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This virus has sickened and often times killed the old and vulnerable. That is the least of what it has delivered. It has delivered despotism, police brutality, journalistic delinquency, and lies, deceptions and misinformation; and, most depressingly, the truth about the parlous state of our civilisation. In virus veritas, is an apt play on words. First to despotism. It is hard to know where to start.
Despotism now pervades the body politic. Power exercised in a cruel or oppressive way is my dictionary’s definition of despotism. If you were to add power exercised capriciously, senselessly and unevenly, and without proper scrutiny by parliaments or courts, it would better fit the diktats of state premiers and their public health officials over the past eighteen months.
Imagine a daughter being denied access to her dying father, children held isolated from parents, a sick child denied nearby hospital treatment, restaurants and cafes locked down without notice, food rotting away. State borders closed with residents given hours-only notice to return home. Exceptions made for footballers and other assorted celebrities. Prohibition on leaving the hermit kingdom of Australia.
Schools closed without any medical rationale, forcing parents to home school; often migrant parents with poor English. Playgrounds closed, who knows why. Churches closed. Useless outdoor mask mandates. Five-kilometre limit on straying from home. Prohibitions on meeting with family members, consoling aged relatives. Huge fines for non-compliance with any of the useless and cruel diktats.
Vaccine mandates, in other words medical apartheid, on the way. State-wide, Victorian construction industry closed down out of pique that a few CFMEU members got a bit violent with the façade of the CFMEU office front – objecting in large part to their union’s feckless opposition to those vaccine mandates. Peaceful assembling outlawed, unless in the communist cause of BLM.
Tyranny without end. Quite simply and literally, we are in the midst of the greatest attack on civil liberties by government during the entirety of modern Western civilisation. Nothing like it has been seen before. And this, to ward off (and forlornly) a virus which kills very few in the overall scheme of things.
You can’t run despotic government without armed enforcers. Enter police forces. No one of sense undervalues the role of the police. Thugs and crims would run the streets without them. But that’s their main job; to keep thugs and crims off the streets. It is not to move law-abiding grannies off park benches. But once governments give them the responsibility and power to prevent people from going about their normal affairs, it inevitably gives license to some within police forces to act like the thugs they’re supposed to put away. It’s in the nature of the beast.
Imagine arresting and handcuffing a pregnant woman in her own home for an innocuous Facebook post which she offered to take down. Imagine, pushing an elderly woman to the ground and directing pepper spray into her face. Imagine firing rubber bullets, which can do serious harm, into an assembly of citizens exercising their democratic right to protest government policies and actions. Incidentally, imagine members of the same police force kneeling before BLM protesters. You can’t quite figure that out? Neither can I.
Imagine throwing people down, careless of their heads head hitting the ground. Imagine firing teargas into protesters. Armoured cars, black of course, with roof turrets for ease of firing at citizens. No, I am not talking about Venezuela or Mogadishu.
With no political opposition, only the Fourth Estate was left to defend civil liberties. Alas, for the overwhelming part, it became and is a cheerleader for government. In fact, urging governments to achieve ever greater heights of tyranny. Why is Bunnings still open, reporters asked? Why didn’t you lockdown sooner, harder?
When construction workers and other freedom supporters peaceably occupied the steps of The Shrine in Melbourne on September 22 and were dispersed by charging police firing rubber bullets and stun grenades, the headline in next morning’s Australian newspaper read, “Absolutely disgusting.” And, no, this was not referring, as it should have been, to the police.
Only when Victoria’s black-shirted police trespassed onto their particular patch, banning helicopter flights over central Melbourne, did reporters object. What the media ought to have foreseen is that providing a free ride for governments and police to destroy civil liberties would eventually and inevitably put freedom of the press in the firing line.
