I would, as an Australian, apply a qualifier here. I have lived in Canada and spent a long time in the US with friends and family living there and I am aware of the high levels of ignorance about the Land Downunder. That also applies to the UK and Europe.
The penal colony reference is trite and ill-informed. It is two centuries since Aus…
I would, as an Australian, apply a qualifier here. I have lived in Canada and spent a long time in the US with friends and family living there and I am aware of the high levels of ignorance about the Land Downunder. That also applies to the UK and Europe.
The penal colony reference is trite and ill-informed. It is two centuries since Australia had penal settlements and in some parts of the country, including where I live, they never existed in the first place. For what it is worth the British also sent convicts to Canada and the United States. We were all once penal colonies.
Australia is not high on the tyranny scale. We have one deranged State Premier in Victoria who could be labelled as such, and a few other poll-driven Premiers in other States but the situation in Victoria has not been universal throughout the country and neither has the recent lockdowns in New South Wales.
Australia is a big country and the same size physically as the US, but with 26 million people not 320 million. Our States are huge. Western Australia is the same size as India with less than 3 million people, compared to 1.3 billion. In most of the country life has gone on pretty much as normal. Where I live mask mandates appeared about three months ago, otherwise they were never seen, even as my friends in Boston and family in NY State had spent a year being abused if seen without a mask.
Beyond the fact that the Federal Government closed international borders for holiday travellers - business travel continued - there is little or nothing which has happened in Australia which has not happened elsewhere, including the UK, Canada and the US.
Thanks for your perspective, Roslyn. If you don’t mind my asking, which part of Australia are you in? I am getting daily on-the-ground updates from my Australian subscribers and connections, and the stories they are sharing are alarming. Most of them are in Queensland, so perhaps it’s worse there than where you are.
In addition to proposed legislation such as permanent emergency powers and outrageous fines/penalties for not wearing a mask or breaking quarantine, there is a strong police presence with lots of harassment (and worse) of ordinary citizens occurring. I document numerous instances in the Down Under Edition of my Recommendations Roundup (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/recommendations-roundup-2-down-under-41b).
I would, as an Australian, apply a qualifier here. I have lived in Canada and spent a long time in the US with friends and family living there and I am aware of the high levels of ignorance about the Land Downunder. That also applies to the UK and Europe.
The penal colony reference is trite and ill-informed. It is two centuries since Australia had penal settlements and in some parts of the country, including where I live, they never existed in the first place. For what it is worth the British also sent convicts to Canada and the United States. We were all once penal colonies.
Australia is not high on the tyranny scale. We have one deranged State Premier in Victoria who could be labelled as such, and a few other poll-driven Premiers in other States but the situation in Victoria has not been universal throughout the country and neither has the recent lockdowns in New South Wales.
Australia is a big country and the same size physically as the US, but with 26 million people not 320 million. Our States are huge. Western Australia is the same size as India with less than 3 million people, compared to 1.3 billion. In most of the country life has gone on pretty much as normal. Where I live mask mandates appeared about three months ago, otherwise they were never seen, even as my friends in Boston and family in NY State had spent a year being abused if seen without a mask.
Beyond the fact that the Federal Government closed international borders for holiday travellers - business travel continued - there is little or nothing which has happened in Australia which has not happened elsewhere, including the UK, Canada and the US.
Thanks for your perspective, Roslyn. If you don’t mind my asking, which part of Australia are you in? I am getting daily on-the-ground updates from my Australian subscribers and connections, and the stories they are sharing are alarming. Most of them are in Queensland, so perhaps it’s worse there than where you are.
In addition to proposed legislation such as permanent emergency powers and outrageous fines/penalties for not wearing a mask or breaking quarantine, there is a strong police presence with lots of harassment (and worse) of ordinary citizens occurring. I document numerous instances in the Down Under Edition of my Recommendations Roundup (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/recommendations-roundup-2-down-under-41b).