8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (1)
#10676437 at 2020-09-17 02:08:19 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #13663: Do Not Mistake Silence for Inaction
Treasury economist resigns in protest at 'police state'
A Victorian government official has taken aim at Daniel Andrews and health chief Brett Sutton in a scathing resignation letter.
A former economist at the Victorian Treasury Department has quit his job in protest at Daniel Andrews' "police state", penning a devastating op-ed slamming the government's coronavirus response.
Sanjeev Sabhlok, who moved to Melbourne from India in 2001, resigned last week after being asked to remove a number of inflammatory social media posts criticising the state government.
Mr Sabhlok runs a blog and has a Twitter account with more than 3000 followers where he has railed against COVID-19 lockdowns, and in some cases called for politicians responsible to be jailed.
"These monsters need to be tried for crimes against humanity and shot," Mr Sabhlok said in one post earlier this month, responding to a tweet by UK conservative commentator Suzanne Evans criticising a Labour MP.
Mr Sabhlok announced his resignation on social media last week in a message to Mr Andrews. "I did not come to Australia to be a slave of whimsical government," he said.
"You have not implemented risk-based management, no evidence-based policy, no cost-benefit analysis. No justification. Just whimsy. You must reset Victoria's policies right now. But if you won't, then go!"
In an opinion piece for The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, the public service veteran said he had been approached by the head of human relations at Treasury and asked to remove his posts critical of the government.
"I considered deleting the few direct criticisms, but they wanted all indirect criticism removed too," he wrote. "I resigned on the same day, the only honourable course for a free citizen of Australia."
In the piece, Mr Sabhlok describes the pandemic policies being pursued in Australia and particularly in Victoria as "the most heavy-handed possible, a sledgehammer to kill a swarm of flies".
"These policies are having hugely adverse economic, social and health effects, with the poorer sections of the community that don't have the ability to work from home suffering the most," he said.
"Australia is signalling to the world that it is closed for business and doesn't care for human freedoms. This will dampen business investment but also impact future skilled migration, the education industry and tourism."
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/coronavirus-victoria-treasury-economist-resigns-in-protest-at-police-state/news-story/a2e9026a234600f22ea0c676d17de24c
8chan/8kun QResearch AUSTRALIA Posts (1)
#13313378 at 2021-03-28 06:27:19 (UTC+1)
Q Research AUSTRALIA #14 - THE ART OF WAR Edition
What has QAnon got to do with Australians?
It is often called a cult, but that implies something limited and small. Others suggest it is better understood as a new religion, or political movement. It could be both.
Margaret Simons - MARCH 28, 2021
1/4
It was mid-December, three weeks before rioters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, DC. I was driving through the Northern Rivers region, just south of the Queensland border, and listening to podcasts by Pete Evans, Australia's most prominent proponent of QAnon conspiracy theories.
I had asked Evans for an interview. I told him I wanted to understand his path from celebrity chef to paleo diet enthusiast to Trump supporter and proponent of QAnon. He did not reply. But others had agreed to talk.
The hippies, everyone I spoke to agreed, had been the beginning of this region's reputation as a place for those prepared to question authority or, as one naturopath and QAnon conspiracy theorist put it to me, to "seek their own truth".
Evans posts several new episodes of his Evolve podcast each week. I listened to him interview a former Victorian public servant, Sanjeev Sabhlok, who resigned because of Premier Daniel Andrews' coronavirus lockdown - which Sabhlok described as "the great hysteria". Another interview was with British "teacher, mystic and award-winning poet" Richard Rudd, who told Evans the world was self-regulating by culling itself and, almost as a throwaway line, described democracy as "mob rule".
For the most part, Evans adopted the stance of the wide-eyed student, albeit one convinced that nothing mainstream media or most politicians said could be trusted. He said he "glances" at QAnon, just as he "glances" at mainstream media.
But as December progressed and Donald Trump escalated his claims about a stolen election, Evans became more explicit. On January 6 - the day of the Capitol riots - he interviewed 'Dave', who puts out one of the most popular US QAnon podcasts, introducing him as a "truthseeker". Dave said Biden would never be president. Trump had won the election.
The next day, Evans posted a video to Instagram. He was wearing a wetsuit in camouflage colours. He jerked a thumb to his chest and asked: "Are we going into battle? Maybe. Seems that way."
According to a study by the US NGO The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, by the middle of last year Australia had become the fourth-biggest country in the world for QAnon social media content and discussion, and while the United States still overwhelmingly dominates, the Australian footprint is growing - as it is in Britain and Canada.
The QAnon movement has swallowed up virus denialism, suspicions about 5G (which some believe causes COVID-19) and parts of the anti-vaccination movement, as well as ancient, almost archetypal tropes of anti-Semitism, of evil enemies eating babies.
Meanwhile, a new ecosystem of media and influencers has been created - podcasts, vodcasts, video 'documentaries' and books.This world overlaps with the mainstream media. The two most popular websites linked to by Australian QAnon posters are those of Sky News and The Australian, both owned by News Corporation, according to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue. The third most popular is the ABC.
There were many different groups among the mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 - including pre-existing racist groups such as the Proud Boys and the veteran-dominated right-wing militia the Oath Keepers. But why did tens of thousands of ordinary Americans spend time and money answering Trump's call to come to Washington? The vibe, the linking idea, the evangelism and the binding network was QAnon.
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