To lies. No edifice of despotism-cum-police brutality-cum-media complicity is built on the truth. Lies sustain it. Lies from start to finish. Lies, or to be more very generous, misinformation, started with modelling. Recall the nonsense numbers spewed out by Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College London modelling back in March 2020. Hyperbolic, made-up, numbers which generated worldwide panic. Even Donald Trump was mesmerised by them. And the modelling hasn’t stopped.
According to Public health England and Cambridge University, up to September 17, 2021, vaccinations have prevented 123,100 deaths in England. Bear in mind, lives saved is an ever-inflating number. Previously, to 23 July, a figure of 60,000 was published; to 12 August, 84,000; then 112,300 before the latest imaginary number. Up they go, additional lives saved miraculously with each iteration of the statistical model. Run it again, Scotty, and save some more lives. Seemingly, the escalation will continue while ever living people can be identified as would-have-been-dead without the vax.
There is no way to check these numbers. They’re counter-factual. Statistical artifacts. Misinformation. Reliance on statistical models, purporting to reflect complex reality, plagues reasoned debate. You can see the same thing in the climate debate. Accurately modelling large complex natural systems is an insurmountable task. Trying to do so may assist in understanding what’s going on. But it is a first order mistake to believe that predictions from such models have any worth.
From modelling misinformation to straight out lies; promulgated by governments and by the media. I can’t remember the first but that Donald Trump advocated drinking disinfectant came early in the piece. There are too many to list. What follows is just a few.
Lies that HCQ and ivermectin are dangerous drugs. Lies that flattening that curve would be the end of it. Lies about building up health resources to deal with spikes of infections. Lies which highlight “cases” as a meaningful measure of the extent and degree of sickness. Lies of omission about the underlying health of any younger person dying. Lies which conflate dying of the virus with dying with the virus.
And then there has been the constant scare talk unrelated to reality, frightening people into compliance. The deceptive lack of perspective on the relatively few COVID deaths. When will people be ever told by government and health spokespersons that about 460 Australians die each day of all causes. Never, is the answer.
Scott Morrison describing the death of any ninety-year-old, with serious underlying health conditions, as a “terrible tragedy,” sums up the crooked times within which we live. As does Gladys Berejiklian, undermining civil society, by telling people that when going outside they should assume that they, and anyone they meet, has the dreaded virus.
Now, lies are on the brink of creating apartheid with the latest unfounded scare that unvaccinated people are a threat to those vaccinated. Digital passports creating two classes of citizens, echoes of Jim Crow, are being readied by the technocratic arm of the state. You can think of more examples of lies and deceptions. There are many. It’s an empire of lies.
When all of the despotism, police brutality, lies and deceptions are put together, they manifest a failure of our civilisation to stand the test. Freedoms that we thought were protected by representative government, by parliaments, by an independent press; and, importantly, by custom, crumbled under the inept management of a disease of limited lethality. Just one political leader of stature, federal or state, might have made a difference. No one. Just wall-to-wall mediocrities with autocratic tendencies.
Thank you Peter, you are doing a wonderful job. The virus has undoubtedly revealed a sickness at the heart of Australian life. It has revealed a sickening moral rottenness. It has revealed a sinister potential for brutality in the ordinary Australian. It has revealed a flight from truth. It has revealed a population that is frighteningly easy to manipulate and intimidate. Worst of all, though, from my perspective is the manner in which the medical profession collectively has deserted its patients and abandoned its sacred task of healing the sick.
Well said Peter and thanks to Quadrant for keeping hope alive with sensible and reasoned articles.
Modelling manipulation and straight out lies has been the order of the day. When medical professionals set up their own groups, as they have done in many countries, and sites to disseminate the information the Government and its ‘experts’ ignore, and the media rejects, we know things are in a bad way.
The Australian group, https://covidmedicalnetwork.com/ is now a target for bans and blocks on social media and their information is available, but clearly ignored.
Ordinary people who have no expertise in a particular science or medical fields, have gained enormous expertise in picking up bullshit. And they can access information from other sources as well as putting it together with their own experience where ‘word of mouth’ says the Jabbing is making things worse and the Jabbed are not only not protected, they look increasingly to be more vulnerable.
