The Liberal Party’s COVID-NAZI lockdown regime in NSW [2020-2022]

It was under New South Wales (NSW) Treasurer Dominic Perrottet‘s reign (Jan-2017 to Oct 2021) that thousands were excessively fined for ridiculous COVID lockdown justifications, like sitting in a park away from others, wearing a face mask.

Under the NSW Liberal Party’s Berejiklian Government’s Public Health Order Lockdown Regime [2020-2022], Treasurer Dominic Perrottet ruled both NSW Treasury and Revenue NSW government departments. Jointly both ruthlessly executed debt-collection of thousands of unpaid COVID fines.

Subsequently, common sense justice prevailed for lockdown citizens, though not by the politicians, but through the courts.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales subsequently overruled that half COVID penalty notices issued by the NSW Police under the the dictat of the Public Health Act 2010 decreed by the Berejiklian Liberal Government of NSW, were in breach of the Fines Act 1996, so therefore invalid.

Half of Berejiklian COVID fines still linger to this day, hanging over the heads of 29,007 targeted NSW citizens.

Precursor: Coronavirus Quarantine Failure

Reported from November 2019, the deadly contagious coronavirus outbreak from a test laboratory in Wuhan, China was despatched overseas.  It quickly mushroomed into a global pandemic.

Australia’s then Morrison Liberal-National coalition government  responded dismally to dispatch quarantine defences to prevent the invasion of the viral pandemic into Australia – Australia luckily being an island nation, so more easy to logistically quarantineable than most nations.

 

Yet on December 16, 2019, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissively abandoned Australians for a private family Hawaiian holiday.  His personal timing was in  the midst of when Australia’s east coast was desperately grappling with widespread uncontrolled multiple wildfire emergencies destroying country, homes and forcing thousands of locals to evacuate in dire uncertainty.

Also fleeing responsibility at the time was NSW Minister Police and Emergency Services Minister David Elliot. A week after Scomo’s skidaddle, Elliot announced he was too jetsetting of at Christmas on an indulgent month’s holiday to Paris with family.  He said “she’ll be right” and delegated the state’s emergencies to his ministerial colleague Anthony Roberts NSW Prisons Minister. (Some delegation)

T’was to be the elitist idiot’s unbecoming ‘bugger you lot’ fateful valedictory speech.

Again arrogance in power becomes a harbinger to defeat by those betrayed – us voters.

It was 2011 when after a decade Barry (Penfold Grange) O’Farrell brought in new Liberal blood to replace the tired corrupted Labor NSW Government as a voter breath of fresh air.  So to the pendulum swings in 2023 after another decade.

Voters aren’t silly – arrogant polly bubbles burst after rorting for too long.

History repeats.  The Berejiklian Government’s wildfire emergency mishandling of late 2019, was followed back-to-back with its mishandling of the pandemic invasion 2020-2022.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian resigned in disgrace 1st October 2021 after being in cahoots with her corrupted boyfriend Daryl Maguire from Wagga.  The NSW Liberals under replaced premier Dominic Perrottet lost office at the subsequent NSW election 25th March 2023.

Read on.

Unquarantined COVID Cruise Ship Arrivals

From New Year 2020, foreign inbound visitors to Sydney were flocking still unheeded via a arriving international airlines and particularly by cruise ship to dock at Circular Quay in the heart of Sydney Harbour.  (Sydney’s contemporary population 5.3+ million).

Greedy multi-national cruising and abusing behemoths like this are floating multi-storey block of flats.  They invade local ports…’wham bam thank you mam‘.

Multinational cruise line operators keenly lure retirees from their pensions for some  promise of ‘a holiday of lifetime’.  Avoid these greedy foreign multinationals like the plague, literally!

Cruise ship holiday package pricing is dodgy.  Hidden extra cruise ship passenger costs pervade in their travel terms.  The brochure conveniently neglects to disclose all the extra on-charge costs like Jetstar Airlines does (as in for baggage, meals credit card fees, etc).

Cruise package ‘deals’ don’t include extras (as in alcohol, soft drinks, bottled water, Internet access, specialty restaurants, staff daily gratuities, room service, access to special areas of the ship shore, and shore excursions).

Putting up with obnoxious passengers and other people’s children is included.

All cruise passengers are forced to share the same central air-conditioning ventilation with everyone else on board piped into their private cabins – infected or otherwise.  So catching COVID or any other airborne disease onboard is indeed included at no extra charge!

Australia’s vital quarantine history ignored

Deadly foreign infectious diseases threatened to wipe out Sydney back in the early 1800s as migrant ships kept arriving.  These wiped out most local Aboriginal peoples.

