Face masks Australia: Seven myths of anti-maskers and how to rebut them
These are seven common myths spouted by anti-maskers. Here’s where they come from and how to shoot them down, especially if confronted at work.
It’s not yet been a week since “Bunnings Karen” stormed into a Melbourne branch of the hardware giant, and the Australian anti-masker movement entered the national consciousness.
Now, selfie videos of people browbeating staff or police are on the rise, dispelling the myth that fervent coronavirus deniers are exclusive to the United States.
The no-mask brigade has a manifesto with which to combat police stops, apparently learnt by rote or sometimes printed out and laminated for handy and regular use.
The notable feature of these videos is the repetition of obstructionist statements or questions to the staff member or officer who is attempting to enforce the mask rule.
It’s a Melbourne and now a Victorian thing, but states like NSW may not be far behind.
Soon we could be queuing up in the paint aisle only to hear someone stridently declare: “I do no consent”, “it is not the law” and “you are violating my human rights”.
Alas, most of us have not had the time to flick through the Crimes Act, or browse the Magna Carta and tell the anti-masker breathing all over us that they’re talking rubbish.
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Fortunately, they are singing from the same songsheet, or the anti-mask checklist cropping up on different social media pages.
Melbourne woman Bernadette Cassar proudly declares it’s hers, each time an anti-masker films themselves spouting the lines.
However the list appears to be a cobbled together version of one produced by the sovereign citizen conspiracy movement, which sprung up in the US at least 40 years ago.
It advocates quasi-legal questions and challenges to undermine government authorities. Cassar’s version of this list currently being circulated in social media groups, she says is based partly on common law, or the Magna Carta, the charter of rights signed at Runnymede, near Windsor, UK, circa 1215.
The Magna Carta is big on people’s liberties and freedoms, but the anti-maskers should know it hasn’t been law even in England for years.
When confronted by an anti-masker, it would be useful to have a handy reckoner to bat back their wilder claims or parroted defences.
Just saying “You’re wrong” clearly doesn’t work, as evidenced by the confrontations vaulted into the news cycle this week.
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Instead, it may be better to confront them head on.
It’s the sort of information Karl Stefanovic might have found handy this week before interviewing psychic “high priestess” Lizzy Rose who told him the coronavirus pandemic was “orchestrated” and “biochemically engineered”.
As the Conspiracy Theory Handbook explains, debunking conspiracy theories can be done with logic, or facts.
Victoria Police are no doubt briefed, but retail or hospitality staff might find this useful, as might anyone who comes across a crackpot theorist in your local pub.
1. NOT WEARING A MASK IS NOT A CRIME AND IS NOT GOVERNED BY LAW
Sorry citizens of pagan worlds or other dimensions, but the public health order IS the law, under section 7 of the Public Health Act 2010.
Failure to produce personal details constitutes a legal obstruction, which is an arrestable offence.
Police are empowered to enforce the wearing of face-coverings, where mandated, excepting where an individual can produce a certified exemption, such as one issued by a medical professional.
2. SAYING ‘I DO NOT CONSENT’ IS A LEGITIMATE DEFENCE
This relates to myth number one, and is a kind of Hobbit world legal mumbo jumbo.
3. I DO NOT HAVE TO CONSENT BECAUSE AUSTRALIA IS NOT A COUNTRY
Anti-maskers have been spouting this one all week, but it’s really an old conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theorists love to quote lists of how many companies make up the so-called corporation of Australia.
This myth relies heavily on the next, number four myth, being true.
4. AUSTRALIAN COAT OF ARMS IS A US TRADEMARK
The Australian Coat of Arms can be found in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database.
Conspiracy theorists offer this as evidence to support their claim the Australian government is not legitimate, and that it is in fact a privately-owned US corporation.
This is nonsense.
The USPTO database takes information from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which was created in the 1960s and is part of the United Nations.
It protects intellectual property throughout the world via countries signed to the Paris Convention respecting each country’s copyright and trademark laws.
The WIPO has the Australian Coat of Arms registered under one of its article which solely protects the flags and emblems of countries, states and intergovernmental bodies.
Private companies cannot register anything in the database of that article, which is called “6ter”.
Under this article are registered eight items for Australia, our national coat of arms, the six state coasts of arms and the word ANZAC.
5. FACE MASK MANDATES ARE A BREACH OF THE CHARTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Since midnight on Wednesday last week, it became mandatory to wear a mask outside the home in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, and will be so for all of Victoria from August 2.
“Bunnings Karen” Kerry Nash told staff at the Narre Warren store last week that not letting her in without a mask was a “breach of the 1948 Charter of Human Rights”.
But governments are allowed to make snap decisions – about closing borders, or making face mask wearing mandatory in what has been declared as a public health emergency.
Australia is a signatory to several conventions around human rights and anti-discrimination which outlaw it to discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender and sexuality.
But those do not give a person the right to not wear a mask if it is mandated, or not to be treated differently or refused entry if you refuse to wear one.
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And discrimination laws say nothing about discriminating against a person on the basis of what they wear.
It is not a person’s right to act out violence, defame another or recite racist opinions because those actions are prohibited by law.
Mask wearing is not.
On properties owned by companies such as Bunnings, the management has an obligation to make them safe for other shoppers and staff under the current public health orders.
In a statement by Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner, Regional Operations Rick Nugent made this week, he said “no one has a human right to infect other people and place the entire Victoria community at risk.
“The behaviour of those who blatantly choose to disregard the rules on the insistence their human rights being breached is alarming.
“Victoria Police will continue to use the powers available to them under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 to enforce the Chief Health Officer directions.”
6. THERE IS NO STATE OF EMERGENCY
Yes there is.
Victoria first made a State of Emergency declaration about the COVID-19 pandemic back in March.
This emergency declaration has been continually extended and is currently in place until 11:59pm on Saturday, August 16.
The declaration, given Friday’s record of 723 new coronavirus cases and 13 deaths, will no doubt be continued after that.
7. COVID-19 IS A FAKE PANDEMIC
Many versions of this conspiracy theory have been bandied about since March and, frankly, they’re getting boring.
Some commentators say they are spreading faster than coronavirus, though if you’re talking about infection rates, sadly COVID-19 wins.
But the ‘fake’ virus theories or those about how it spread – via the 5G wireless network, say – probably deserve no more response than an eye roll.
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