And not only does the Jab obsession continue, they are now aiming at our children.
Quote: The age adjusted mortality rates for vaccinated against unvaccinated for weeks 1 to 26 of 2021 are charted below. Overall, the chart shows that, over time, the weighted mortality rate for the vaccinated has steadily increased and by week 16 (23 April 2021), surpassed that for the unvaccinated.
https://www.normanfenton.com/post/comparing-age-adjusted-all-cause-mortality-rates-in-england-between-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated
Stephen….I was astounded when my local GP practice suddenly closed up shop last year as covid spread. I wondered to myself…”if the medicos can’t manage to keep doing what they should, then what hope for others?’ Of course, they spruik telehealth….as if that is anywhere near a substitute for real diagnosis and care. The local supermarket staff showed better resilience and a capacity to keep going where the medical services often did not.
With regard to Peter’s article….there is so much truth in what he writes…and how meekly we have accepted the restrictions and the police overreach and even brutality.
In the main, the press has failed as much as have most of our governments.
We will pay for this….
One would be tempted to despair if it wasn’t such an interesting problem. Not only are we seeing the Totalitarian problems emerge before our eyes that I had only read about in novels by Kafka but we have to discover the limits of human freedom and ingenuity.
The problem is that 90% of people are on the other side. There is no great silent majority at this point in time and I don’t know what one does with the knowledge that most people think you are brainwashed by fake news.
Imagine if people could analyse and debate politics or the character of their local politician or priest the way they could analyse the characteristics of top football players. Would we then be able to get rid of the corruption?
What can I say? The truth is out there.
https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-know-your-covid-cribsheet/
The scary part is the great number who accept this witch doctor like superstition, comparable to belief in the toxic breath of boogey men secretly walking amongst us. If you show a tick certificate like lepers ringing a warning bell you’re suspected of purposely spreading death and hatred of fellow citizens. Along with the indoctrination in mass anxiety comes the mark that shows if you’re a fit person of not to take part in society. Some of the Holocaust survivors said the really scary part was the silence of their neighbours.
oops “if you don’t show a tick certificate”
“Some of the Holocaust survivors said the really scary part was the silence of their neighbours.” What I find so awful is not the silence, but the enthusiasm of neighbours to report to Crime Stoppers people who are not obeying government “health” directions.
Excellent article as always Peter. Let’s concentrate also on some of the positives. There are some, though few, brave politicians making a heroic stand. I am bound to miss out some names – for which I apologise, but off the top of my head we must thank George Christensen, Craig Kelly, David Limbrick, Tim Quilty, Mark Latham, Alex Antic, Gerard Rennick, Eric Abetz, Tanya Davies and Amanda Findlay, Mayor of Shoalhaven.
Then there are people who are not politicians who are stepping up: John Larter the brave paramedic, Alex Cooney, the brave policeman, Monica Smit – Australia’s first political prisoner and the RealRukshan – who has provided independent media coverage and lawyer Tony Nikolic. Peter Chadwick QC is to be thanked for his excellent defence of Monica Smit. There are many more whose names I do not know.
While we have these brave people there is hope. We, who may not be quite as brave, must be as brave as we can.
Breath of fresh air thanks Peter. Talk about lies, one of the whoppers is Daniel Andrews denying he and former Health Minister Mikakos promised in April 2020, that $1.2 billion had been allocated for 4200 ICU beds. On tape and in Press release. Doesn’t care, no shame, blatant. The kiddies in the Press pack carefully censor their questions to ensure they don’t enrage this man.
The mandating of inoculation or no job and denial of access to “living” is a shocking decimation of so much our ancestors fought for. Taking things away from people until they say yes, is not a choice. That’s tyranny.
I have to say the blame for this never-ending nightmare lies squarely with Scott Morrison.