Historically, Sydney Cove’s settlement back in the early colonial years, almost perished from famine.   Subsequently, immigrant ships continued to arrive, but as increasing migrant ships arrived, many contained passengers/crew with contagious deadly foreign diseases (notably plague, smallpox, cholera, typhus, influenza, Spanish flu, etc.) aboard infected from ports enroute.  Such diseases were rife before vaccines were developed.

So, wisely from 1928, North Head Quarantine Station was established at Port Jackson’s isolate seaboard entrance, well away from Sydney Cove.  It was as a remote convenient arrival site for immigrant ships to stop, moor and be quarantined before heading into the Sydney Cove settlement.  Passengers and crew were off-loaded into quarantine.  North Head was situated in an isolated location safely and well distant and inaccessible to Sydney Cove’s fledgling settlement.

Then for over a hundred years, this ‘Q Station’ served as the gatekeeper between potentially infectious immigrants – as well as some sick residents – and the colony and country beyond.  It protected Australia to a great extent but it was not perfect.

Similarly, the other colonies also had a need to establish isolate quarantine stations in strategic locations for arriving migrant ships enroute to the popular seaboard ports.  Examples include Point Nepean Quarantine Station from 1852 remote from the Port of Melbourne, Lytton Quarantine Station from 1913 situated at the mouth of the Brisbane River, Woodman’s Point Quarantine Station from 1876 situated south of Perth.

Between 1918-1919 around 15,000 Australians died of the Spanish Flu in Australia, and that doesn’t count those serving in the Great War abroad at the time.  Australia’s population then was around $5 million.  Today it is currently just over $26.4 million, so in comparative proportion in today’s numbers, the Spanish Flu would have killed $80,000 Australians in Australia.  Back in 1919, the Spanish Flu pandemic caused an estimated 40 million pandemic-related deaths worldwide during these two years – arguably equivalent to another World War scale holocaust.

As subsequent medical research developed globally, vaccines for these contagions were developed and rolled out.  The quarantine stations were not used for decades.  So in the  infinite wisdom of our politicians all these contingency quarantine stations stategically positioned on the approached to our main seaboard ports were deemed unnecessary and so made redundant and re-purposed.

North Head was disbanded in 1984 and the site made into an outdoor historical museum attraction run by the NSW Government’s National Parks and Wildlife Service for tourists.

 

But it should have been North Head indeed where the imported COVID-19 disease-ridden Ruby Princess cruise ship ought to have been directed to dock in March 2020 instead at Circular Quay in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.

Australia had not learned from the Spanish Flu experience 100 years prior.

Had North Head Quarantine Station still been active and suitably upgraded to handle such vessels and potential outbreak, this is where a thorough quarantine inspection and assessment been first conducted by the Federal government’s bio-security (a fancy new work meaning ‘quarantine’) in order to duly protect Sydney, NSW and the rest of Australia from this known contagion.

The other quarantine stations around Australia were also foolishly made redundant, closed down and re-purposed mostly abandoned heritage centres for tourists.

But politicians in their unqualified, insular and nonchalant social bubble allow history to repeat – “we don’t need quarantine like in the old days.”

Consequently, with the advent of a new global contagion lacking a vaccine, the China coronavirus, from November 2019, Australia, despite being an island, was not strategically positioned ready to quarantine the invasion of the global pandemic as arrivals from overseas to our airports and seaboard ports.

Worse, was that arriving airlines and cruise ships were not quarantined.  This was an abject failure in national defence by the Australian Morrison Government.

So Australian history repeated, but still not learned by those entrusted to protect us.

Fast forward to early 2020, the NSW Berejiklian Government similarly failed dismally to heed inbound quarantine warnings to prevent and control the spread of a new deadly China coronavirus, then with no vaccine.

As in the 19th century, upon the notified ‘clear and present danger’ of this foreign pandemic contagion to Australia from November 2019, the Morrison Government went  missing in action.

The coronavirus was allowed to enter Australia within two months of the Wuhan outbreak.  The first confirmed case involved three Chinamen being dispatched on Air China from Wuhan to Sydney on 19th January 2020 and a fourth to Melbourne same day via Hong Kong.  He got detected too.

Why were incoming arrivals from Wuhan, corononvirus lab central, let into Australia?

Once the pandemic had contaminated Australia, it was left to the unqualified state and territory governments respective health departments to tackle the spread and belated and oxymoronic ‘internal’ quarantine measures.

Too many months hence, well after the contagion had invaded Australia, it was left to internal state and territory governments to devise ways to mitigate the spread and harm of this unquarantined imported virus outbreak.   New quarantine facilities at Christmas Island, Howard Springs (outside Darwin) and Mickleham (near Tullamarine Airport which alone cost taxpayers $580 million just to build, let alone run).

