Why is the PM quiet?
Why is the Prime Minister quiet when other countries are speaking out
One of the curious aspects of this entire covid-19 crisis for me has been the acquiescence of the Australian public as they have lost one freedom after another as more restrictions and mandates have been inflicted upon them in an ever-increasing draconian manner.
Recently that curiosity has become more confronting as people overseas are increasingly taking more notice of our situation and in doing so becoming more appalled at what they see. We have had Polish politicians protest outside our embassy in Warsaw, English citizens’ protesting outside our London embassy, while American protesters marched across the Brooklyn bridge through New York City before stopping to protest outside our embassy in New York.
Media across the globe have been broadcasting our situation and showing clips of clashes between our police and citizens and comparing us to the worst totalitarian regimes on the planet. While some of this reporting is clickbait for ratings, much of it is accurate and embarrassingly impossible to refute.
International media, politicians and citizens are appalled by how our police have assaulted, arrested and fined Australians, they are appalled at the restrictions being endured by Australian citizens particularly those in Victoria and New South Wales. Their interest in our situation is so intense that they are recruiting one Australian after another onto their media to talk to them about it.
On social media, the reaction is one of disbelief where even high profile people are urging their governments to enforce sanctions against the Australian government until Australian citizens have their rights restored. Our situation has become so bad in the eyes of Americans who support and embrace the second amendment of their constitution that they are now using our situation to justify their own gun laws. These are the same gun laws that allow liberal gun ownership for their citizens where Australians, on the whole, have been disarmed of any guns yet due to our situation they are placing themselves on a pedestal of higher virtue. Bizarre to many, but the fact they can justify this argument simply demonstrates the abysmal state of affairs our respective governments and political leaders both state and federal have delivered us into.
I believe that argument from gun-loving Americans is drawing a longbow, but at the same time have we ever seen the world looking at our nation in such horror for the way it is treating its citizen with many in the international community even comparing our government to those of China and North Korea?
Also, many Americans see us as the frontline in a looming confrontation with what they see as a looming confrontation against a world tyranny looking at Australia as the first domino to fall in a line of western county’s within their sights. Some have even expressed a desire to fly over here to come to our aid.
For many of us, these views would seem extreme, while and for others they are a welcome entry into our political dynamics and affairs.
Either way, it doesn’t matter as our international reputation is taking an absolute battering and international reputations are like individual ones, even if a perceived observation is unfair the reality is that mud sticks and mud is being thrown our way thick and fast.
All of this potentially spells disaster for our country on several fronts. Our tourism industry may take decades to fully recover if it ever does, our business sector may lose international deals and foreign diplomats may take a significantly lesser view of our previously stellar reputation on the international stage which can impact things like trade agreements.
Of course, all of this denigrates our credibility when we enter into the arena of criticism of other countries when we believe they are imposing upon or even breaching people’s human rights. Countries like China and Russia who our politicians have regularly lined up to criticise their treatment of their citizens now have a library full of video clips, news articles and examples of the Australian government’s own unacceptable treatment of its citizens.
I think we can expect that a number of our ambassadors will be called before world leaders and simply be told “get your own house in order and then come back to us.” For now, it will be good advice.
At no other stage in my lifetime have I ever seen so much negative international attention and coverage of my country, so it’s surprising to me that our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has stood on the sidelines as the premiers he unleashed through his imbecilic nation cabinet, trample all over the rights and liberties of their state’s citizens and he says and does nothing.
How does he not see what so many across the globe are seeing? How can he stand by when citizens in other countries are talking about taking their own actions through things such as sanctions? How can he stand by and not defend his own citizens’ rights while other countries citizens are protesting outside our embassies to fight for them?
At the last federal election, I believe millions of traditional liberal voters stuck with the party after the removal of Malcolm Turnbull in the hope that Morrison would return the party to its more traditional values. To say he has been a disappointment to many of us is an understatement. As the old saying goes “fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on you”, I doubt many of those same voters will be fooled a third time and they will be moving their votes to the various minor parties with what are more classical liberal values.
In several of his press conferences, Scott Morrison has referred to the freedoms that we enjoy in this country or most recently described Australia as a free society that fights for freedoms. Is he that oblivious to what is happening in his own backyard? Does he have such a massive tin ear politically? Or does he just not care?
Why hasn’t Morrison intervened on our state governments and their Premiers when they overreach upon Australian’s liberties? The federal government controls much of the State government’s revenue through the GST and it also has significant access to legal resources to challenge things such as border closures and vaccine mandates if it had the willpower. Despite this, Morrison just rubber stamps the various premiers actions by effectively doing nothing outside limited efforts to reign them in.
Why has Morrison and the Federal LNP government stood by as the Australians that they govern are losing their jobs and careers to people from overseas simply for not making a choice the federal or state governments approve of?
Just last Thursday Morrison made the claim that the free society considered to be Australia was being compromised due to social media. Morrison said “We value our free society. And in a free society, you can’t be a coward and attack people and expect not to be held accountable for it,” Morrison seems to be more concerned by attacks upon himself and his political colleagues on social media as opposed to their attacks on their citizen’s human rights and liberties.
This pretty much sums up the situation in this country at the moment.
This is the same Scott Morrison who has continually assured Australians that the choice to take the vaccines will be voluntary, yet he sits by as one State premier after another mandate it. What sort of person let alone a politician would breach such a public commitment?
The idiom “To talk out of both sides of your mouth” refers to a person who tells different parties different things. They say different and contradictory things to different people so that people are left unsure or confused This would be akin to lying.
This idiom in my opinion sums up our Prime Minister and his premiers perfectly.
The distressing thing for all Australians is who do we have in our major parties ranks that could step up and turn our country around. In times of crisis like the one we are facing is when you need leaders with some decency, integrity and understanding of their people to emerge and lead. England had Churchill, The USA had Roosevelt, South Africa had Mandela yet our landscape looks bare of any such individual.
For the sake of this great nation, I hope and pray that person emerges and soon.
