It's really pissing me off that I keep having to do this. But OK, one more time.
There is no defensible reason why people are not allowed to leave Australia.
That's your opinion. I believe you're wrong but you're certainly entitled to have a different opinion from mine. But I strongly expect you have absolutely no understanding of the contexts and reasons for this and therefore your opinion is an utterly ill informed one and I suspect you don't have the slightest bit of interest in trying to be informed.
The Chinese-style lockdowns
"Chinese-style" is just a buzzword to manipulate. But, yes, some place in Australia have lockdowns imposed by the STATE governments, not by the FEDERAL government. Tell me, would you appreciate your entire country being defined by California? Or Alabama? or Hawaii? If you wanted to argue that Victoria, where I live, is close to a police state, I'd agree with you right now. But why that is so is complex. And it doesn't represent most of the country. All of Australia is being abused because we have a moronic paranoid socialist in charge of one state.
The “wellness quarantine hubs” (concentration camps) where people are indefinitely imprisoned without warrant, hearing, or trial.
The term "wellness quarantine hubs" is a completely made up term. If I search for that term on google, literally the only place I can find it referenced is here on Freerepublic - in a post by you, as it happens.
I don't know where you got that term from - I'll assume you're not being deliberately dishonest and aren't the person who made it up. I'll assume you used the term in good faith having seen somebody else use it somewhere. But the term is not a real term in use in Australia. It's made up. It's a prime example of people misleading other people and lying about what is going on in Australia.
There are no 'concentration camps' in Australia. There are people being held in quarantine, mostly in hotels, which is a completely normal measure of keeping diseased people out of a country. It's not some sort of human rights violation and these people entered Australia in the full knowledge they would have to quarantine and could have chosen not to come. They are not being held indefinitely. So this one is basically a lie.
The utter brutality of Australian police in beating the sh*t out of lockdown protesters (check the Rebel News for video).
I have seen many, many videos out of America showing police beating protesters for all sorts of reasons. I don't label America a fascist dictatorship because sometimes people who are rioting need to be dealt with, and I don't even do it because sometimes American police go too far.
Now, yes, there have been incidents here where police and protesters have clashed. And I suspect you've been shown very edited video of those clashes that focus on the police actions, and not on the actions that provoked those actions. Far more police have been injured in these protest than protesters - and police have the weapons, so that's saying something. For the most part - there are exceptions - the police have been defending themselves against violence more than they've been responsible for it. But if you edit a video to remove the start of an incident you cannot see that.
Again, this is something I know happens in America as well - or do you blame the police for all violence that occurs at things like Black Lives Matter rallies as well.
As I say, there are exceptions. There was one incident at a protest here in Melbourne where I believe police very clearly stepped over the line - they pepper sprayed a middle aged woman who had already being knocked down and could not be reasonably considered any sort of threat. Those officers are under investigation, and I suspect will be prosecuted in time. There's been another incident that wasn't at a protest and the police officer there has already been suspended. There may have been other incidents as well - I wouldn't rule it out - but for the most part, the police have been acting with reasonable force in the face of violence.
The government threats against media like Rebel News and Sky News who investigate the official narratives.
What 'government threats' are you talking about? I honestly have a clue what you're going on about here. I know of no such threats against Sky News with which I'm very familiar, and Rebel News likely isn't even on the Australian governments radar.
Warrantless and blanket invasions of people’s homes by police to enforce health care orders, as if a health minister gets to suspend civil rights when it suits them.
There have been no 'blanket' invasions of people's homes. Warrantless - yes - in certain circumstances, warrants are not required if police actually observe a crime in the process of happening. I'm not aware of any case where this has happened, where the pretty high threshold required to take place hasn't been met. And I know police in the US don't require warrants in such situations either - they don't have to go away and get a warrant if they are witnessing a crime.
The arrest of individuals in the Outback who dare to be miles and miles away from another human being without a mask on.
People are not arrested for not wearing masks. They can be issued with a fine, but it's not an arrestable offence. I know of some cases where people have been arrested for assaulting police because they attacked police who asked them a question. If you attack police, you should expect to be arrested.
Remember, not everybody who says police were in the wrong and they were in the right is always telling the truth about that.
And now the endgame is showing up as the discussion of suspending elections for the foreseeable future (indefinitely) is being broached in public in order to keep the ruling party in power:
If this actually happened, I might be somewhat concerned - it would depend on the precise situation and circumstances. But I'd be extremely surprised if this happened in the current circumstances. Somebody writing an article discussing the theoretical constitutional possibilities, doesn't concern me at all, especially given the actual numbers in the NSW Parliament (the government could lose all three of those by elections - which would be extremely unlikely actually - and they'd still have a functional majority in the House - their actual majority is slim, but given the independents and minor party MPs in the House, their functional majority is somewhat healthier). Even the article you've quoted concedes in its final paragraph that the scenario they are talking about is 'unlikely'. I'd say extremely unlikely.
So we have people arrested and indefinitely imprisoned without charge, police beatings of protesters, police threats against media, and suspension of elections.