Outsourcing national quarantine defence to private hotels in the centres of capital cities and private security firms proved to be totally failed countermeasure.

In respect to Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, which is controlled and operated by the NSW Government’s Port Authority (formerly Sydney Ports (government) Corporation, just exactly what is the delegated responsibility scope for Customs and Immigration?

At the time of writing:

Compare Australian deaths in the foreign Vietnam War [1962-1975]:  523 deaths

SOURCE: ^https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/event/vietnam

So, 14 times the Australians deaths in the Vietnam War, not including suicides.

Government quarantine ineptitude angered citizens

Then despite both Liberal governments’ abject failures in managing quarantine protection of our citizens, the Berejiklian’s NSW government had the temerity to impose draconian totalitarian socio-economic lockdowns upon all citizens in the state and to penalise NSW citizens with massive unaffordable fines for any lockdown transgression.

Rules for some, eh?

The politicians stuff up protecting citizens from a foreign virus attack, only to then target their own citizens, akin to shifting the blame away from the politicians responsible.

By February 2020, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had formed a war cabinet to make decisions in relation to the pandemic.  This transpired into the Public Health Order Lockdown Regime (rolling ‘lockdowns’ for the best part of the following two years).

Architects of the Public Health Order Lockdown Regime were:

1. Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda by daily press conferences on TV, and Part-time Führer, Frau Gladys
2. Reich Minister for Daily Health Orders, Herr Brad Hazzard, aided and abetted by NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Grant
3. Reich Minister for Police State (COVID Fines Gestapo), Herr David Elliott
4. Reich Minister for Treasury and Revenue NSW Schutzstaffel Herr Dominic Perrottet  (hunting down fine defaulters) aided and abetted by Herr Scott Johnson

 

“Only one person at a time can be Führer. Who it is is not so important. The important thing is that everybody should back up the second and all subsequent leaders. An organisation with such inner solidity and strength will last forever. Nothing can overthrow it. The sense of community within the movement must be inconceivably intense. We must have no fighting among ourselves; no differences must be visible to outsiders.” 

Instructions to Nazi Gauleiters, February 1934.

“Of all those who like to point again and again to the democratic form of government as the institution which is based on the universal will of the people, in contrast to dictatorships, nobody has a better right to speak in the name of the people than I have.” 

Adolf Hitler, January 1937

The above critical mock image of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian (reigned Jan-2017 to Oct-2021) may to most convey an unfair, hateful comparison of her to Adolf Hitler.

Yet, hold back on any ‘holier than thou’ mindset.  Research on this manipulated image was a protest message conceived by a citizen of NSW, whom the time during the pandemic lockdowns (plural) was a young victim of a unprecedented imposed totalitarianism by an Australian democratic government – in this case the NSW Berejiklian Government.

Actually, it was reported that one Vanessa Lichi was the protester who created the above Hitler comparison of Gladys.  Lichi’s age or personal or family ancestral background are not known to this author.  In Australia, democratic values are paramount and free speech is valued above any perceived risk of offending anyone.

Lichi’s angry protest was in response to the NSW Berejiklian Government’s unprecedented lockdowns of ordinary citizens struggling.  Those lockdowns were the decision and result of the same Berejiklian Government’s ineptitude to protect its citizens from the coronavirus pandemic.

The legitimacy of NSW Premier Berejiklian’s crackdown was considered by many NSW citizens to be hypocritical, unjust, over-the-top and akin to a police state mentality – harking back to Hitler’s Nazi Germany, but downunder.

The Nazi’s slaughtered millions of innocents during the Third Reich and World War II.

Consider this comparison:  since China’s bio-virus global experiment from November 2019…

“Globally, as of 3:56pm CEST, 6 September 2023, there have been 770,437,327 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,956,900 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 4 September 2023, a total of 13,500,135,157 vaccine doses have been administered.” 

SOURCE: World Health Organisation (WHO) ^https://covid19.who.int/

Now, Lichi worked for the NSW Department of Communities and Justice at the time (under the Berejiklian Government) during the government’s pandemic lockdowns.

In July 2021, Lichi attended a “Freedom” Rally in the city, in breach of public health orders.  Lichi took up the protest and posted on her personal Facebook page several critical pictures which her managers described as “highly derogatory towards the decisions of the NSW (Berejiklian) government around the actions taken regarding the COVID-19”.

Whatever.

One of the images posted on Lichi’s Facebook page showed then-Premier Berejiklian with a Hitler moustache (image replicated above).  The picture caption contained the words “IF IT FITS WEAR IT”.

Lichi posted another image with the words, “by the end of August the military will be knocking on your door if you haven’t had a jab or they will take your kids off you! Wake the fk up Australia!”

Clearly a passionate vocal activist for her cause.

