In Victoria we have a Labor government, which at the last election was returned to power in a landslide. This government has done what Labor governments do. They spend lots of money, create jobs, particularly union jobs and they make a lot of people happy and prosperous and loyal. But it always ends the same way, the money is borrowed and the government gets so far in debt that even with 'creative accounting' it becomes obvious that we are going bankrupt. Which brings a temporary end to Labor rule.
The other major party is the Liberal party, currently the opposition party. It suffers from two decades of pathetically weak leaders. Men who are so mild and bland that when a new one replaces the old one we hardly even notice. Men who like to talk tough about how bad Labor is, but who when you pay attention you can't find any way in which they differ.
While we have elections, Victoria is in effect a one party state. Labor so totally controls the Parliament that there is no oversight, the government can do as it wishes. Which we can see.
Add to that Australia's federal government, until 2020 most Australians, myself included, thought that the federal government was stronger than the state governments, even combined. But it appears that weak Liberal party leadership is not simply a state issue. Our current Prime Minister has hardly interfered in the state running of this crisis. A crisis created by and for government.
Victorians have been especially patient with the restrictions put in place by the state government. We are currently in our sixth lockdown. Over 200 days out of around 600, 112 days in a row in 2020. Before 2020 the term 'lockdown' was used in prisons, not in civil society. But we have step by step gone from thinking that we are free to thinking that we have no freedom.
Each step we have had 'conspiracy theorists' saying the most outrageous things and then the government coming out with these same ideas. Vaccine passports, compulsory vaccines, no shopping unless you are vaccinated.
The lockdowns have enjoyed wide support, in 2020 we were all bribed by the federal government. Most people got more money and time off, business even got a lot of that money. Small business suffered but big business made out like bandits. This year the government hasn't been as generous and the good will is vanishing.
Not entirely of course, the government and the lockdowns still have support. The media pressure is intense and constant. For older people for whom television and radio are companions as much as sources of information or entertainment, it is hard to resist. Add to that that they really are the most at risk from Covid.
Currently there are daily protests on the street and Victoria Police have come out in full force. I remember back to April 2015 at the Reclaim Australia rallies, the police were quite surprised and continued to be surprised. Only 6 years ago and the police were dressed like ordinary police, today they look like robocop and act like it. But it was from there that the police realised that the hatred in the community was real and that it wasn't going away. Today it is directed not at immigration but at the government. Not at a policy but at the institution that pays their bills. They have trained and trained for this, they have equipped themselves for this. Body armour, rubber bullets and armoured vehicles. None of which they had 6 years ago.
The police have over many decades become a para-military force. When police were first created in Britain in the early 1830's, there developed what are now known as the Peelian principles. Of the 9 principles, 4 are basically saying the same thing, that the police need the co-operation of the public. Number 7 goes like this:
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Does the actions of the police over the past 20 months or so seem like 'the police are the public and that the public is the police?
What about 'the police being only members of the public'?
That's because there is no oversight, the police belong to the Labor party and no institution has complained about it at all. Not the churches, business, the Liberal party, the unions or the Prime Minister.
All seem to think that firing rubber bullets into peaceful crowds is A Okay!
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The frightening thing about COVID is that the police are treating it not as a public health matter but as a law and order issue. For the police the issue at stake is that they believe that people should do what the government and the police tell them to do. They do not believe that the people should have any right to question the actions of the government or the police.
ReplyDeleteThis is happening throughout the Anglosphere regardless of which party is in power. Britain today is arguably even more totalitarian than Victoria and that shift toward totalitarianism happened with a "conservative" government in power.
Your first paragraph is excellent, spot on!
DeleteVictoria has jumped in front of every police force in the Anglosphere. Where else are police firing rubber bullets into peaceful crowds?
Victoria has jumped in front of every police force in the Anglosphere.
DeleteI agree.
I don't see it as a problem with the Labor Party but rather as a problem with the political establishment as a whole (and the Labor Party is very much a part of the political establishment).
What's happened in Victoria has made two things very clear. Firstly, the police will ruthlessly crush dissent if they're ordered to do so. They will have no qualms about doing this. If other police forces in other parts of the Anglosphere are ordered to fire rubber bullets into peaceful crowds I have no doubt that they will do so.
Secondly, governments (of both parties) throughout the Anglosphere now know they can get away with using the police as an overtly political weapon to crush dissent. The Victorian Government has established the precedent. I have no doubt that LNP governments in Australia and Tory governments in gather UK will take note and use the same methods.
And the media will support them. Even more horrifyingly, public opinion will support them. Police firing rubber bullets into peaceful crowds will become the New Normal.
I don't disagree with you about the Victorian Labor Party but the mindset that is driving them is the mindset that is now universal among our political establishment.
Both governments and the police now consider ordinary people to be the enemy.
This comment is a good as your first.
DeleteMy only complaint is that while you are correct about political oppression not being the preserve of one party. In Victoria it is it is. Labor has been in power since 2000, with a four year gap in the middle (2010-2014). The police here do not belong to the Liberals but to the Labor party.
My only complaint is that while you are correct about political oppression not being the preserve of one party. In Victoria it is it is. Labor has been in power since 2000, with a four year gap in the middle (2010-2014).
DeleteAn interesting question might be whether political parties actually set the political agenda or whether they merely reflect and enforce a political agenda that has been set by other much more powerful forces. I dislike the term the Deep State but maybe something along the lines of the Deep State really exists - a coalition of mega-corporations, billionaires, media magnates, think tanks, senior bureaucrats, academics, journalists, the foreign policy establishment, the military and economists. I'd prefer to call such a coalition the Political Establishment rather than the Deep State.
It's interesting to look at Britain. The Tories are now the permanent party of government, but under four successive Tory governments Britain has moved way to the left on social and cultural issues and has become a Woke/PC totalitarian state. You have to wonder if the Tories are simply implementing agendas over which they have no real control.
Whenever I look at modern political leaders I get the feeling they're mere figureheads.
I have to go with dfordoom, given the threats and statements emanating from the Liberal Government in NSW. It is not the preserve of Labor more than the other any more. NSW is simply waiting to see what Labor in Victoria can get away with. Gladys the conman's 'ho has completely backtracked on all that she said just six months ago, which indicates to me the kind of active participation that comes from the existence of Kompromat.
ReplyDelete