If his signalling from day one had been one of caution, care and above all proportion, none of the past two years of unadulterated hell on earth would have occurred.
For example, he could have looked at his government’s pandemic plans. Or he might have considered how Rudd approached the Swine flu pandemic – a real gold standard by comparison to his headless-chicken approach.
I said on numerous blogs that what Morrison was doing was a monumental mistake – that was after he initiated the first lockdown. The one that was supposed to last two weeks if memory serves me. I had no idea, two long years down the track, just how monumental a mistake it was. It is nothing short of a catastrophe for Australia. And Morrison’s National Cabinet is nothing but a sick joke.
The only real hope for Australia is to elect sensible people to represent us – if indeed we are ever allowed to vote again. And that means we cannot afford to touch the LNP or Labor with the proverbial bargepole.
Well said Katzenjammer. (BTW, I loved the Katzenjammer Kids cartoons when I was a boy.) As to people looking the other way, read Five Chimneys by Lengyel. Cowardly behaviour is built in to but very few.
An outstanding article – thank you so much.
And your namesake Biggles was among my favorites, along with William and his licorice water.
If ever there is an “awakening” from the nightmare in which we live, this article is sure to be the catalyst. Peter Smith will definitely be in the history books.
“In a time of universal deceit, the Truth is a revolutionary act”…………..Unknown.,
The lies and spin emanating from this ubiquitous hoax of a “plandemic” form the universal deceit that creates this modern illusion. How can so many of the proles be deluded?
Apart from the handful of politicians listed by ralphihpain, our elected representative have been lying. How can we ever trust them again?
The lies and spin from one Premier in particular oozes from his jug-eared pie hole. Why did anyone ever trust him in the first place? Even sweet little Gladys, it seems, can’t lie straight in bed.
The news media, now that it realises it has been on the wrong side all along, has spun nothing but lies through errors of omission. How could we ever trust it again?
Apart from a few brave doctors, the entire medical establishment has fostered the hoax. How can it ever be trusted again?
The elites in our institutions are liars. Did anyone ever trust them?
We are well and truly dead meat in a war for power and control.
Amongst the many lies pushed on us by the despicable ones, this one is particularly egregious:
>”Useless outdoor mask mandates” …
Useless for what ? I watched the TV presser where this diktat was enjoined at the request of the police. CMO Chant was asked whether this was done on her “health advice”. Her reply was a simpering: “We work with a number of agencies”.
Why would Miller (Police Commissioner) want an outdoors mask mandate ? He has no medical or epidemiological expertise. The answer is genuinely nasty and has been demonstrated by police actions since then – what Miller was after, successfully, was an easily identifiable way of instilling real fear into the normal populace. No mask, police thugs swarm and beat you up in the street, then arrest you with maximum force … we’ve seen this play out many, many times. A simple method of control by fear, victims easily identified.
So no, while the outdoor mask diktat is useless for viral control, it has a real function in population control by fear. That’s why Miller wanted it, and why Berejiklian/Chant let it through.
I agree Ianl. The mask is a sign of compliance, of social control. A badge of our willingness to submit to a senseless dictate.
And, boy, is it working.
Socialism has burst the dam and gone global. For it to be successful in eliminating the human race it has to be global, so that nobody can escape it.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/the_killing_fields_of_utopia_are_we_socialists_yet.html
Socialism’s chosen ones love to wear masks and they love global warming, with all of the self-destruction these things bring.
Onya, Peter. Quadrant and writers such as yourself remain one of the few bastions of solidarity against the virus mania that has taken hold of the 90+%. At least it is still legal, albeit while under house-arrest, to raise a glass to you: in vino veritas!
Well said, Peter, and also commenters. Dissenting voices will almost certainly be noted by media lackeys and police surveillance who would, if they could, close down or ban such articles. Given Dan Andrews’ behaviour to date, it is not beyond him to think of another restriction to silence dangerous thought; to save people from disinformation, of course.
A great compilation of facts. Thank you.