The NSW Department Communities and Justice subsequently terminated Lichi’s employment.

“I will tolerate no opposition. We recognise only subordination – authority downwards and responsibility upwards.”

Adolf Hitler, May 1931

Lichi, in your honour we’ve touched up the mo’s.

Cruise Ship Quarantine Debacles

NSW Premier Berejiklian and her chosen NSW Health Minister Brad Hazaard oversaw the arrival and disembarkation of hundreds of COVID-19 infected arriving passengers on huge cruise ships docking at Circular Quay under their watch, as follows.

1. Mar 2020: ‘Ruby Princess‘ | capacity 4700  | 900 COVID cases/28 deaths
2. Mar 2020: ‘Ovation of the Seas‘ | capacity 4180 | 131 COVID cases /1 death?
3. Jul 2022: ‘Coral Princess‘ | capacity 2300  |290 COVID cases/deaths?
4. Nov 2022: ‘Majestic Princess‘ | capacity 4600 | 800 COVID cases/deaths?
5. Dec 2022: ‘Quantum of the Seas‘ | capacity 4180 | 400 COVID cases/deaths?
6. Dec 2022: ‘Pacific Adventure‘ | capacity 2636 | 100 COVID cases  /deaths?
7. Dec 2022: ‘Celebrity Eclipse‘ |  capacity 2850  | 100 COVID cases  /deaths?

[SOURCES:  See References at end of this article below]

 

These floating monsters are high-rise blocks of flats on the water that rort and dump crowds on locals.

Those contagious aboard all these repeatedly arriving cruise ships were allowed by the NSW Government health department to disembark under NSW Health Minister Brad (health) Hazzard’s ultimate responsibility at the time and acted as ‘superspreaders’ of the coronavirus amongst the local Sydney population and Australia beyond.

So, Lichi had a citizen’s right to protest against government mishandling of this pandemic emergency, as did tens of thousands of other protesters.

Heavy-handed COVID-Nazi Gestapo

It was under NSW then Treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s reign (Jan-2017 to Oct 2021) and during Health Minister Brad Hazaard’s pandemic health orders through 2020 and 2021.

NSW Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott (reigned Apr-2019 to Dec- 2021) and his Police Commissioner was Mick Fuller.

Together, Elliott and Fuller became heavy-handed COVID Nazis hell-bent on dispatching fine-issuing storm-troopers throughout the rolling Public Health Order Lockdowns.

“We do not recognise any tradition of civil rights.”   

Dr Hans Frank, January 1936.

 

 

To Fuller’s COVID-NAZI Gestapo, lockdown protesters became the equivalent of targeted Jews of Hitler’s Nazi Germany – hated, despised, brutalised.

“Brutality is respected.  Brutality and physical strength. The plain man in the street respects nothing but brutal strength and ruthlessness. Women too, for that matter, women and children. The people need wholesome fear. They want to fear something. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.”

Adolf Hitler, 1933

During the Public Health Order Regime (March 2020 to September 2022) NSW Police issued some 62,141 COVID-19 penalty notices.  Some 49,696 (80 per cent) of which were issued in July, August and September 2021, following the ramping up of the public health order lockdowns due to ‘super-spreader’ outbreak events.

Fuller ran his force like a Nazi brownshirt round-up brigade, harking back to 1930s Germany.

 

Bugger the warnings to anyone found outside their home with a poor excuse, like “exercise”.  Fuller’s COVID Nazis issued anyone they found with fines of $1000 if not wearing an approved mask, $3000 for being beyond 5km of their home, and $5000 for lying to contact tracers, protesting, or being difficult.

The COVID fine crackdown was as if NSW Police were diverted from their normal policing responsibilities to concentration on issuing a daily quota of penalty notices, as if on a commission basis.  Perhaps Herr Fuller received a performance bonus out of this crackdown.

According to data obtained by Redfern Legal Centre, 2,844 COVID fines totalling just over $2.1 million dollars were issued by NSW Police to children aged 10-17 years between July 2020 and December 2021.   More than half the children received a fine of $1,000. Seventeen children were fined $5,000 and 39 were fined $3,000.

Redfern Legal Centre’s police accountability solicitor Samantha Lee said she had seen examples of children with intellectual disabilities receiving fines.

The most common breach resulting in a fine was failing to comply with a direction under the public health act, which Lee said was a catch-all offence used to fine people who had, for example, sat on a park bench but not breached a gathering rule, sat alone in their car, gone to the shop with another member of their household, or walked on the street without a valid reason.   More than 1,500 fines were issued for that offence, accounting for $1.59m of the fines.

Other breaches included not wearing a mask, not complying with curfews, not carrying identification outside greater Sydney, and not complying with restrictions on outdoor gatherings.

