Australia has always had a tradition of lively political protest but the anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown movements seem to be going beyond what can be permitted,even in a robust democracy.
As theHerald reported on Thursday,police have charged a man involved in the protests outside the Victorian Parliament with incitement to manufacture explosives.
AHerald andAge investigation also discovered that the man,Imre Pelyva,posted messages in an encrypted service about bringing “guns and rifles” to the protests and shooting Premier Dan Andrews in the head.
Other participants at the protests made threats of violence and even brought a replica of a gallows to make their point. In September,anti-vaccine protesters ran riot on the streets of Melbourne.
It might have been possible to shrug these incidents off a few years ago as an unpleasant but unavoidable part of a free society but several recent incidents have highlighted the risks of neo-Nazi,right-wing and libertarian extremism. ASIO has estimated these pose a greater risk than Islamic extremism.
Incidents include the murder of British MP Jo Cox in 2016 by a fanatical proponent of Brexit;the massacre at the Christchurch mosque in New Zealand in 2019;and the storming of the US Capitol this year.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday he believed the tone of the protests in Melbourne had crossed the line.
“Those threats and intimidation have no place in Australia. We’re a peaceful society. When we have disagreements,we don’t handle them with violence – and there can be no tolerance for that.”
Politicians should speak out if they object to government policies about the pandemic but they must avoid language which encourages violence.
It is important for all politicians to send a similar message. Yet several Victorian Liberal MPs and the federal MP for Hughes in south Sydney,Craig Kelly,were present at the protests where the threats of violence were made.