the group walked to Catani Gardens in St Kilda.
A sign was sighted and photographed at the State Library and during the rally which depicted a Swastika drawn over the top of a Star of David with “Zionism” written on the top and “Nazism” on the bottom.
Never mind that equating the Jewish state ‘Nazis’ is textbook anti-Semitism. Such irony is lost on the very people who smear everyone else as ‘Nazis’.
The real question, of course, is whether Victoria applies its laws without fear or favour, or lets its own political tribe off the hook. NSW at least had the courage of its convictions, charging an anti-Semitic restaurateur over his jolly little swastikas.
The Victorian government banned people from displaying or performing Nazi slogans, gestures and salutes in 2023, and those laws were held up in court in October 2024 when a man was found guilty of performing a salute outside the County Court just days after the ban came into effect.
A person found guilty of that offence can face fines of $23,000, 12 months in prison or both.
There are exceptions for genuine academic, artistic, educational, or scientific purposes or for fair and accurate reporting of an incident.
Who wants to bet that Victoria Police will let far-left anti-Semites waving swastikas off scot-free?
Further down south, meanwhile, counting the Senate results for the 3 May election continues, with Tasmania’s Jacqui Lambie paying a huge price for her huge mouth. Lambie, who savaged the Tasmanian aquaculture industry, has been hit with a collapse in support. Especially in booths where the industry is a big employer.
Jacqui Lambie’s vociferous election campaign attacks on the salmon industry may cost her political career, with her vote slumping across her heartland and in key aquaculture areas.
Senator Lambie is sitting on half a quota based on first preferences and facing a tight, four-way preference contest for one of the last two Tasmanian Senate seats.
The Jacqui Lambie Network’s statewide first preference vote has fallen from 8.9 per cent at the 2019 election – when Senator Lambie last led her party ticket – to 7.2 per cent at the May 3 poll.
In the northwest electorate of Braddon, home to Senator Lambie and her traditional powerbase, the JLN first preference vote slumped from 15.6 per cent in 2019 to 9.3 per cent on May 3.
Far bigger negative swings – of up to 14 per cent – were recorded in voting booths where the salmon industry has a footprint.
Turns out you campaign to put your own voters out of a job at your political peril.
In comments during the campaign that angered the $1.46 billion salmon industry and its workers, Senator Lambie backed a boycott of their products, telling Australians: “Don’t eat bloody Tasmanian salmon.”
She suggested the sector, which the state government estimates directly and indirectly employs 5000 Tasmanians, should leave the island.
“We don’t want that bloody salmon farming in Tasmania, they can piss off,” Senator Lambie told a podcast with influencer Abbie Chatfield.
Looks like being a loudmouthed bogan only gets you comedy relief votes for so long.
Lambie first entered the senate courtesy of the big money Palmer United Party in 2013. Like most of Clive Palmer’s lackeys, having taken his money she jumped the waka almost immediately she got her arse on the velvet.
For all her self-aggrandisement as a ‘maverick’, in reality Lambie has consistently voted with Labor in the Senate. When she wasn’t embarrassing Tasmanians with her crude antics, such as telling a radio interview her ideal man had ‘heaps of cash’ and ‘a package between their legs’. Then there was her spittle-flecked pro-Covid vax screeching.
Tasmanians will be well shot of her.
