Australia's Covid Police State

Last week's arrest of Zoe Buhler by Australian police, the video of which swept the world, should terrify every person who believes in liberal democracy.

Buhler, a 28-year-old pregnant mother, was arrested at her home near Ballarat, Victoria, on Wednesday.  She was handcuffed in front of her family, had her computer and phones confiscated, and was led out of her house by the police.

What had she done that was deserving of such heavy-handed treatment?  What had she done that made it worth subjecting her family to the sight of seeing her in handcuffs?

Very little.  She had attempted, through a posting on Facebook, to organise a peaceful anti-lockdown gathering in Ballarat ― a town with just four active cases of coronavirus.

Look at the exact words of Buhler's Facebook post, and ask yourself whether it warrants police intervention:

'PEACEFUL PROTEST.  All social-distancing measures are to be followed so we don't get arrested please.  Please wear a mask unless you have a medical reason not to.  September 5th is FREEDOM DAY!'

Victoria police see those words as criminal activity ― "the planning and encouragement of protest activity".  As a result, Buhler is due to appear in court in January next year.  She could be jailed for up to 15 years.

All for a Facebook post.

The reaction of Australian politicians to Buhler's arrest is even more worrying.  Assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius, one of Victoria's most senior police officers, said he was "absolutely satisfied" with the arrest.  The only thing he regretted was the video, and the "optics" of the arrest of a pregnant woman, which he said were "terrible".  So there you have it:  the only thing Cornelius regrets about the arrest was that the public saw it.

This is an astonishing change of attitude from Cornelius.  Victorians remember in June when he said of the then imminent Black Lives Matter protests that he and the police "absolutely understand the sentiment and the anger that lies behind that and we are very keen to support the community in giving a voice to their concerns".  The authorities promptly allowed over 10,000 Victorians to march in Melbourne without being fined.

It seems it was okay for BLM supporters to voice their concerns, but not for anti-lockdown protesters like Buhler.  The message is clear.  If you are going to protest, it better be for a cause the elites support.

For his part, Victoria premier Daniel Andrews claimed not to have seen the footage of the arrest, even though it was featured on the websites of every paper in Australia, and, among others, in the New York Post, the Daily Mail and on CNN.  But no, the premier of Victoria just missed it.  Other things occupied his mind.  It's not a good look ― he seems unconcerned with the state of democratic society, even as it crumbles around him.

Buhler is not the only person to have been arrested in Victoria in relation to lockdown protests this week.  Another man had his house broken into by police for saying he would go to an anti-lockdown protest.  He was tackled to the ground and handcuffed in his living room.

Victoria is now a police state.  That is the simple and depressing truth of all this.  If the government feels that you are standing in the way of its goals, then your freedoms are forfeited and you will be arrested.

What's more, Victoria's lockdown measures really do need protesting.  If you leave your house after 8pm, you will be fined.  If you stray more than five kilometres from your house, you will be fined.  If you visit your father on Father's Day, you will be fined.  If you go outside with more than one other person for exercise, you will be fined.  And if you protest against any of this, you will be arrested.

Victorians are living in a battered state.  They have been cut off from our friends, our family and our work.  Cut off from so many things that make life worth living ― their culture, their sport, their cafes, their restaurants, their museums, their nightlife.  And they have been bullied by a government that tolerates no opposition to what is going on.

Daniel Andrews speaks of bringing Victoria to a Covid-normal.  That's what they're all adjusting to as well.  Because no Victorian sees the state ever returning to actual normal.

Police Raids On ABC And Others Are Disgraceful

The Australian Federal Police's raid of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation overnight is a national embarrassment.

Yesterday morning, AFP officers arrived at the national broadcaster's Sydney headquarters with a warrant that named two reporters and a news director.  The raid was in relation to the "The Afghan Files", a 2017 story that exposed the alleged killing of unarmed civilians by Australian special forces based on leaked top-secret defence force documents.  The BBC has declared the raid "an attack on press freedom" and "deeply troubling".

