Victoria’s Knee-Jerk Laws Are Not Good Laws

If you think Victoria is serious about protecting Jews, you’re not paying attention.

It’s almost as iron a rule of politics as the longevity of a ‘temporary government programme’: knee-jerk laws made in a panic are guaranteed to be bad laws.

Victoria’s Labor government has introduced protest laws banning face masks, terrorist symbols and dangerous protest tactics almost two weeks after the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue in a likely terrorist attack.

Bear in mind that the Victorian state Labor government, just like the NSW state Labor government and the federal Labor government, have sat back and done absolutely nothing for over a year, as increasingly violent, anti-Semitic mobs marched in our streets. Well, not quite nothing: when a mob of Muslims stormed a vigil at the Sydney Opera House, just days after the October 7 attacks, police made exactly one arrest: a Jewish Australian, carrying an Israeli flag

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The reason given? His presence might provoke disorder. That’s right: when an Islamic mob is chanting ‘Gas the Jews’, Jews will be arrested for, well, being Jewish in public, apparently.

Labor governments did nothing when ‘pro-Palestinian’ mobs carried placards urging the ethnic cleansing of Jews, nor when their own MPs bellowed the genocidal Hamas war-chant in Parliament and masked goons defaced the Australian War Memorial with the red triangle Hamas death-mark. When a Jewish MP’s office was firebombed, they couldn’t even bring themselves to call it a terror attack. The prime minister has been in hiding from his own electoral office for a year, because no one wanted to move on violent ‘pro-Palestinians’.

There were already plenty of laws in place to deal with these violent thugs – if governments had only had the spine.

So, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take seriously their sudden epiphanies.

In an attempt to “weed out and stamp out the influence of extreme and radical” behaviour at protests, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said more powers would be given to police to make arrests in a suite of law reforms.

Unmasking activists at protests was a key request from Victoria Police, who complained about the difficulty of holding perpetrators to account following the chaotic Land Forces protest.

Ms Allan said the government was sick of protests that caused division and was committed to stamping out anti-Semitism and radicalism.

And radicalism. Did you catch that?

The suspicion that these laws might not be really about protecting Jewish Australians at all, but have another agenda entirely, is only deepened when the media let slip stuff like this:

The government also said it’s looking at banning the use of face masks and balaclavas at protests. The government says that they know that they’re being used their face is to avoid facing any consequences. Particularly right-wing organizations wear balaclavas during public protests.

Particularly right-wing organizations.

Now, forgive me if I’ve missed something, but has it been right-wing organisations marching weekly for ‘Palestine’? Was it right-wing organisations brandishing Israeli flags defaced with swastikas and Hezbollah flags? Was it right-wing organisations chanting ‘Gas the Jews!’ in Sydney? Were Greens politicians happily posing for selfies with right-wing organisations holding placards calling for the genocide of Jews?

Still, surely the laws apply equally to all and won’t include any sneaky exemptions for Labor’s favoured groups?

The government says that exemptions though would apply for legitimate health, religious, or cultural reasons when wearing a mask.

Call me a cynic, but to me that means Covid masks, hijab and keffiyehs. Which are not, last time I looked, the preferred garb of right-wing organisations.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines said face coverings emboldened protesters to threaten and intimidate Victorians.

“If you have the courage of your convictions and if you stand for something, you don’t get to hide behind a mask here in Victoria,” Mr Carbines said.

Unless, of course, you’re a Muslim, a ‘pro-Palestine’ sympathiser or a Covidian. Then you’ll get an exemption.

Once again, knee-jerk laws are guaranteed to be bad laws.

First published on The Good Oil