 

The lockdown rules ramped up in 2021 under  Herr Fuller’s blitzkrieg ‘Operation Stay at Home‘ as the NSW Berejiklian Government continually failed to take any direct ownership for proper quarantine.

Fuller targeted those he didn’t like – marginal communities like Blacktown, Mount Druitt and Liverpool and the remote NSW towns of Brewarrina, Bourke and Walgett where a high proportion of Aborigines live.

Berejiklian Outsourcing COVID Quarantine to Hotels was a Predictable Failure

Rather than the Berejiklian Government partnering with Federal Biosecurity to belatedly impose internal quarantine after the horse had bolted, the Berejiklian War Cabinet rolled out a Coronavirus Quarantine Programme, which lazily outsourced pandemic quarantine to private hoteliers (being devoid of tourists) and to private security firms.

Both tactics proved to be naïve monumental failures in containing the contagion’s spread and in protecting the populace.

Soon afterwards NSW Police reported numerous delegated quarantine hotels in the Sydney CBD in breach of quarantine standards.  In one reported case in August 2020, had 366 returned travellers from abroad housing in the Travelodge Hotel in Wentworth Avenue Sydney CBD in supposed ‘COVID-19 quarantine’ ordered by NSW Police to immediately relocate en masse after numerous complaints and health audits of dirty rooms.

The move came after guests complained they’d found hair, toenails and dirt in their rooms.

Lauren Farmer, an Australian who returned from the United Kingdom this week to apply for her UK spouse visa, said her room was dirty, with clumps of hair on the couches, white powder on the carpet, and tables and handles sticky.

“The bathroom and shower floor were so covered in grime and dirt that I didn’t even feel comfortable using the toilet or having a shower, I just didn’t even want to be in that space,” she said.

Two private security guards (instead of NSW Police) contacted by the Berejiklian  Government to work in hotel quarantine at the Sydney Harbour Marriott hotel tested positive for Covid-19. One of the security guards was fined twice by NSW police for failing to isolate after his test.

The government’s ‘hotel quarantine’ was an episode of pure Faulty Towers.

And the Berejiklian Government was milking hotel quarantine fees from Australian citizens returning from overseas, imposing a rate of $3,000 per adult, plus $1,000 for any additional adults, and $500 per child over three years of age.

So like:   “Welcome back to Australia.  Here’s the bill, but you have to contend with filthy 1 star rated slum accommodation for a minimum of two weeks. Enjoy!”

The NSW Berejiklian Government’s pandemic response was not one of prevention and containment.  Rather the reactive response was one of punishment and revenue generation to make up for lost tax revenue in main to business downturn and its COVID tax relief measures to businesses.

In just under on month to mid September 2021, Fuller’s COVID Nazis had issues nearly 22,000 fines for breaches of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.  Since the start of the pandemic declaration in March 2020, the citizens of NSW had been extorted of $3.5 million in COVID-19 fines, with a further $25 million outstanding but not yet due and $3.4 million overdue.

Some times Herr Fuller would talk of “strong action” while other times issuing fines would be “done with cautions” and that his police would use the “power of discretion reasonably”.

The report shows how aggressive policing brought about a shift in the rhetoric used by political leaders, as a ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘ask questions later’ approach was adopted.

A relevant modified quote of history:

“…we shall fine them on the beaches, we shall fine them on the streets, we shall fine them in the hills, we shall fine any sole on remote country or back roads, in the fields and in the streets, we shall fine in the hills; we shall go on to our daily fine quota..we shall never surrender any fine.” 

 FULLERS’ COVID-NAZIs 

Well, many folk rightly complained and protested about all this ‘over-the-top’ COVID Nazi policing dictatorial crackdown.   And especially by those who had copped one of Fuller’s massive fines, like charged with just sitting isolated in a park, going to the beach wearing a mask, smoking or vaping while wearing a mask, walking the dog, collecting mail from the letter box.

The Redfern Legal Centre in impoverished and marginalised inner Sydney stated:

 

“We spoke with many members of the community experiencing disadvantage who were distressed by the fines issued to them. The very real impact of these fines on members of our community was huge.  Some of our clients were as young as 12 years old when NSW Police officers issued fines to them. Parents called us, in tears, unable to pay the fines issued to their young children. People experiencing homelessness, with significant mental health conditions, or returning home from their shift as health workers were fined by NSW Police. Many of these people were not actually in breach of the directions.”

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller’s COVID crackdown ‘Operation Stay at Home‘ marked a dramatic ramp-up in the police blitzkrieg, with the NSW COVID Police taskforce issuing more than double the number of fines in three and a half weeks as the entire 17 months of the pandemic before that.

Christmas bonus!

