Susie O’Brien: Legitimate protests hijacked by 5G wackos

Real protesters worried about our democratic rights don’t send MPs used condoms in the mail or threaten to kidnap their children.

The sight of three nooses hanging off a makeshift wooden pole carried on the streets of Melbourne during weekend protests should repulse every single Victorian.

The nooses were for the necks of the three independents who have indicated their support for an amended version of the pandemic powers Bill.

It’s all very well to want to “Kill the Bill” but carrying around gallows with three nooses on it is another thing entirely.

Signs showing Premier Daniel Andrews mocked up to look like Hitler should also revolt us.

I don’t resile from calling Andrews a dictator many times over the past 18 months, but it’s offensive to depict him as a Nazi leader responsible for the death of millions.

It’s concerning that peaceful marches containing thousands of concerned mum-and-dad protesters from the suburbs have been hijacked by right-wing wackos.

These groups who think the coronavirus is a hoax, people are victims of satanic ritual abuse and 5G is part of a state-organised system of surveillance.

A mock gallows with nooses is carried at a rally against the Andrews government’s proposed pandemic laws. Picture: Daniel Pockett

You can spot them because many cover their faces to avoid police surveillance and carry signs that read things like: “Unvaxxed sperm is the next bitcoin” and “Vaxxing our kids is child abuse”.

While I don’t expect much more from Victorian Liberal MP Bernie Finn and federal MP Craig Kelly, Liberal MP David Davis should know better than to address these protesters over the weekend.

Kelly was there, not to “save our children” as his supporters claimed but to spread a deadly and misleading anti-vaccination message.

They represent a rag-tag gang of parasitic Nazi sympathisers, QAnon members and anti-vaxxers using legitimate concerns about the overreaching pandemic legislation to show strength and attract support.

The modus operandi is to piggyback off an existing protest and whip people into a frenzy by putting forward misleading and false conspiracy theories involving the media, police and the government.

Then they sit back and see their ranks swell with new members.

Real protesters worried about our democratic rights don’t need to use encrypted messages to plan protests, or cover their faces to avoid arrest.

They don’t send MPs used condoms in the mail, vandalise their offices, issue death threats or threaten to kidnap their children.

And they don’t cause the Premier to cancel press conferences out of fear for his safety.

I don’t agree with the pandemic Bill, but I do think the Premier has the right to move freely around the state without fearing for his safety.

Legitimate protests don’t need to cover their face. Picture: Alex Coppel

It’s a great pity because it’s hard to imagine a more important issue than this amendment.

After suffering through the longest, most extreme, most draconian lockdown in the world, we should all be concerned about this Bill. We should be concerned about the unprecedented concentration of powers into the hands of the executive, the lack of protection for the rights of citizens and the ability of politicians to rule by decree for the foreseeable future.

The new legislation would allow the premier to initially declare a pandemic for four weeks and then renew that status at three-month intervals thereafter.

People could be jailed for breaching some of these provisions of the Orwellian-sounding Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment.

The ability to target additional provisions against certain groups of people on the basis of characteristics such as age, gender or marital status is also unacceptable.

Where are the safeguards? Where is the sunset clause? Where is the oversight?

The Bill has passed the lower house thanks to Labor’s dominance, and will be introduced into the upper house this week.

Victorians should be lobbying their upper house members to express their concern about the Bill that gives MPs virtually unlimited power to restrict movement, ban public gatherings or close businesses without any health mandates.

The Bill will only pass with the support of the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam, Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick and Reason Party’s Fiona Patten.

These crossbenchers deserve to be held to account for their support of this appalling legislation. But they do not deserve to fear for their own safety just for doing their job.

Such an important debate should not be manipulated by extreme elements using the legitimate concerns of wellmeaning people for their own violent and divisive ends.

Piggybacking off existing protests gives them cover and the illusion of legitimacy they don’t deserve.

This radical mob of professional protesters have vowed to “occupy Spring St” in a bid to menace and threaten politicians.

If they had their way, we’d all be unvaccinated against a deadly pandemic which they think is a hoax.

Remember this: they don’t care about the democratic rights and freedom of ordinary Victorians. They don’t care about us or our children.

And they don’t care about what’s best for our state.