> Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.
Australia doesn't have to be competent, it can just dig up its vast mineral wealth, share the riches among its very small population, and think that skill and competence had something to do with it.
By comparison, I'm amazed at places like South Korea, Japan and Israel that get by on sheer innovation and technology.
The "small population" who benefit most are the corrupted politicians and mining magnates.
and their hangers-on.
Average Australians (including heavy manufacturers) often
pay approximately double for our own gas, than Japan and China do, even when liquefaction and transport are included.
Victoria is looking to build a gas import terminal to re-purchase Australian gas via a 3rd party country, and this will actually save money, because the system is that bad and Liberal govt refuses to activate the "gas reservation" law they passed in parliament (but never called into action) as a warning to the gas cartel to slightly reduce the price gouging.
As another example, Qatar exports less volume of gas than Australia but their country earns 2000% more royalties that Australia because of our self-interest-first political class playing the "game of mates" for cushy jobs (board of directors etc) for these traitors post-politics.
Norway is a much better example of how to do things with less corruption than Australia.
They created a sovereign wealth fund that has saved well over $100 Billion.
Australia in contrast voted in Tony Abbott whose platform consisted of "ax the mining tax" and like sheep people voted for it to save money for the magnates and collect even less resource taxes for the benefit of all.
Australia does have a "future fund" of saved cash but that is ONLY for politician's financial benefit, not the population in general.
a very unfair characterization of Australia, we also invest heavily in institutional education, as an export, wine producing, tourism and other pretentious things like that.
You see innovation is about profit margin, technology is for China and that kind of countries.
This is blatant misinformation. Melbourne has been the most locked down city in the world. Understandably, the working class for whom WFH is not an option, have had enough. The protests are predominantly second/third generation Mediterranean immigrants, women, and children.
As Scandinavia rolls back all restrictions, Australian media work in concert with the government to stifle any dissent as the country spirals deeper into totalitarianism. Citizens are unable to leave the country, a violation of the UN declaration of Human Rights.
For those not from Australia; we are not about to become a fascist state. The parent comment’s other complaints about inequality are indeed true and our government has failed them.
Lockdown sucks and is problematic. There are riots and the media is of course following the government line. But these lockdowns will end and some level of normalcy restored.
I'm skeptical of that second video. Looks like the woman screaming (also not wearing a mask) was not being arrested. There were also a suspiciosly high number of professional cameramen and cops there for just not wearing a mask...
Whether the lockdowns are justified or not (I think it's complicated, sure, no one likes them but that doesn't mean they're not the right thing or on the alternative side that there haven't been mistakes in their implementation), there has been a coordinated attempt with protests recently attracting low thousands, but dwindling to hundreds in recent days.
that video I believe is from St kilda, which a particular small group of protesters targeted on that day for their specific actions. this was day 5 or so of them effectively playing tag with police around the inner city. the rest of us have largely been getting on with our lives.
the first video is from the cbd during similar actions, and while it's likely unjustified behaviour from police, it has to be taken in the context of an organised movement that has targeted and injured police in recent times, and an extreme right wing subset deliberately provoking and trying to get as much of a response from police as possible (they then film, edit and post things out of context)
Another Melburnian here, agree with what you’re saying.
I’m surprised that so many people on HN have such a warped perspective on what’s going on here, and even when multiple people from Melbourne post in this thread about their own experience living here, they’re told that they’re misinformed.
Yes there are problems in Australia, but it’s not about to become a facist state.
I think it's obvious we're on the road to becoming a facist state. As you and your parent point out, the only difference between sitting peacefully in a park and having the police move you on (or at worst assault you) is the act of protesting.
interesting that the health care protest is in the same park my picture further up the thread was in :)
but I wouldn't say that's the only difference. indeed if anyone is still reading this, I'd say go look at the report linked above. the small healthcare protest this morning peacefully dispersed, but the end of the report contains footage of the group/protests that have been running organised skirmishes with police most of this week. that this group is out there organising mobile/running protests on telegram and the like (the groups were public and they were livestreaming as they did so if you want to know how I know) is a pretty important context for police actions right now.
additional context is that protests (and subsequent police presence) has historically been a relatively common thing in Melbourne, and obviously the current context additionally involves movement restrictions and gathering in group restrictions that have been put in place until the vaccine has been rolled out. current evidence suggests we are primarily supply constrained ATM in Australia/Victoria relative to absolute demand, and the government has announced targets and timelines for removing these restrictions once the people who want vaccines have recieved them.
