It's not over till I say it's over
You can't just declare the pandemic over without seeking justice
Apparently the pandemic is over. In Victoria, the Pandemic Declaration will not be renewed when it expires on October 12, 2022.
Just like that? Are you kidding me?
What about the injuries and deaths?
What about the gagging of doctors?
What about the suppression of treatments?
What about the missed weddings and funerals?
What about the denial of medical care? Remember “Queensland has hospitals for Queenslanders? What will you say to the twin who grows up without her sister because her mother had to drive hundred of kilometres to Sydney rather than cross the border to Queensland and lost the baby?
What about the stigmatising?
What about the money?
What about the censorship?
What about the propaganda?
What about the coercion?
What about the businesses destroyed while idle nurses made dance videos for TikTok?
What about the protesters shot in the back at the Shrine?
What about pregnant Zoe arrested in her pyjamas for posting on Facebook?
What about the increased mortality ?
What about the lost education?
What about the closed churches?
What about the global lockstep?
Do you have nothing to say about these? Do you think you can simply say “we’re not renewing the pandemic declaration, nothing to see here, oh look over there it’s the Melbourne Cup”?
This is over when I say it’s over. And it’s nowhere near over. The truth will come out eventually and it won’t be pretty. The smarter ones know this and are making their first blinking attempts to step into the light and save their sorry skins. The dumber ones are doubling down.
We’re already seeing prominent perpetrators and collaborators claiming to have, and to have always had, reservations about what happened. They are trying to create for themselves a revisionist back story that absolves them from their abominable conduct. Like CHO Brett Sutton who now claims if you’ve had the Covid injections then the flu will be worse than if you hadn’t, yet still pushes the jab. Like Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton who claims he feels ‘bruised’ by what he and the Victoria Police had to do. If he was so bruised by it why didn’t he have the guts to disobey or quit? To ask is to know - the truth is that he wasn’t bruised by it, he was drunk on the power. Remember the curfew? The Premier and the Chief Health Officer disavowed asking for it. But Patton wanted it to make it easier for his thugs to push everyone back inside and out of the way with their pathetic little protests about freedom. How much easier is it to bully someone maskless in a park and inspect their cappuccino than to deal with real crime?
These perpetrators and collaborators cannot be redeemed without confession. That they must be forgiven is not in question, but apologies to and restitution for their victims are essential. Punishment, in this world or the next ( or both), awaits those who don’t.
It seems to me as if most people are content to move on and forget that any of this ever happened. That would be an understandable but colossal error which would condemn all Australians to the certainty that the totalitarian behaviour will be repeated, with ever increasing frequency and depraved trampling of human lives.
In April 2020, a few weeks after the country was locked down to ‘flatten the curve’ for “just three weeks” I composed a speech for the then PM Scott Morrison to give - of course he never did and I only ever got a pro-forma reply. I sent this speech to many politicians and news outlets I thought might be sympathetic, to think tanks and magazine editors. Not one single response of substance came back. I am under no illusions about the impact I can have from behind my keyboard, but I simply don’t know what to do next. I still maintain that the April 2020 speech was the right one to give. Here it is:
My fellow Australians,
Our country faces an existential dilemma. The coronavirus has challenged our nation and in response I have made decisions which have had consequences for all of us, heartbreaking for some, inconvenient for others, and all points in between.
The way Australians have responded has truly humbled me, as I have watched you sacrifice our very way of life. All the things we hold dear have been have been laid aside - you can rattle of the list just as well as I can - sport, family, a fair go and opportunity, freedom of movement, the list goes on and on - in our battlw with this virus. Australians of all stripes have stepped up to the plate and taken their patriotic responsibilities seriously and bravely, and with good humour as well. For that I am deeply grateful.
As we have gone through these opening weeks of the coronavirus crisis, I have come to the realisation that what we are confronting is not a virus, nor an economic crisis, but our own individual mortality. Since time began, mortality is. Each of us must die.
We rightly twist and turn and wriggle and fight and scratch and claw and shout against anything that threatens our life. We move heaven and earth to find ways to lessen pain, to prolong life, to improve quality of life.
We have committed unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money, and borrowed money to be paid back by existing and unborn taxpayers many decades into the future, and made all sorts of changes with the aim of lessening pain and prolonging life. In doing so we have unfortunately brought our quality of life to the very edge of a precipice.