I think the message is spreading, probably not as fast as the Delta strain but you can’t, and don’t want to vaccinate against the truth.
The issue now is the loss of freedom and rights and that impacts on everyone. The COVID issue is a medical one and eventually the public will determine its priority in that sphere. And it won’t be number 1.
If health is a problem then look at the ailing economy, small non-essential business and public confidence.
Politicians, public servants and the police denying freedoms then dictating our health with restrictions, fines and truncheons is frightening.
I don’t want a jab. I just want a vote. It may not fix things but I’ll feel better.
Artie.
The proponents of the vaccine Passport are seeking to infect some of us with another old virus known as “Denial of Service”. We are in danger of becoming monsters.
Vic despots are considering $5000 fines for the “unvaccinated” who attempt to enter a shop – any shop?
This is madness. What’s next – concentration camps?
What a complacent lot we have become. Where is the membership of political parties? How many people in this country take up their citizenship responsibilities and join a political party, any party? Fewer and fewer I fear. Scared off by Twitter and the baying crowd? Where are the corporate leaders? What is our highest duty as citizens if not to contribute however possible to the political leadership of our nation? Top ten company chairs and CEOs where are you?
I’m no expert so I might be miss reading the stats but is seems that there have been no deaths at all from the Flu in 2021 and only 32 in 2020 when it’s quite normal for it to be around 1,000. Total Australian Covid deaths since the start of the disease are 1,271 the vast majority of whom have been over 70 with comorbidities.
Now the precaution taken are probably key to the low death rate from Covid. What is also clear is that older folk, say over 60, especially those with other health issues, should take responsibility for their own protection (e.g. wearing a mask at the supermarket) whist everyone else should go about their business unimpeded. Now I’m 70 with heart issues and I will take precautions for my own protection, I just don’t think its fair or sound public policy for younger people to be blighted by bankruptcy and unemployment in order to protect old farts like me who ought to be protecting themselves.
Am I stupid? Comments welcome.
Stephen you are spot on. Nobody has explained the flu anomaly and yes, everyone should be making their own health choices.
Peter Smith’s article says it all for me. No doubt it will be safely archived for gratefull reading in saner times. Hopefully, our soi-disant leaders will read this article, then, miraculously become normal, true leaders; servants of the people.
For the present and unforseeable future, though, our leaders seem to be fixated on the remedy of one. One cure, the vaxx, one working model, the Dougherty, one incentive, brute force and coercive, mental brow-beating.
A relative of mine has watched her daughter’s mental health decline over the past 18 months. First off she we peremptorily discharged from public mental health program…to ‘make way’ for CV-19 patients. What a clinical psych has to do with respiratory illness I cannot figure out. Next, she was locked up, like everyone else and no contact, real contact, with friends. Not even her study group could meet; no way of dealing with HSC anxiety through the normal method of talking it out with your friends and be mutually reassured. No nothing. Just the bleak entertaining of one’s own anxieties. Then in the past couple of weeks she has been awakened a few times in the early hours of the morning, having to spend hours consoling, calming, her daughter, wondering if she needs to call an ambulance, or go to the local public hospital mental health humiliation unit. The demonstrated contempt of governments for young people is hideous. A betrayal of the worst kind. And pointless!
Daffy the tale is becoming quite widespread amongst those transitioning into their adult lives, albeit not quite so dramatically. Young adults that we know are becoming increasingly restless and disturbed about all the things that they cannot do. This is the time of life, transitioning from school to work or uni, when life should be at its most energetic, outgoing, social, and inspiring. But for these poor blighters it is just becoming a soul crushing experience. How will their lives play out after this?
Representative Government is a thing of the past; MPs are no longer representatives of the people, but fascist “Gauleiters”, bringing the diktats from the “Fuehrerbunker” to the “gau” – or electorate. The change became evident in the public sector embrace of multiculturalism, in the face of electoral objection, which was never allowed to be expressed in a referendum.
