Ann Wason Moore questions plots against Gold Coast City Council election and community concerns about Coles checkout gates
From absurd plots about council candidates to one resident’s viral fear that grocery gates are out to get us, columnist Ann Wason Moore suspects it’s going to be a long year.
Gold Coast
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Just when you thought it was safe to get back online …
The local election may be over (although the counting goes on and on and on), but the conspiracists just won’t stop.
With a state election still to come, followed by the granddaddy of them all – a US presidential vote in the shape of a Biden vs. Trump rematch – the season of absurdity has only just started.
While much has been said regarding the poor behaviour around council candidates and supporters, voters themselves were not entirely innocent in their conduct.
One candidate said they spotted an informal vote with ‘both are WEF puppets’ scrawled across their two legitimate options. WEF meaning ‘World Economic Forum’.
Because, yes, the number one priority of this independent international organisation is to field a divisional candidate in the Gold Coast City Council election.
Meanwhile, multiple voters grilled candidates about the Covid vaccine (still? in 2024? nevermind that a councillor has no control over that issue whatsoever), while others were asked about how they would fight against ‘smart cities’.
I realise it’s possibly a sign of lunacy to try to understand the logic of these questions, but here we go … why would we want to NOT be a smart city? I can’t really envision Experience Gold Coast embracing the subsequent tourism slogan: ‘Visit GC – proudly Australia’s dumbest city’. Which brings me to the latest online plot spotted on a Gold Coast community group: how the anti-shoplifting gates at Coles are out to get us.
Now, as someone who was actually recently caught in the pincer grip of those clear gates at the Pacific Fair store, I did at first feel a swelling of sympathy (perhaps to match the swelling on my hip).
Seriously though, I was not maimed by the gates, although my pride was certainly wounded, and it was my fault for checking my emails at the self-checkout.
See, the way these gates work, which has been stated officially by Coles time and time again, is that overhead sensors in the checkout area detect motion from the point of sale to the exit – automatically opening the gates once customers have completed payment for their items.
I dawdled, and I was pincered.
But, according to the conspiracy, it’s ever so much more sinister.
In a post written by a Gold Coast resident, which has been shared more than 2000 times on social media and is apparently been making its way across Australia, the writer states:
“I am NEVER going to Coles again. While shopping, my partner suddenly needed to go to the toilet. However, the gates wouldn’t let her out of the store so, in a panic, she ran around till she found a staff member who unlocked the gate for her.
“Talking to three different staff members about it afterwards, we were told that every time we enter the store, an electronic ‘signature’ is imprinted in our heads as a red dot that is recognised on their computer screens.
“Then, when we’ve paid, the dot turns green and the gates open for us. So, three questions about this:
“1. Why are we not told about this as we enter? No signs at all.
“2. What effect does that electronic imprint have on my body? What health implications are there – does it cause cancer or any other illness, and
“3. Is this a precursor to the digital currency where we’ll be barred from shops if our social credit score isn’t up to whatever the current standard is?”
Lord, give me strength.
The Gold Coast resident then continued: “We’ve later found out that the red dot thing was how it was explained to staff to make it easy for them to understand … and how they’re explaining it to customers for the same reason.
“Coles says that it’s not a red dot on or in our heads but customers show up as a red dot on their computer screens, which turns to green once we’ve purchased something … and then the gates will open.
“It’s actually a tracking system, possibly like the Chinese facial recognition. Coles are being very coy about the exact details of the technology.”
In my one moment of sympathy for the supermarket giant, Coles has been forced to issue an official denial that it is placing “electronic imprints” on customers or using facial recognition.
Yet if our residents are so far gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole that anything new is automatically the subject of extreme suspicion, even derision, how will we ever move forward?
The future may be uncertain, but it should be something to embrace with positivity.
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