There are few democratic governments that have been so capricious and petty with the power afforded to them by COVID-induced fear as Australia, a nation that has locked down China-style over a handful of cases and where local officials berate, shame and brutalize anyone who dares protest the measures.
Take Daniel Andrews, premier of the Australian state of Victoria. His state has mandated 1.25 million “authorized workers” must get a
COVID-19 vaccine, according to
Reuters. After protests in September, he called the “ugly scenes” things like “appalling” and “unlawful,” according to Melbourne’s
The Age.
“Whether you want to call it a riot, affray, ugly scenes, you can scarcely find a word to adequately describe what we saw yesterday,” Andrews said on Sept. 22.
You could, indeed, scarcely find words to describe how Victoria has responded to protesters, although probably not in the way Andrews meant it. Here was the scene a few days after that at St. Kilda’s Beach in Melbourne as police even-handedly dealt with protesters using the lightest touch possible. Or not:
It’s gotten bad enough that, on Oct. 4,
Sky News described Melbourne as “the world’s most locked-down city.” On Oct. 2, it’s worth noting, Victoria recorded only three deaths and 1,220 cases in a state of over 6.6 million people.
While lockdowns are set to be lifted next week, according to
Reuters, it’s unclear what that’ll mean — or how long it’ll last.
It’s not just the citizenry who are sick of how Victoria’s police are handling this, either. On Friday, a Victoria police officer went viral when she resigned effective immediately and gave a wide-ranging interview describing her disgust with how the state government — and Premier Andrews — is violently suppressing protesters.
According to
LifeSite News, acting Victoria Police Sergeant Krystie Mitchell — who had served for 16 years — said there were hundreds of her fellow officers who were getting to the point of resisting orders they considered unethical.
“The consequences of me being here today, is that I will be resigning from Victoria Police, effective the end of this interview because the consequences of me coming out publicly would be dismissal,” she told Australian digital media channel Discernable.
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