So the war was lost many years ago. Representative democracy was only the first casualty. The public sector now rules on its own authority.
As you say Peter, the climate hysteria has many parallels: exaggerating the danger, not least with fraudulent or flawed modelling, silencing those who challenge the ruling orthodoxy, using the engineered fear to push radical and destructive policies (net zero anyone!?) sold as solutions but without evidence. Snake oil salesmen had more modest ambitions … But worst of all, extracting adherence to self destructive public policies from politicians by mob rule. Both the virus and the climate threats have materialised not as the threats to our health or the planet respectively, but to democracy, civilisation and decency. We have become a demockracy, fed lies and led by incompetents. Except those of us who, like Peter, recognise that the water is getting much hotter ….
W L & K M Ranken:
Citizenship is now exclusively a legal concept of residency. It no longer carries any social or moral implications. In fact, if you ask any young person about it, they will find it difficult to understand any other meaning. Furthermore, they believe that being an Australian citizen is literally the same as being Australian – and since Australian citizenship as a legal concept (because there is no social or moral component) began only in 1949, then Australians did not exist before that date. That would be news of course to Deakin, Monash, Kelly etc.
So there’s no point appealing to ‘citizenship’ or to what our ancestors did.
davyddwilliams:
All correct, because politicians now belong to the party. Notice that there is no possibility for an electorate to support a party’s policy while forcing the recall of an MP. Imagine if we could force a politician to be individually accountable.
All that I can say is thank you to Peter and Quadrant for keeping me sane and injecting some rationality into the past 18 months. Goodness knows when or if we will gain control over our own individual futures again. A pandemic of madness rages uncontrolled.
Peter, when you made your initial claim that “we are in the midst of the greatest attack on civil liberties during the entirety of modern Western Civilisation” I took a deep breath.
But if you are wrong – it is not by much. I am literally punch drunk from all the assaults on freedom that I have witnessed in 2021 in this land.
But I am just as shattered by the complicity of the media with the insane propaganda and cult of Fear that government and their bureaucratic henchmen have created.
There are only a handful of informed and thoughtful publications like this one which have exposed the reality of the destruction of our “democracy” and our personal liberty.
Similarly, the only medical and scientific dissent from the corruption & misinterpretation of data has come from overseas virologists and medical researchers.
What has happened has destroyed forever the myth of the larrikin, sceptical, brave, iconoclastic Aussie. Gone.
It seems that overseas observers are far more startled and astonished at this loss of image than Australians! Not that the mainstream media are even reporting this! Damn, despicable, unprofessional morons.
Maybe I am underestimating the power of Fear when propagated cleverly in the midst of a completely unanticipated seeming global medical threat. I know I felt this panic for a good part of 2020, until useful Covid statistics became available late in 2002 & in early 2021. Certainly, by that stage I had become wary of the vaccines, and opposed to them once the evidence became available from dissenting specialists overseas.
Yet, even respected conservative commentators still seem in the grip of this fear frenzy, as we can see in the daily press.
I can’t see that, even when this “pandemic” fizzles out, as it will, Australian society will ever be the same as it was. I certainly will never feel the same about my country and its people. So incredibly sad I just can’t process it properly.
Sorry – previous typo! Should read ” until useful Covid statistics became available late in 2020 & in early 2021.”
Another impressive post, PS. Many thanks.
“Reliance on statistical models, purporting to reflect complex reality, plagues reasoned debate. You can see the same thing in the climate debate. Accurately modelling large complex natural systems is an insurmountable task.”
Spot on. With CC, the very model of a modern major scam. Will the West sign its Death Wish (DW) by making COP26 a “success” in Glasgow this November? If so, the UK winter will be interesting. Cormann, now OECD head, wants a “global carbon price’. And so the madness goes on. Whenever retired members of our political class go to Paris – France, not Texas – they turn a darker shade of green.
