Prime Minister Scott Morrison appears to view the very real danger that Australia is heading towards political violence from extremist mobs as all just part of the game to keep him in power

IMAGES: ABC NEWS & Herald Sun

The Monthly, 18 November 2021:

 Scott Morrison is, if nothing else, painfully predictable. As many (including myself) anticipated on Tuesday, the prime minister’s belated condemnation of the threatening mob outside the Victorian Parliament was always going to come with a “but” – a dog whistle to the protesters, an endorsement of their cause, a swipe at overbearing state governments. Today, following the disturbing news that a right-wing extremist had been charged over threats to kill the Victorian premier, and reports that neo-Nazis, seeking to radicalise other protesters, had infiltrated rallies against the state’s pandemic bill (not to mention anti-vaxxers’ rape and death threats forcing the shutdown of the WA premier’s office), Morrison did exactly as expected.

Asked this morning for his response to the violence being incited against politicians, the PM said that threats and intimidation had no place in Australia. But after a few cursory sentences about “civil society” and “respect” (just enough for many media outlets to report it as a rebuke), Morrison pivoted to justification and understanding. “There are many people who are feeling frustrated,” he said, arguing that it was time for governments to stop “telling Australians what to do”. “Australians have done an amazing job when it comes to leading us through this pandemic, but now it’s time for governments to step back. And for Australians to take their lives back,” he added ominously.

Morrison’s sympathy for the “frustrated” protesters has more than a minor whiff of Donald Trump’s “very fine people” comments after the deadly Charlottesville riots, not to mention the “I know how you feel” video during the also-deadly January 6 Capitol insurrection. While some media outlets declared that Morrison had “hit out” at the protesters, there’s little doubt that, as with Trump’s comments, the dog whistle was louder than the denunciation.

Eighty per cent of the PM’s answer, in fact, was focused on the protestors’ justified frustrations and state government overreach, with an added pushback against mandates and restrictions for the unvaccinated (policies to which, as Niki Savva notes, he owes the impressive vaccination rates he loves to crow about). People should be able to get a coffee in Brisbane, added Morrison, regardless of whether they’re vaccinated – a swipe at the Queensland government’s newly announced restrictions. (The state government has since labelled Morrison’s comments a “reckless” undermining of its vaccination efforts.) There’s little doubt that Morrison is trying to appease some of his own senators, who are still vowing to withhold their votes unless he pushes back against mandates. But he’s also indulging the “frustrated” protesters, with little concern for the dangerous levels of misinformation flying about......

Guy knows that the Victorian government needs some sort of bill to be able to manage the pandemic – which is very much ongoing – beyond December, and as supporting crossbencher MP Fiona Patten noted on RN Breakfast, the alternative (state of emergency legislation) “is far more draconian than the legislation we were trying to put through”. But once again, the facts don’t really matter to the PM – all that matters is that the very “frustrated” people know he’s in their corner, even if it means encouraging extremists and continuing to confuse those they are seeking to influence.

This is all getting very real and very dangerous, and many fear that we are on a dark path to the kinds of political violence increasingly being seen in the US and the UK. But to Scott Morrison, it is just another game.

Read the full article here.

IMAGE: news.com.au

 

You obviously support this, otherwise you'd be calling on the police to arrest her. pic.twitter.com/oJYOTw1kBy

— Guildford (yes him) 😕🙁😐 (@Guildford) November 16, 2021

Not just Vic Premier being threatened - seems members of his government are possibly being targeted too pic.twitter.com/PJbet14Q9e

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) November 17, 2021

 

7 News, 17 November 2021:

WA Premier Mark McGowan’s electoral office has been closed due to ongoing security risks.

In a doorstop interview on Wednesday, McGowan revealed that his Rockingham office had been the target of death threats and bomb threats ever since the state government announced mandatory vaccination for much of the state’s workforce.

A week after an armoured tank rolled up outside his electoral office, McGowan has confirmed that his staffers had even been subjected to rape threats.

COVIDIOT Liberal Members of NSW & Vic state parliaments openly supporting their threatening, aggressive QAnon and anti-vax "friends".