Australia lacks an explicit freedom/liberal philosophy, and it's certainly been the case that authoritarian aspects have increased recently, but it seems like a stretch to say that we're currently on a march to fascism. especially given the additional subtlety that what little fascist movements there have been in Australia are paradoxically aligned with the current protesters.
to paraphrase a quote from one of the protesting live streamer: "look at the police trying to stop peaceful protests. all we want to do is overthrow this government!"
in that sense there's a lot of commonality/overlap between the current protesters and the Trump movement. And another additional context of interest is the number of members on the twittersphere commenting on all this who are clearly Americans or aligned with American politics/media rather than locals. It's bizarre in that there's even been Trump flag wavers at some of the protests :/
> especially given the additional subtlety that what little fascist movements there have been in Australia are paradoxically aligned with the current protesters.
I think the paradoxical nature is a clue that there might be a little more to the story.... My take is most protesters are pretty normal people and the media/politicians overblow the extremist element out of self interest.
> footage of the group/protests that have been running organised skirmishes with police most of this week
I'm generally sympathetic as it seems like the police action is what causes the degradation from protest to skirmish. It sounds like you are aware of the livestreams but for anyone who isn't check out this facebook streamer for full unedited footage (commentary can be biased though). This video at one of the larger protests pretty clearly shows that arc.
Once again this needs context that I'm assuming most international viewers/commentators lack,or can't be bothered with, or are deliberately omitting.
Firstly, the livestreams are good for seeing what's going on on the ground and for tracking where things are operating during the day (like when a small group of protesters invaded a shopping centre carpark/playground/picnic area a day or two after that protest... in an area that borderline openly hostile to them). This is important for people like me living this at the moment who are literally just trying to head out with their toddlers and don't want to be caught up with the radical/violent protesters. Just looking up in the sky is often a good hint for us as the police helicopters generally follow that days main groups. But one has to be careful viewing the footage afterwards, as it's often deliberately edited and taken out of context for propaganda purposes.
therealrukshan (the linked streamer) for instance is far from independent or objective media. he's far-right/trump aligned (yes, it's Australia, no it doesn't make sense) and has been known to give running commentary bordering on "reality denial" imo. in the background we also have telegram and messaging groups going on at the same time, so watching one view after the fact still often departs from the context of what was happening or being said at the time.
It happens that I was watching the particular stream linked in the video (and others) in real time, so I'm pretty familiar with the events and context of that protest.
For those wondering, this was day 3 of a series of events. If I've got my timelines right, the violent protests in the previous article happened the weekend before and have another additional layer of context on top (they happened after police shut-down the public transport into the city, and my neighbourhood, for the morning to try to hinder an organised protest that would be taking part during our latest delta-ourbreak: keeping in mind we don't yet have widespread vaccine coverage due to supply failures/AZ hesitancy AND practically no recieved immunity due to elimination of the earlier coronavirus transmissions here locally).
Following that, a series of unfortunate events took place. Restrictions (and compulsory vaccines) were announced on the construction industry, which compared to other industries during our lockdowns had been allowed to operate with relative freedom.
Subsequently a borderline riot took place outside a union office in the city that afternoon: comprised of legitimate construction staff, but with the context of the far right groups also messaging people to buy/wear uniforms and get down there to generally cause trouble. long story short: shut-downs of construction for two weeks announced.
the next day what I'll call the tradespeople march happened primarily in the city, which was easily the largest protest so far. predominantly men affected by the previous decisions + a smattering of the far right still "strategising". they basically took over the (comparatively abandoned) cbd and then marched down and blocked a freeway. they promised to continue protesting every day against the shut-downs/ lockdowns/vaccine mandates. This was not a union (who is pro- vaccine anti mandate) mandated protest, which is a whole other layer of context itself. police were present in large numbers after the previous days/weekends violence, but large scale destruction/clashes were more or less avoided.