Herr Fuller said when announcing the operation it would take seven to 14 days to see the results, and he wouldn’t act against police officers for wrongly issuing fines.

Of course not.  Yet COVID-19 daily case numbers continued to rise during the pandemic.  All the while the transmission rate steadily slowed, which epidemiologists suggested was mainly because of increased vaccination roll-outs.

Government mantra:  punishment before quarantine.  Community law advocates voiced that many COVID fines were wrongly issued and should be revoked.

It also became increasingly evident that the new vaccination roll-out rate was what was really controlling the pandemic spread throughout the local population, not the Police Nazi COVID fine rate.

Chair of epidemiology at Deakin University and leading researcher and teacher in public health, Professor Bennett said lockdown restrictions rely heavily on voluntary compliance and that could be undermined by “rules on top of rules”, such as a curfew that made it illegal to leave the house to attend an already-illegal nocturnal gathering.

Bennett added:

“Some people are going to get the message and some people aren’t, some people are living in fear already and it just stops them going out at all and that’s unhealthy and unnecessary to be that fearful, particularly between outbreaks. For other people … it makes them feel oppressed and less likely to comply with any part of lockdown.”

Professor Peter Collignon at Australian National University said restrictions and the policing of them “ought to be proportionate to their public health risks from different activities”.

When asked whether the fines had public health value, he said: “If the fines were for sitting on a park bench, then I would think no, but if the fines were because you were with 10 other people inside having a party, then yes.”

NSW Police declined to provide a breakdown of what the fines were for, directing the media in this question (The Sun-Herald) to file a freedom of information request.

Clearly NSW Police had something to hide.

By mid-2021, Fuller’s COVID Nazis had issues many thousands of COVID fines for  so-called breaches of Gladys’s public health order, but most weren’t paying.  And why should they?  The government had breached public quarantine by letting the foreign virus in and go rampant amongst the Australian community in the first place!

The public health orders were silly and confusing and each police officer has his and her different interpretation of what the orders in fact were.  There were so many rules.  The orders were changing like the wind on a monthly basis.   They became a game as police turned them into an on-the-spot fine.

As new strains of coronavirus were dispatched out of Wuhan, like ‘Delta’ and ‘Omicron’, additional public health orders got rolled out; just like playing ‘spin the raffle wheel’.

Some areas of NSW had stricter curfews imposed according to the latest ‘super spreader’ event.   Like the virus didn’t cross council boundaries?

Since this lockdown started at least 39 sets of changes to health orders and there were currently 39 pages of public health orders.  No sooner is the ink drying on one set of health orders and another set is being announced.  Who was going to serious read all that every day?

The NSW Chief Health Officer making up all these ridiculous laws was COVID witchdoctor Kerry Chant.  She was chanting alright like a Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry for Propaganda.

Chant was making, amending and remaking orders under the Public Health Act 2010 on a daily basis.  Her rules were in a constant state of flux with more than 120 principal orders and amendments made in a period of six months, and one Health Order was amended 13 times in two weeks.

“Only an authoritarian government, firmly tied to a people, can [lead the people] over the long term. Political propaganda, the art of anchoring matters of state in the broad masses so the whole nation will feel a part of them, cannot therefore be a means of winning power. It must become a means of building and keeping power.”

Joseph Goebbels, Nuremberg, 1934.

And Fuller’s COVID-NAZIs were keen as mustard to execute the orders willy nilly.

Like how’s these examples:

“James was taking a break on a bench after a solo run in Zetland, Sydney, on a chilly August afternoon, when he was approached by three police officers.

It was during lockdown, when daily exercise was limited to only two people. So when one officer asked to see his ID, James was confident he hadn’t broken any rules.

But after he asked why he was being stopped, an officer told him he was being handed a $1,000 on-the-spot fine.

“They wouldn’t tell me the reason … they just said I was breaching the public health orders,” James, a frontline health worker who has asked to remain anonymous, said.”

SOURCE:  ‘Ridiculous’: NSW police accused of handing out unfair Covid fines and targeting young people, 7th October 2021, by Redfern Legal Centre, ^https://rlc.org.au/news-and-media/rlc-media/rlc-media-ridiculous-nsw-police-accused-handing-out-unfair-covid-fines-and-targeting-young-people

 

Samantha Lee, police accountability solicitor Redfern Legal Centre, said she knew of several cases where the police were fining people for sitting in a park, away from others, and not in an area of concern. “We are calling on the NSW Government to revoke all COVID-19 fines that have been issued incorrectly by NSW Police to those undertaking lawful recreation,” Ms Lee said.

 

Perrottet’s Revenue NSW Schutzstaffel claimed that when a penalty notice is issued, the customer has 28 days to pay the full amount or take another form of action, including setting up a payment plan.