We have already climbed over the safety rail, and skidded past the warning sign. The rocks are unstable, and slippery. We are at the very edge. A gust of wind poses a catastrophic risk.
We must not fall off that cliff. To do so would bring unimaginable pain and change our country for ever.
Our country, united in communities, caring for each other. Our country, spellbound by acts of sporting courage and victories, and solid after defeats. Our country, where the quality of one's twilight years is immeasurably, pricelessly buttressed by the joys of family, of grandchildren, of a quiet moment in the library, of a coffee with a lifelong friend, of gentle exercise classes at the local gym, of worshipping one's God.
Our way of life is underpinned by freedom to choose the things we do, and the things we don't do. Some of the things I have done have curtailed that freedom, and I am sorry for that.
Today I am announcing our first moves away from the edge of that precipice.
Our hospitals are ready. We have empty ICU beds. We can build more. We can cope.
People who can work should go back to work.
Schools are reopening, just as soon as practicable.
Sport is back on - although without crowds for the moment.
Weddings and funerals can be attended by all who need or want to be there, with social distancing rules observed.
Restaurants and pubs can reopen - again with social distancing arrangements in place.
There are many arrangements to unwind, and new ones to put in place. I ask you to be patient with me, and our public servants, as we work through them. But they will all be targeted at regaining the way of life so central to the way we see ourselves at home and as part of the global community of nations.
To protect our most vulnerable Australians, notably our elderly, we encourage our whole country to take to heart the guidelines on cleanliness and social distancing with which we have all become so familiar.
The road back to the place we enjoyed will be a long one, with twists and turns, and some wrong turns. But we will arrive there, be assured of that. And we will keep going, beyond, to ever greener pastures, where the fruits of our labour and the blessings of this island will be evident for all to see, and all to taste.
My fellow Australians, now is not the time to be afraid of death. Our forefathers fought shooting wars in defence of our way of life. Many were killed, many more were maimed. But that didn't stop them defending freedom. We owe them now to repeat the bravery, despite our fears, and face down this enemy, to save our way of life.
We don't' want to lose this country. I will die trying to save it.
Thank you.
Given what has happened in the 2 and half years since then, I must resist the urge to say I TOLD YOU SO. One day, some time in the the next 2, 5, 10, 20 or 50 years, an Australian Prime Minister will have to give the following speech. If they don’t, then all our treasured mythologised national and indigenous heritage will have been erased for ever. The problem is that this second speech is immeasurably harder to deliver.
My fellow Australians
Today is a significant day in our nation’s history. It is with a deep sense of regret, shame, and humility that I address you today about the events of 2020-2022.
As your representatives in our national and state parliaments, the office holders at that time betrayed your trust. I count myself among those who did not act in your best interests, and whose actions undermined the values and ideals by which we used to have pride in our country. Mateship, fair play, brotherly love, generosity of spirit, among many others…these qualities we hold dear were severely curtailed and in some cases criminalised. We deliberately misled you. We compromised our institutions with censorship. We ostracised innocent individuals, guilty of nothing but prudence. We tore families apart. We destroyed hard earned wealth and crushed hopes and dreams. We snuffed out romance, we tore the heart out of sport. We even claimed sovereignty over your bodies.
Incalculable harm was caused by your elected governments and those to whom they ceded decisions which should have been theirs alone to make.
We amassed power and kept it. We used it for its own sake to accumulate more power and individual fortunes.
Today I will not say why all those things happened. To do so would be arrogant in the extreme, and might sound like an excuse. I will not make excuses, I seek only to confess.
Neither will I say what ought to be done about the abuses of power which we saw. To do that might seem like yet more empty promises, or even lies, of which we have seen so many and which ripped out our hearts, and turned many into cynics.
The time for uncovering the causes of our deplorable conduct during those tumultuous years lies ahead. Only a full accounting can prepare the way for justice to be served.
My sincere hope is that through this accounting we, all of us, each of us, unearth in ourselves a spirit of understanding, mercy and forgiveness, towards others as well as to ourselves. Without forgiveness, of self and others, we will never truly move forward.
We must approach this task with courage, to quell the trepidation that all of us feel. With courage, and love, we can emerge stronger.
Thank you.