Well, only some of that is true, and even then, only somewhat, and often focusing on isolated incidents. Nobody is being imprisoned without charge, more police have been injured that protesters in a few violent incidents, although there a couple of isolated cases where I do think it can be reasonably stated police went too far, threats against media - as far as I know, that's nonsense, but as I'm not sure of what you're talking about, and no elections have been suspended or are likely to be, and an article talking about fully legal and constitutional ways this could theoretically be done but probably won't be really isn't that concerning.
If this isn’t a dictatorship then tell me, how do you define a dictatorship?
I wouldn't really because there's no simple definition for that. But I can certainly explain why I would not call what is happening in Australia a dictatorship - that's a simpler question.
(1) First of all, it's not all of Australia. If you specifically wanted to argue that the single state of Victoria (which is where I live myself) is a dictatorship you'd be on more solid ground. It isn't but it is closer to that stage than I am certainly comfortable with. There's a lot of reasons for that that I could explain in more detail, but I'll leave that for now. The most important thing though is that Victoria is not Australia as a whole. It's one of six states and one of eight internal jurisdictions in Australia's - certainly it's the second most populous of those so it's not insignificant, but it's nowhere near Australia as a whole. None of the other jurisdictions is anywhere near as close to serious democratic disfunction as Victoria (no, not even New South Wales, which Americans seem to being told is basically in the same shape - not even close. It's just if you're only told about the superficial similarities and not the much more significant differences, at first glance, I can understand the confusion).
(2) The governments involved are democratically elected and will face reelection again in the normal course of events. There are provisions (such as the one in the article you mention) in certain specific cases that can allow for certain types of by-elections (that is, elections for single parliamentary seats to fill casual vacancies) to be delayed somewhat. Those provisions are fully constitutional and legal, so no dictatorship there, and they are also quite unlikely to be used. But even if they were, general elections are a different matter. Parliaments have terms limited by law - once they have expired (that is their term has reached its limit) elections have to be held within a certain time. This cannot be delayed. These are democratically elected governments which will have to account to the people. I'm worried in my own state that despite everything the current Labor government might actually win next years election but if they win it - well, that will be the democratic will of the people, it will just prove to me I live in a state with way too many fools.
(3) The reserve powers exist. Under Australia's constitutional conventions, governments can be removed and a new election forced by the Governor of a state, or the Governor-General in the case of Australia as a whole - these are the Queen's representatives in Australia. This is the ultimate block on tyranny in Australia - that right at the top is an apolitical figure whose sole duty is to the constitution. Now, the thing about these reserve powers is that they are only meant to be used in an absolutely dire situation where the democratic processes have failed, or a democratically elected government is acting so far outside law that it becomes appropriate for it to be removed from office even though it was elected. The threshold to do this is extremely high. We're not actually all that close to it yet - even in Victoria, which is, as I say, the worst state, I'd say where - maybe 70% to that stage at this point. If things were as bad as some people claim, we might be at that stage, which is one reason why exaggerations and misrepresentations (talking about things like 'concentration camps') is so problematic and dangerous - it blurs the lines and could make it harder for action to be taken when it needs to be.
These powers have only been used twice in Australian history - once at a state level - in NSW in 1932, when the Labor Premier of the time, Jack Lang, seized all the money in the entire state treasury (back then, unlike now, money still had to be backed by something physical) and moved it into trade union headquarters in order to stop it being used to pay state debt. The Governor stepped in and removed his government and forced a new election. Once at Federal level, in 1975 when the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, couldn't get a budget passed and told the Governor-General he was going to illegally order the Commonwealth Bank to give him a loan. Again, his government was removed from office and a new election forced. It can happen - and it will happen if it needs to. If things actually do get that bad. But we're not there yet - and that's partly because it's not as bad here as some people are being told. It's not good either - what is happening in Victoria is the worst constitutional crisis in Victorian history - I think it will be averted before the Governor has to step in, but it is the first time ever in this state, that that ultimate safeguard is even close to likely to need to be used. And nowhere else in the country is even close to that bad.
(4) We also have the state Supreme Courts, and the High Court of Australia as safeguards I need to mention - but I'm afraid the Victorian Supreme Court is fairly compromised at this stage, so while they might do the right thing if it came down to it, I don't have a lot of confidence. I've more confidence in the High Court, but things would have to get a lot worse than they are now, for that to become relevant.
(5) In the absolute final analysis, theoretically, the Governor-General as Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Defence Force, has a whole bunch of theoretical power that's never ever meant to be used. I absolutely cannot envisage a situation where that would become relevant - when we studied it while I was training to be a naval officer in the 1970s, it came up as a "What if the entire country was nuked?" scenario. In such a situation he would actually become a dictator - but one whose obligation would be to restore a constitutional government as soon as possible.
We're into the realms of bad science fiction here - but my point is, there are numerous things that mean this isn't a dictatorship and is extremely unlikely ever to become one. That's not to say the current situation is good. This is the worst crisis in constitutional terms that Australia has faced since at least 1975. But we came through that and we will come through this. And it's not as bad as 1975 - not even close Federally. Victoria is badly complicating things in one state.