The disturbingly broad warrant listed dozens of search terms and allowed them to "add, copy, delete and alter" material from the ABC's computers.  The officers spent almost nine hours inside the building, searching computers over sandwiches and flat whites.  They searched more than 9,000 files and downloaded an estimated 50 relevant documents on to USB drives.  The drives will be sealed for two weeks while the ABC appeals the warrant.  The whole affair was live tweeted by the ABC's John Lyons.

The storming of police into a public broadcaster would be expected in an authoritarian regime, not Australia.  While there is much to be criticised about the media, a free press fearlessly holding the powerful to account is essential to a functioning democracy.  "The only security of all is in a free press", American founding father Thomas Jefferson once wrote in a letter to Marquis de Lafayette.  "The force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed.  The agitation it produces must be submitted to.  It is necessary to keep the waters pure."

Worryingly, on the day before the ABC raids, the AFP raided the home of News Corp's Annika Smethurst.  It was in relation to a 2018 story about a plan to provide security agencies with the power to spy on Australians.  Australia's journalists' union has said Smethurst was subject to "intimidation" and "harassment".  The AFP has said this raid was unrelated to the ABC raid.  Australia's home affairs department has also reportedly pressured radio presenter Ben Fordham to reveal the source of a leak.  These two incidents have received substantially less sympathy than the raid on publicly funded ABC, showing that a clear double standard is at play based on the owner of the media outlet in question.

The day-to-day operations of the AFP are outside the direct control of the Australian government.  But that does not absolve politicians of responsibility.  These are leak investigations, presumably meaning the government could withdraw, if not change, the law to provide stronger press protections.

These raids are overshadowing prime minister Scott Morrison's ongoing visit to London to commemorate D-Day.  This should be a moment of celebration following the shock re-election of Morrison and his Liberal-National coalition.  Instead, it sends the signal that Australia could be taking an authoritarian turn.

Australia, a leading liberal democracy, should be proudly protecting the ability of journalists to speak truth to power, particularly in the context of growing threats around the world to freedom of expression.  Australia's moral authority to criticise the likes of Russia and Turkey is damaged by raids on the press.  And these raids are not the only worrying sign.  Free speech has been undermined by a range of other laws and developments recently, including Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, harsh defamation laws, and moves to undermine encryption.

Hopefully, these raids, and their associated global embarrassment, will spark a much-needed bipartisan national debate in Australia about how to protect free speech.

Je suis Bill Leak

The idea that a cartoonist should be answerable to a government body for making a political point is yet another low in the use of Section 18C of Australia's Racial Discrimination Act.  18C makes it unlawful to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" on the basis of race or ethnicity.  It's under 18C that columnist Andrew Bolt has had two articles banned, and a group of Queensland University students is now facing court for questioning the decision to provide a separate computer lab for indigenous students.

Now Bill Leak, an Australian cartoonist, is in the firing line for a cartoon depicting the importance of parental responsibility in indigenous communities.  Leak is being investigated by Australia's so-called Human Rights Commission.  The cartoon in question depicts an indigenous police officer, presenting a child to his father.  He says:  "You'll have to sit down and talk to your son about personal responsibility."  The indigenous parent responds:  "Yeah righto, what's his name then?"  The notion that parents in indigenous communities must take more responsibility for their children is not particularly controversial — it's a point often made by indigenous leaders such as Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine.  Mundine, who is also a former national president in the Australian Labor Party, has defended Leak.  "If the allegations are that [Leak] has incited racial hatred, I don't support that at all," Mundine said.  "[The cartoon] has a black police officer and it's opening up a debate.  Cartoonists have always been in-your-face — and that's definitely in-your-face."

However, extraordinarily, the complaint against Leak was encouraged by the commission's race-discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, which will most likely prejudice the commission's investigation.  A government entity has effectively told people to be offended and will accordingly be investigating.  Yes, Leak's cartoons are often offensive.  That's what a good cartoonist does.  They highlight topics of debate through confronting, hard-hitting and pointed imagery.  If you fall foul of their pen, it can be tough.  Leak recently portrayed same-sex-marriage activists as the "WAFFEN-SSM", made light of domestic-violence leave, and poked fun at fat, bald and transgender people to highlight the importance of freedom of speech.  And that's the key thing here:  the freedom of Leak and others to draw and say anything they like.