The Saturday Paper, Post, 17 November 2021, excerpt:

In Victoria:

• Up to 500 protesters occupying the steps of Parliament forcibly ejected a journalist and issued violent threats, including one speaker who said of Premier Daniel Andrews, “I look forward to the day I get to see you dance on the end of a rope” (The Age);

• Video of the protesters shows them gathered around a wooden gallows on Monday chanting “Freedom”, “Traitor”, and “Hang Dan Andrews” while attempting to place the head of an inflatable doll of the premier through the noose;

• Four state Liberal MPs mingled with the protesters on Tuesday, including Bernie Finn, who last week shared a doctored picture of Andrews dressed as Adolf Hitler;

• Finn posted a selfie with the mob, which he described as “a couple of thousand of my closest friends”;

• The protests are against a bill that gives the premier and health minister the power to declare a pandemic and make public health orders, with debate extending late last night (7News);

• It is all but guaranteed to pass after the government made amendments to secure the support of three crossbench MPs, including that parliament will be given immediate ability to scrutinise any order (The Guardian).

In NSW:

• Premier Dominic Perrottet dumped a bill seeking to expand the state’s Covid-19 emergency powers until 2023 (The Australian);

• It had been approved by cabinet but faced opposition from Liberal backbenchers in a bitter partyroom backlash;

• Health Minister Brad Hazzard had been pushing to retain the powers to require quarantine or self-isolation for people exposed to Covid-19 (7News);

• Perrottet said he’d defer the decision on extending the powers until 2022.

IUCN report finds climate change is a threat to 69 per cent of Australia's 16 World Heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, more than double the global trend of 33 per cent

 

ABC News, 4 December 2020:

Mark Graham takes hope from pockets of Gondwana rainforests regenerating after the bushfires.(Supplied: Drew Hopper)

Ecologist Mark Graham has studied Australia's Gondwana rainforests for decades and, after years of drought and bushfires, says things have never looked so dire.

"To bear witness to the loss of some of these ecosystems . . . it's a very upsetting thing to observe," he said.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature [IUCN] this week rated Gondwana rainforests a "significant concern". In 2017 the same report rated the forests as "good, with some concern".

The IUCN is the official advisor on nature to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

The report also found climate change was a threat to 69 per cent of Australia's 16 World Heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, more than double the global trend of 33 per cent.

Nightcap National Park, in northern NSW, is one of the Gondwana rainforests devastated by fire a year ago.(Supplied: Darcy Grant)

Burnt rainforests 'still suffering'

The Gondwana subtropical rainforests stretch from the Hunter region in NSW to south-east Queensland and were entered on the World Heritage List in 1986, with extensions in 1994.

The 41 national parks and reserves ranging from 10 hectares to 102,712 hectares contain more than 200 rare or threatened plant species and have been compared with the Galapagos Islands in terms of global importance.

Mark Graham said more than a year after major bushfires, some parts of the rainforests were still suffering.

"There are definitely [some of] these really ancient forests that have burnt, and a year or more on there's very little, if any, life in them," he said.

"Thankfully, in some of our fire grounds, there is recovery occurring."

'Other threats increasing'

Mr Graham said the real concern now was more fires that might further reduce the size of the rainforests.

The IUCN report points out that while management has so far been effective in addressing challenges, further management responses will be required to address increasing threats, particularly those posed by bushfires as well as invasive species, pathogens, and climate change.

"There is wide recognition that considerable conservation actions will be required," the report says

"However, there is the lingering prospect that the catastrophe is a clear sign of the impact of climate change on weather patterns, and that these changes will not be reversed easily."…….

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 2020:

The 3 billion animals estimated to have been killed, injured or seen their habitat destroyed by the summer fires is now understood to have included 143 million mammals, 181 million birds, 51 million frogs and 2.46 billion reptiles.

The toll includes an estimated 40 million possums and gliders caught in the path of fires; more than 36 million antechinuses, dunnarts, and other insectivorous marsupials; 5.5 million bettongs, bandicoots, quokkas, and potoroos; 5 million kangaroos and wallabies; 1.1 million wombats and 114,000 echidnas.

It is believed 60,000 koalas were killed, injured or lost habitat, with the worst losses on Kangaroo Island where 40,000 were killed or harmed in some way.

About 11,000 koalas were hit in Victoria and 8000 in NSW according to a new report into the impact of the fires on native wildlife, which confirms an earlier overall estimate but provides far more detail about the losses.

