Posted on 08/05/2021 9:43:35 AM PDT by Nextrush
Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters have taken to Melbourne's street hours after Premier Daniel Andrews announced a statewide lockdown from 8:00pm on Thursday.
The lockdown, Melbourne's sixth, triggered an angry response from hundreds of people.
Demonstrators met near Flinders Station at around 7:00pm and moved into Swanston Street as police gathered to try to disperse them...
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
Victoria has about 6.6 million people and they want to lock everyone inside for 8 Coof cases. Insane. Their should be millions of people out protesting.
I thought my state was bad but despite several hundred Coof cases each day, my Dem gov has basically just said please wear a mask, which 99% of people have refused to do.
Libertad!
They’re contemplating another lockdown in Israel, too.
If an expedition could be landed on Tortuga (a small island next to Haiti, where Lord of the Flies was filmed, sometimes used as target practice by the US Navy, and once a pirates’ haven), they could declare independence and act as an operating base for actions against the Cuban regime, and as a haven for Covid refugees.
I bet the police were frothing to start crushing skulls.
They got to do some things in the end like use pepper spray in spray bottles like bug spray shooting them into the crowd you see it in this video...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eLG0jIK2cxw
Victoria’s socialist government in authoritarian, bordering on fascistic. It is democratically elected but unfortunately the conservative Liberal/National opposition is ineffective - any talented conservative politician in Victoria tends to set their sight on running for Federal Parliament rather than state Parliament. Labor doesn’t so much win elections in Victoria, as the coalition loses them. What the Premier is doing in repeatedly locking down the state is popular with his base so he’ll keep doing it.
I don’t like what’s happening, but I don’t believe these types of protests are appropriate either. It just takes things from one extreme to the other. Our COVID numbers here are so low that lockdowns are stupid - but that also means that gatherings like these protests are among the most likely thing to lead to a resurgence of the virus - and that isn’t something I think anybody would want.
The Premier was out of action for three months earlier this year with a broken back. While his deputy was in charge, things were running more smoothly - so a lot of this really is down to one person and his own personal authoritarian streak and paranoia. I understand why he’s paranoid - 700 or so of Australia’s approximately 900 COVID deaths are arguably his fault, based on his mistakes last year - personally I think he should resign for his own sake and everybody elses. But he’s too narcissistic to ever consider that. Especially with all of his sycophantic supporters to back him up.
gatherings like these protests are among the most likely thing to lead to a resurgence of the virus - and that isn’t something I think anybody would want.
Do you want that to happen 3 years from now and shut down everything again?
It's funny to me that your first paragraph sounded a lot like Massachusetts and the third sounded a lot like New York.
I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.
In an extreme case if a Premier outside of all constitutional rules and conventions, the state Governor (appointed by the Queen) has the power to withdraw a Premier’s commission. But this is an extreme measure to deal with a government that is really threatening the basic rule of constitutional law.
It’s never happened in Victoria - it did happen in New South Wales in 1932. The Labor Premier at that time, Jack Lang (again, a fairly hard core socialist) decided that due to the Great Depression, New South Wales would stop paying its debts to overseas creditors. The Commonwealth government stepped it to pay the debts to stop the collapse of the Australian economy (NSW was about a quarter of the national economy) and then demanded the state government hand over the money to the Commonwealth using one of its powers. Lang refused - and actually went so far as to withdraw all of NSW’s treasury in cash and store it in Trades Hall (the headquarters of the NSW trade union movement). At that point, the Governor stepped in and removed him.
It also happened at a Federal level in 1975 when the Governor-General removed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam from office - Whitlam’s actions weren’t quite as serious as Langs, but he couldn’t get a budget passed by Parliament and the only solution he offered the Governor General was illegal (he planned to order the Government owned Commonwealth Bank to lend the government money).
So it’s technically possible, but it would be difficult to argue that Daniel Andrews has gone far enough yet to justify the Governor’s intervention - because the state courts have ruled that Andrew’s directives are so far within his legal powers - he has had to make a couple of modifications based on court cases but he’s made them quickly when told to. If he ever refused, then the Governor would have a case.
As you mention, a Parliamentary vote of no confidence is possible but the Opposition tried that last year and it failed, and the numbers in the Legislative Assembly make it very likely it would succeed - Labor currently holds 55 seats to the Coalitions 27, with the Greens holding 3 and there also being 3 independents - Labor’s absolute majority is therefore 11 seats. The only other way he could be removed if the Labor Party itself decided to replace him as leader. There are rumors that some of his own party do think he’s going too far but not enough to be willing to challenge, especially as currently the polls say he is in an election winning position.
No. But I don't see any reason to expect that to be a likely situation.
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