Leak's cartoons are not for the faint-hearted.  I often find them disagreeable.  But that's no reason to put Leak before a government tribunal.  Even if the case is eventually dismissed — by the commission itself, or later in court — it is still damaging to have gone through the process.  It is costly, and hurtful to the reputations of all involved.  The case also encourages people to stop talking about controversial issues, stifling freedom of expression.  The use of the law against someone you disagree with is always an authoritarian response.  The liberal, and far more powerful, response to encountering ideas you dislike is to use it as an opportunity to write — or draw — opposing ideas.

Australian politicians expressed sympathy when the controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked.  However, "Je Suis Charlie" — the notion that while we may disagree with you, we will defend your right to freedom of speech — seems to have been forgotten.  Even Australian attorney-general George Brandis, who originally campaigned to repeal 18C, recently said repealing it is a "fool's errand".  It's a worrying sign that our leaders can't even be bothered to attempt to stand up for the fundamental value of freedom of speech.  However, there is growing cross-bench support, and backbench agitation, for repealing 18C.  Every government backbench senator has expressed support for amending 18C to remove the words "offend" and "insult".

The Leak case is sadly not unique.  A freedom-of-information request I submitted earlier this year found that there are 18 complaints currently under consideration under 18C.  The complaints we hear about in the news are just the tip of the iceberg.  And almost all of the complaints are investigated behind closed doors.  And, as happened in the case of the Queensland students, the investigations can go on for months (or years) without the accused even being told.  Leak's case is just another reason to repeal 18C.

After Brexit, Anglo-Oz relations can flourish

Australia's cultural, social and political history is entwined with Britain's.  We share a language, the Westminster democratic system, the common law and a respect for diversity, individualism and freedom.

Australia's modern incarnation was defined by British colonisation.  As former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott put it last week, during a discussion of Anglo-Australian trade relations at the UK Conservative Party conference, "Once, you exported people to Australia, of course ... chosen by the finest British judges".  Today, Australia and the UK continue to have particularly strong ties in intelligence and international relations, but the UK's decision to join the European Economic Community in 1973 put a strain on our close friendship.

In the 1950s, the UK government assured the Australian government that it would do nothing to diminish trade relations.  Consequently, Australia was genuinely shocked and affronted by the UK's application to join the EEC in 1961.  French president Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's entry in 1963, and again in 1967.  In order to join the EEC, Britain was compelled to sever economic ties with the Commonwealth, imposing extensive trade restrictions on Australian exports.  This has had a profound cultural and economic effect on Australia.  As former Australian prime minister Paul Keating put it during the 1990s, the UK had "walked out on us and joined the common market".  This secondary status is writ large at British airports, where, despite sharing a queen with Brits, Australians are shuffled into the slow lane while Europeans are given priority.  (Just a few weeks ago, I waited for 50 minutes in one such line.)

This is why Australia is excited about Brexit.  It is an extraordinary opportunity to right a historic wrong, and rebuild our relations, both economic and cultural.

Many pessimists have pointed out that Australia's trade with the UK is very small — minimising the importance of any trade deals.  Indeed, Britain is only Australia's 8th largest export market.  However, this focus ignores the reason why Australia-UK trade has declined — Australia's lack of access to the common market.  Australian businesses cannot compete on an equal footing with European businesses.

Take one industry:  butter.  Older Britons might remember that until the mid-1970s Australian butter was a significant presence on UK supermarket shelves.  But after Britain joined the EEC, Australian butter exports dropped by more than 90 per cent.  Or take the case of apples:  exports declined from 86,000 tonnes in 1975 to 27,000 tonnes in 1990.  Similarly, before the UK's membership of the EEC, about a third of Australia's sugar exports went to the UK.  This market virtually disappeared overnight.

Australia began negotiating a free-trade agreement with the European Union in 2015.  Sadly, however, talks have stalled due to Italy's protest about Australia's anti-dumping duties on Italian canned tomatoes.  As a consequence of a completely irrelevant delay, Australia and Britain are missing out on the mutual benefits of freer trade.

Our passion to rebuild historic relations with the UK, playing off our complimentary economies, is the reason why we are the first country in line to sign a deal with the UK.  We're pretty good at trade agreements, too, having completed negotiations with China, Japan and Korea in the past few years.