Professor Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney, who oversaw the research on behalf of the Worldwide Fund for Nature Australia, said the impact on reptiles was so high because they live in such great densities in some of the worst affected areas, with small lizards such as skinks reaching densities of 1800 per hectare.

Researchers mapped the path of the 15,000 fires over 11.46 million hectares of the total 19 million hectares that burnt over the summer, and married it with existing data about animal densities in the areas hit.

They did not directly estimate numbers of animals killed because research about how different animals may survive fires is limited, and the factors that contribute to impact are varied. For example some species can flee faster and others are more resilient at surviving later in a burnt landscape.....

This is the Singleton Argus article that either the NSW Deputy-Premier or his office alleges is "seditious"

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'the offence [sedition] is one if the person urges by force or violence the overthrowing of a government, or interfering with an election, or encouraging other people to use – or groups of people – to use force or violence against other groups' [The Attorney-General, Hon Philip Ruddock MP, Alan Jones Radio Programme, 14 November 2005, quoted in Australian Parliamentary Library, "In Good Faith:Sedition Law in Australia", 23 August 2010]

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It appears that NSW Deputy-Premier, Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade & Liberal MP for Monaro, John Barilaro, is unhappy with journalists having an opinion about the mining industry, state government agencies or the region in which they live and work......

This statement from the NSW Deputy Premier's office on this week's opinion piece 'There were some arresting remarks made in the article that were as inaccurate as they were seditious.'#RightToKnow

— The Singleton Argus (@SingletonArgus) October 24, 2019

There were two articles published online by The Singleton Argus on 22 October 2019 which dealt with the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption's current review of lobbying activities, access and influence in this state.

The first was a local news article and the second an opinion piece by the same journalist on the same subject.

It was this second piece which is the allegedly "seditious" item that either the Deputy-Premier or his staff apparently decided included content intended to incite violence, public disorder or a public offence:

"Here we go again - the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is hearing evidence about mining approvals - what, haven't we learnt our lessons from the Doyles Creek and Mt Penny inquiries all those years ago?

This time ICAC's Operation Eclipse is not investigating actual corrupt conduct by individuals but rather it is seeking' to examine particular aspects of lobbying activities and the corruption risks involved in the lobbying of public authorities and officials.'

At the same time as ICAC is seeking information about the influence of lobbying on government decision making Planning Minister Rob Stokes announced the terms of reference for the review into the operations of the Independent Planning Commission.

Included in the terms of reference is a question about whether the IPC should exist at all.

Scary when one considers that the former ICAC commissioner David Ipp, QC was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald saying such a move was 'a recipe for corruption'.

The more things change the more they stay the same it would appear when it comes to planning state significant mining projects in NSW.

As an invited witness to this week's Operation Eclipse hearings NSW Minerals Council, chief executive officer Stephen Galilee voiced his strong opinions about the current state of mine approvals in NSW.

He is not happy that Bylong Coal Project was refused, that Dartbrook Underground was only half approved and that United Wambo and Rix's Creek were approved but it took too long so he was still very unhappy.

Mr Galilee is welcome is hold these opinions he works to promote mineral extraction in NSW but his opinions should not over ride due process.

We have seen what happens when mining licences are granted behind closed doors, people made millions often corruptly and the community is treated poorly or not considered at all.

No way should we go back to the bad old days in mine approvals.

We should be planning for our future where we have clean air to breath and new industries for our current mining workforce.

Instead of wasting time and money on the IPC review lets get started with planning for a just transition for our region.

The longer we put off the inevitable transition the harder it will hit our region - want to be part of that Mr Galilee?"

For the life of me I cannot see this as a journalistic call for citizens to man the barricades armed to the teeth and ready to do violence.

Perhaps in the future whichever of the Deputy-Premier's minions crafted that particular email should pause, open a dictionary and a copy of the Crimes Act before choosing his adjectives.

Then when he next rushes to the defence of his minister's 'mates' he won't rashly accuse a journalist of a grave unlawful act.

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'as long as the various sedition offences remain, governments will inevitably be tempted to use them improperly, especially when highly unpopular opinions are expressed' [Sydney Law Review,  (1992) Maher, L.W.,"The Use and Abuse of Sedition"]

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