 

Revenue NSW Nazi Dictat:

“If you don’t pay your fine by the due date, we’ll send you a reminder notice giving you a further 28 days to manage your fine.

If you don’t manage the fine by the due date on the reminder notice, we’ll begin recovery action by issuing an overdue fine.

The overdue fine will have an extra $65 fee applied or $25 for a minor (under 18), and if it remains unpaid by the due date, we can take further, more serious recovery action.

 

Recovery action
This can include:

• Suspending your driver licence, marine safety licence and/or cancelling your vehicle or vessel registration.
• Ordering the Sheriff to take your goods or property and sell them to pay the amount you owe.
• Taking money from your bank account or wages.
• Taking you to court so we can examine your financial situation.
• Registering an interest in any land or property you may own.
• Removing your permission to drive in NSW on an interstate or international licence.

 

If any of these recovery actions are taken, you may be charged an additional cost of up to $65 every time we take an action.”

SOURCE:  Revenue NSW Schutzstaffel website, ^https://www.nsw.gov.au/money-and-taxes/fines-and-fees/fines/difficulty-paying-your-fine/what-happens-if-you-dont-pay-your-fine#toc-recovery-action

 

NSW Police officers heavy-handed approach used ‘unreasonable and oppressive’ tactics.

Before heading up operation COVID-NAZI, Herr Fuller had a reputation for ordering strip-searches on young people, presuming all young people carried concealed knives on the  streets.

Once COVID lockdowns started in early 2020, Fuller’s police powers expanded enforcing an unprecedented crackdown on civil liberties.  At the same time Fuller’s performance bonuses soared.

NSW Police became and extension of the NSW Government, enforcing witchdoctor Kerry Chant daily health orders with gusto.

 

“Each activity and each need of the individual will be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no licence, no free space in which the individual belongs to himself. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme.”

Adolf Hitler, 1933

The pandemic lockdowns across NSW ended up extending from March 2020 to 30 September 2022, when vaccines had made a serious inroad in ultimately curbing the spread of the contagion.

Fuller’s COVID Nazis executed a total of 62,128 COVID-related fines and infringements were issued in NSW during the pandemic.  These amounted to a windfall of $56 million in fines during the pandemic.

But many citizens didn’t pay and many couldn’t afford to pay.

Complaints against NSW Police over ‘excessive’ COVID fines

 

By mid-2022, Fuller had resigned (April 2022) and thousands of citizens were complaining about the state treasury Revenue NSW Schutzstaffel debt collecting 62,128 unpaid COVID- fines.

Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), both situated in Sydney, lodged a complaint against former NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller and NSW Police.

They called for the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) to investigate potential misconduct arising from Mr Fuller’s directives given in an internal video prepared for NSW Police Force officers, published by the Sydney Morning Herald online.

Fuller directives included:

• that officers “start to issue tickets over using discretion”;
• that officers take a “strong approach to enforcement”;
• suggesting officers would not be held to account if they issued fines incorrectly; and
• issuing a “challenge” to officers to “go high-level enforcement”.

RLC Chief Executive Officer Camilla Pandolfini said the large numbers of fines issued suggest that NSW Police officers abandoned their appropriate lawful discretionary decision making and instead defaulted to issuing fines.   PIAC Chief Executive Officer Jonathon Hunyor said Mr Fuller’s approach was potentially unlawful and may amount to maladministration.

“NSW Police opted for a punitive approach at a time when communities were struggling with changing public health orders and the impacts of a global pandemic,” Mr Hunyor said.

“We are asking the LECC to closely scrutinise what look like unreasonable and oppressive tactics employed by police and their heavy impact on people already facing disadvantage.”

The legal centres argue NSW Police’s actions had a particularly negative impact on groups experiencing disadvantage, such as people experiencing homelessness, people with mental illness or other disability, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The LECC has been asked to consider whether police acted unjustly and unreasonably in issuing fines without adequately considering whether people had committed an offence or had a reasonable excuse for their actions.

“Police told many of our clients they were no longer giving warnings and issued them with fines of $1000, $3000 or $5000.”

Key findings by PIAC and RLC

• Between March 2020 and December 2021, NSW Police overwhelmingly preferred enforcement by issuing penalty notices (86 per cent), as opposed to cautions, warnings or court attendance notices.
• While the discretion of police officers to consider diversionary options and mitigating factors was curtailed by the directives, officer discretion to choose who to target, and which geographic areas to police, was not. The data suggests that this discretion was used in a discriminatory way.
• Between 1 July 2020 and 10 October 2021, the towns where the most COVID fines were issued (adjusted for population size) were Walgett, Brewarrina, Wilcannia, Coonamble, Bourke, Goodooga, Warren, Collarenebri, Moree and Mt Druitt. These are areas with significant Aboriginal populations and high levels of disadvantage. The Centre for Crime Law and Justice has concluded that the data shows “the overrepresentation of socio-economically disadvantaged suburbs and towns”.