There has also been substantial decline in the number of Australians issued visas by the Home Office in recent years.  This is not because young Aussies are uninterested in coming to the UK, but rather due to new visa regulations and migration caps.  UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson has previously supported a "free-mobility labour zone" between Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain.  UK home secretary Amber Rudd has since poured cold water on the idea of increasing the number of Australian migrants.  But, with negotiations yet to begin, there's no reason to dismiss the possibility of it happening.

The consequences of these trade and migration restrictions are bad for both Britain and Australia.  Nevertheless, Australia has flourished since the 1970s, largely thanks to our open economy.  According to the International Monetary Fund, we have the 16th highest per capita income in the world (the UK sits at 25), and, according to the World Health Organisation, the fourth highest life expectancy (the UK sits at 20).  We are proud of our achievements and are ready to re-establish a strong independent relationship with the UK, one that would be beneficial to both our nations.

Identity politics is the enemy of equality

There is a growing obsession with victim politics on campus.  It seems that certain groups are protected and everyone else is ignored or punished.

Take the recent events at one of Australia's top universities.  Outrage spread across the University of Melbourne campus following the discovery of anti-Islam graffiti.  The chalked slogans, which were swiftly removed, stated "Islam is not a race", "Stop the mosques" and "Trump for president".

The response was swift and furious.  The vice-chancellor published a statement on Facebook within hours, asserting that the distressing and hurtful slogans "run counter to the vision of a safe, inclusive, connected and respectful university community".

The University of Melbourne Students' Union chimed in, denouncing the "hate speech and discrimination" evident in the graffiti.  The union proceeded to organise a "Chalk for Diversity" morning, providing a free breakfast to students who wrote positive messages around campus.

But furious reaction to the graffiti was in stark contrast to way in which students and the university administration responded to another case of bigotry, just weeks earlier.

Hundreds of anti-Semitic flyers were distributed at the University of Melbourne during the first week of this academic year.  The flyers, which were anonymously placed on car windscreens, stated that the Holocaust was "the greatest swindle of all time" and that Holocaust Studies is "replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud".

In this case, the vice-chancellor did not take to Facebook to condemn them.  In fact, the formal response to this disgraceful act was near silence.  Neither the university nor the students' union have condemned the flyers, and no events were organised to educate students about the Holocaust.

This isn't just the case in Australia.  At its recent annual conference, the UK National Union of Students (NUS) debated whether it should stop commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day.  Unlike Muslims, women and gays, it seems Jewish students are not a chosen victim group.

In the name of justice and equality, certain identities are now given preferential treatment over others.  Students' union officials will often openly state that a white, male heterosexual has different political interests than a black, female homosexual, and so should be treated differently.

This is a tragedy.  Identity politics diminishes both individuality and autonomy.  You are defined by your category, speak for your group, and are responsible for the actions of others who share your identity.

And where a victim identity entitles you to special treatment, a privileged identity permits you to be punished.  The recent bake sale organised by the University of Queensland Union illustrates this new mentality.

The union charged different amounts for cupcakes based on a student's identity.  If you were a white male, you had to pay a dollar.  If you were a black woman in the legal profession, it cost just 55 cents.  Rather than uphold equality, students were intentionally treated differently based on their supposed privilege, or lack thereof.

Such actions damage intellectual freedom on university campuses.  Rather than consider views and ideas on their own merits, the identity of the person proposing them is now the first and foremost consideration in assessing their worth.

If a white male expresses a disagreeable opinion, they are instructed to "check their privilege" before continuing.  This argumentative technique presupposes whether or not a perspective is valid, purely based on who is expressing it.

Some people have also been forbidden from speaking altogether.  At the Australian National Union of Students' conference, men cannot speak during debates about women's policy, nor can white people speak about ethno-cultural issues.  Your identity is considered enough to silence your viewpoint.

Every individual should be judged according to their actions and the content of their character, not assessed collectively based on factors they cannot control.  In the long run, treating everyone equally is the best guarantee against discrimination.  But, in today's student politics, equality is out of fashion.