the next day a smaller protest started in the city again, and after ambling around for a while ended up spontaneously marching to and occupying a war memorial just south of the city. This in itself was a somewhat "controversial" action (and personally, partly responsible for the fizzling of any popular remaining support, as amongst the community it was seen as borderline sacrilege/profanity). this is the edited footage above. it resulted in a multi-hour stand off with riot police while they occupied the space. the police offered safe passage away from the shrine for several hours for protesters, and numbers dwindled into the late afternoon until there were a couple of hundred more radical holdouts remaining at the end of the day refusing to leave. this was when the police cleared the space with the riot-squad.
from this point, popular support seems to have dwindled. the tradespeople have largely stopped taking part in the numbers of the earlier days, and the following protests have numbered in the small hundred (if that) compared to the relative success/numbers of the first tradespeople protest, and seems to largely now be composed of the remaining telegram/facebook brigade of far-right and... with all due respect...relative deluded crazies.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and apologies if I seem worked up.
> therealrukshan (the linked streamer) for instance is far from independent or objective media.
There's an irony in claiming that a guy walking around with a camera isn't independent. Yes he has a take but he isn't beholden to any large company (murdoch, abc...). The raw footage is also some of the most objective content out there, it's so voluminous that even when he tries to hide the protests doing something ugly it can't help but give a good ground level perspective. His edited down footage is fairly biased, but not any more than majour outlets.
> taken out of context for propaganda purposes.
It's all there in the footage... people are peacefully protesting for a few hours, sitting down, arms raised to show they have no weapons. They even observed a minutes silence to honour the shrine. They are then forcefully removed by the police using rubber bullets, horses and some sort of noxious gas. Taking it out of context is misdirecting to side shows like telegram groups (by the way several have also be arrested for suggesting people attend protests online). Taking it out of context is misdirecting to the failed negotiations with the police.
I live in the area and watched them from afar for about an hour before things got out of hand, I saw first hand that they were being respectful and peaceful.
> Subsequently a borderline riot took place outside a union office in the city that afternoon
This was really the only time in the whole affair the protesters were violent and even then it was only a small minority. (and egged on by the internal union politics - not indiscriminate).
The protests as a whole were largely peaceful and in no means justified the continual escalation and militarization of the police.
Almost every other time the police have just been quelling peaceful protests and subverting democracy.
The OA has a well sourced section that indicates that you can leave, you just may not be able to come back.
> Currently, more than 38,000 Australians are stranded overseas and nobody can leave the country unless you have a rarely granted exemption. The prime minister of Australia threatened jail-time for anyone returning back from India due to concerns about the transmissibility of the Delta strain yet the New South Wales government when there was an outbreak of Delta strain was like "nah, she will be alright mate" and did nothing for weeks.
> Australia’s borders are currently closed and international travel from Australia remains strictly controlled to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. International travel from Australia is only available if you are exempt or you have been granted an individual exemption.
> If you are an Australian citizen or a permanent resident you cannot leave Australia due to COVID-19 restrictions unless you have an exemption.
I'm not sure what makes me angrier, the lack of freedom, or the laziness of the Australian government. It's clear that they don't want people to leave the country because they don't want to deal with people comming back.
Yes they think that far ahead to avoid doing their job.
> There is a list of reasonable exemptions including work related travel.
Don't you think that you should've caveated your original comment with the fact that you need a specialized exemption to be able to leave?
Every other account I've read besides yours says that these exemptions are difficult and onerous to get, including for extreme cases like family emergencies. And even if you're granted one, trying to come back is still a very messy and expensive affair. As per the article's point — only available to the more privileged classes.
Here's an article from July [1] that has the numbers for June: out of 34,616 exemptions applied for, 14,522 were granted. That's about 40%.
Please consider my reply in the context of the original comment claiming the Australian Covid19 travel policy is a violation of the UN charter of human rights.
From Article 13 of the UN declaration of human rights:
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
This is a more complex question than you’re making out.
The declaration also says:
> In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country