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State of Emergency powers extended

Stephen Andrew statement on State of Emergency powers

Well as most of you probably already know, the Public Health Extension of Emergency Powers Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament today. With the passing of the Bill, the Chief Health Officer’s extraordinary state of emergency powers under the Public Health Act, have been extended another 8 months to 30 April 2022. These are the powers that are being used to close businesses, churches, theatres and restaurants – issue mask mandates, border closures, mandatory QR sign-in, travel bans, strict social distancing rules and other measures.
Under the original Act, these powers were strictly time-limited and set to expire after only 14 days. By 30 April 2022, they will have been in place for more than 2 years, with no guarantee they won’t be extended again after that.
In fact, judging by some of the statements made today by the Health Minister, I would say the chances of another extension past 30 April 2022 are pretty high. The continuation of these laws is such a radical departure from our liberal and democratic traditions that I feel strongly that an urgent Inquiry or Review needs to be carried out, particularly in relation to all the legal, constitutional and human rights implications which have never been properly addressed.
Amendments to the Bill, which were supported by the LNP and all the Crossbench members, including myself, were tossed out and the Bill passed with the support of the LNP, although no actual vote was counted.
Knowing that many businesses and industries will close and Queensland’s mental health crisis worsen, with the passing of this Bill, is gut-wrenching. Members were all only given a few short minutes to say anything because the Government made drastic cuts to the time available for debate on the Bill.
I am posting a link to the comments I made on the Bill today during the short debate – see below for link.
It is a sad day, however – especially for all the small businesses and their workers who will suffer income and job losses as a result of this long extension of the Government’s power to force shutdowns at the drop of a hat – While allowing large wealthy retailers and sporting arenas to stay open as normal.
My thoughts are with all of them tonight.

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Owellian laws for Australia

TRANSFORMING AUSTRALIA INTO THE SURVEILLANCE CAPITAL
OF THE WORLD – ONE ORWELLIAN LAW AT A TIME
The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 (Identify and Disrupt Bill) passed both houses of federal parliament last week, with nary a peep from anyone. The new legislation grants extraordinary new powers for disrupting the online activities of its citizens, to the Federal Government and its intelligence agencies.
Not only will they be able to disrupt laptops and phones remotely, take down whole websites and servers, no matter where they are located in the world, they can also ‘lock’ out people from all their online accounts. Since C***d, the Coalition Government has passed law after law granting itself, and its various enforcement agencies, enormous powers of surveillance over its citizens. Many of these laws have been sold to Australians as necessary for ‘safety’, but mostly that’s just a pretext for what is little more than a naked grab for more data and more control.
The irony is that many of the threats citizens now face, from ‘cyber-attacks’ to ‘online safety’, only exist because of actions the government itself took which have made us all much more ‘unsafe’. The 2017 TOLA laws were the beginning. They forced tech companies to dismantle all the encryption technology and other sophisticated protections they had put in place to protect our privacy.
Of course, ‘privacy protections’ are anathema to governments now, and ours has waged a ceaseless war with ‘Big Tech’ companies like Facebook and Apple, aimed at removing every last vestige of privacy and protection we had.
The new Surveillance laws follow the passing of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill last month, which gives the federal government the power to enter into top secret, data-sharing agreements with the US Government.
Another alarming piece of legislation is the Online Safety Bill, passed in June, which will give the government even more powers for removing online content it doesn’t like, and to block access to users and enforce stringent verification systems – including face scans and thumbprints.
All these new laws are the creation of the Orwellian Digital Transformation Agency, which is currently hard at work on another Bill. This one will require ALL Australians to submit identification checks before being allowed to comment or engage online
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