As Andrew L Urban notes above: “Both the virus and the climate threats have materialised not as the threats to our health or the planet respectively, but to democracy, civilisation and decency.”
As for the so-called Doherty modelling, Professor Doherty himself has said that while it is a “great and an enormously intense exercise with very smart people involved”, “models are experiments” based on “a lot of assumptions”.
As for making predictions about how the pandemic will develop: “We don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know whether we are going to get what you call an ‘immune escape’ variant, like flu, where it will flow past the vaccines”
He was “hopeful that relative normality will return by the latter half of 2022″. A hope, not a prediction.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/09/19/peter-doherty-covid-interview/
A few weeks ago I was at a family gathering, and the subject of Covid vaccination came up for discussion. I said that I was reluctant about the Jab, because the vaccines have been developed in a hurry, and nobody – not even the medical profession – knows whether there will be any serious (and unexpected) long-term complications. One person immediately accused me of being a freeloader, who was taking advantage of the benefits generated by those who had chosen to be jabbed. Another person (who knows nothing about science) informed me that the vaccines were safe, and that the scientists who had developed the vaccines knew what they were doing, and would never release medications that were not 100% safe. Someone else told me that the only people who oppose the vaccines are nutters, cranks, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.
I anticipate there will be some unpleasant developments in the next few months, when governments introduce vaccine passports, so that you won’t even be able to enter a shop unless you can prove that you have had the Jab.
ArthurB: “…so that you won’t even be able to enter a shop unless you can prove that you have had the Jab.”
The comments below from a retired QC on the Disability Discrimination Act may be of interest.
“Odd as it is to write; the statutory definition of “disability” means that, in relation to contagious “organisms capable of causing disease or illness”, everybody is disabled. Everybody falls into the category of people of who have had, do have or may in the future have influenza.
The Act does not discriminate between pathogens. All previous, present, possible future or imputed “organisms capable of causing disease or illness” are treated the same way.
The Disability Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination against a person with a disability in relation to employment, education, access to public premises, accommodation, the sale of land, membership of clubs and participation in sporting activities. There is also a prohibition on seeking information about a disability in order to discriminate.
Section 48 of the Disability Discrimination Act exempts discrimination “reasonably necessary to protect public health” where a person’s disability is an “infectious disease”.
Being unvaccinated against any contagion is not an infectious disease—it’s just being unvaccinated—so the section 48 exemption cannot apply purely on the basis of a person’s vaccination status.
Even if the section 48 exemption did apply there is still the limitation of “reasonably necessary to protect public health”; whatever that might mean in relation to employment, shopping, hospital access, public (including air) transport or a U2 concert.
Somebody will have their day in Court
So far as your correspondent is able to tell—and keep in mind these days I’m more interested in gerberas than germs—no State or Territory has thought through their proposed breaches of the Disability Discrimination Act when it comes to SARS-CoV-2.
For the moment though, keep in mind that some of the State and Territory laws and some restrictions applied by individual venues which limit access for unvaccinated people to public places will likely breach the Disability Discrimination Act.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/09/limiting-access-for-the-unvaxed-to-public-places-will-likely-breach-the-disability-discrimination-act/
Google “covid news”
Result: 5,000 million results in 0.6 seconds.
I scrolled through the first few pages of results.
I am not dumb enough to continue further – I have my answer.
Every single damn one is a political/media response – not a single response from the area I wanted/needed i.e. from the scientific community.
Says it all.
Perhaps the Premiers’ next step will be a requirement that a vaccinated person have the fact tattooed on their wrist. After all, there is precedent.
And what a sick joke our national anthem has become: ‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free…’. We are inmates of the world’s largest ‘democratic’ open-air prison.
hwka; Try http://www.cmnnews.org. Some fascinating stuff from medicos.
Alice Thermopolis,
Thank you so much for notification of the Spectator article. This battle needs to be fought, as much as possible, on the basis that we are on the side of the law, as well as freedom; both are vital to us. I had no idea of the protection given by the Disability Discrimination Act to those whom I would never think of as disabled. Thank you!
I do wonder though why, with all the wonderful effort of Quadrant authors to keep us informed, none of them (to my knowledge) have written about the Disability Discrimination Act. If it really says what it seems to be saying, it could quite literally be a life-saving piece of legislation.
I should have said that, more importantly, it could be a FREEDOM-saving piece of legislation.
In my earlier post I listed names of heroes and heroines fighting against the way the pandemic is being handled. Unfortunately I got the wrong mayor. It is the mayor of Shellharbour, Marianne Saliba, who is saying she will not turn away unvaccinated people from Council facilities. I apologise to Amanda Findlay, Mayor of Shoalhaven, for incorrectly mentioning her name as supporting something that she may or may not support.
The Fair Work Commission published a decision on 27 Sept 2021
.
https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/decisionssigned/html/2021fwcfb6015.htm?fbclid=IwAR0EMyKfqP0hrbVE_zqRtiRFjL3FqQzJQpmd5zwWxkDNFa8ACnNX3Suy_G0
.
It is some 25,000 words long, and I suggest at least going to near the end and reading:
“Final comments” which include:
[182] All Australians should vigorously oppose the introduction of a system of medical apartheid and segregation in Australia. It is an abhorrent concept and is morally and ethically wrong, and the anthesis
of our democratic way of life and everything we value.
[183] Australians should also vigorously oppose the ongoing censorship of any views that question the current policies regarding COVID. Science is no longer science if it a person is not allowed to question it.
P.S.
.
” anthesis” refers to the time a flower is open; surely they meant “antithesis”! There are other grammatical errors in the decision; they should do better.
Thanks for the link lbloveday. In fact, the words you quote are from the minority opinion of Deputy President Dean. A Coalition appointment, she was outvoted by the other two considering the case. Great sentiments nonetheless.
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/fair-work-judge-warns-of-medical-apartheid-over-jab-mandate-20210927-p58v7r
Thanks PS, looks like I should pay more attention!
Thank you Peter. Spot On again !
Tragically on the Ipswich Motorway on Wednesday night 4 people were killed in a horror traffic incident. The state has not enforced any restrictions as a result of this unnecessary loss of life.
But yesterday, someone in SE QLD only sneezed, did not die, and yet the juvenile incompetent response from Annastacia is to reduce seating capacity at an NRL Grand Final to 75% and Music Venues to 15% plus demand that all the plebs get a vial of experimental goo drilled into their arm.
We live in a society of gutless wimps, with the 20 to 40 year old age group being the dominant bunch of cowards who instead of showing some strength and courage of self resilience, they pander and cower to the gossip on the phone, the insanity of lies and fear mongering in the media and then influenced by power hungry politicians they get sucked in and flee to get ‘tested’ !. If you let someone shove a stick up your nose canal…well of course you’ll feel ill.
Instead of running off in your car (why you have to take your car to get tested, I don’t understand) to get a nose reamed, would it not be safer to just stay home, eat a bucket of capsicums, get some Cold & Flu tablets and take with some light broth then just rest for 48hrs.
This so called pandemic can only be promoted with a Politically created virus. A virus that does not even rank in the top ten causes of death with a morbidity rate less than normal. And then with experimental treatments that promote further spread of the “disease'(?) than a cure. viz imunisations for Hepatitus, Measles and Chickenpox versus the pathetic impotence of a covid jab.
When the country is managed by lunatics and imbeciles then we can’t expect any form of higher intelligence.
Well done, Peter and thank you.
I wonder if anyone knows of a recent such article that gave a number something like $100 billion I think, into debt the govt has gone over this covid thing this year?
Either Spectator of Quadrant I think but I can’t find it.
Or anything like it. No one seems to be looking at that aspect.
As it has always been. No looking at real costs only the imaginery costs.
Please give me a link if anyone knows of which I speak.
🙂