Court Orders Revenue NSW COVID Fines Invalid

 

In August 2021, in the midst of the pandemic lockdowns, a NSW citizen Rohan Pank (30) was fined by one Fuller’s COVID NAZI stormtroopers for just sitting in sitting on a hill at Sydney Park by himself 1km from his home while taking a short break from exercising.

Not long after the fine, the government classified what he’d been doing – sitting for relaxation – as an acceptable form of outdoor recreation. Pank challenged the fine twice and received wildly different reasons as to why he had committed an offence.

Pank then took his case against Revenue NSW Schutzstaffel to the Supreme Court of New South Wales during 2022.  The case initially involved three wrongly fined residents, including Pank.

Almost immediately after filing a court challenge, Pank’s fine was suspiciously withdrawn by NSW Police trying to avoid court costs.  The matters were set to come before the Supreme Court of NSW on 29 December 2022 but, on the morning of the hearing, Revenue NSW withdrew the penalty notice issued to Mr Pank after conceding “it was unlawful due to the insufficiency of the particularisation” (legal jargon for “too vague”).

It backfired.  The Supreme Court Justice Dina Yehia SC ruled that NSW Police penalty notices were too vague.  For instance, these two examples on a penalty notice:

• “Fail to comply with noticed direction in relation section 7/8/9 — COVID-19″ – Individual.”
• “Fail to comply with noticed direction in relation section 7/8/9 — COVID-19″ – Company.”
• ‘Unlawfully participate in outdoor public gathering – area of concern’ – Individual
• Fail to comply with requirement of public health – COVID-19′ – Individual.

 

Also, similar cases were simultaneously brought to the Supreme Court by Redfern Legal Centre on behalf of similar COVID NAZI victims Brendan Beame and Teal Els, who received fines for between $1,000 and $3,000.

Their lawyers argued the fine delivered to Ms Els in the mail had no details about breaching public health orders.

Katherine Richardson SC, said more than 160 people had received an identical $3,000 fine as Ms Els, and more than 500 had fines with similar wording.  Ms Richardson said Ms Els had no idea what she was being fined for when she was approached by police while sitting in a park after exercising with her sister.

Ms Richardson told the court:

“How can she tell, for example, having no idea what offence she said to have committed with a penalty amount of $3,000, which is obviously a very significant amount of money to be imposed by notice procedure.  Our submission states they are entitled to a refund. They have been charged money invalidly and we are pressing for a full range of relief to be sought.”

The Court agreed and ruled that the penalty notices did not meet the requirements of section 20 under the Fines Act, and so 33,121 COVID fines (valued at around $30 million) issued were invalid and ordered the NSW Government’s debt collector Revenue NSW to cancel all these.

Revenue NSW said that was about half the total number of fines issued by police for breaches of health orders during pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021.

The fines cancelled are only half of the 62,128 COVID-related infringements issued.  Revenue NSW says that all sanctions on unpaid fines will now stop.

But it had taken a supreme court challenge to force the government to cancel other wrongly issued fines.

Chief executive of the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT, Karly Warner, said at the time in a statement that it should not have been left to cash-strapped community legal services like the Redfern Legal Centre to ensure the enforcement system was lawful:

“The (NSW) government has dragged people through the courts only to concede that some fines may never have been valid in the first place.

 

How many more people does it plan to put through this ordeal before accepting that all Covid fines must be cancelled?
The remaining 29,017 Covid-19 fines will still be required to be paid if not already resolved. They are not affected by this decision.

The government has dragged people through the courts only to concede that some fines may never have been valid in the first place.  How many more people does it plan to put through this ordeal before accepting that all COVID fines must be cancelled?”.

 

The Law Society of NSW said these outstanding 29,007 fines are being shouldered by vulnerable communities and should be reviewed.

Herr Scott Johnston was appointed as Chief Commissioner of State Revenue and Commissioner of Fines Administration Deputy Secretary by Treasurer Perrottet at the start of the pandemic lockdowns in April 2020.  He job was to go after COVID fine defaulters on a commission basis, as issued by Herr Fuller’s COVID-NAZIs.

Scott says “Oh, ok I will withdraw the 33,121 COVID fines,”  But he reckons Revenue NSW remaining 29,007 COVID fines still needed to be paid apparently because they have different wording, and because he said so.

Revenue NSW has opened a hotline for defaulters.  Phone 1300 138 118 and ask for Schutzstaffel Scott.

“The whole world has been built up in accordance with the principle that might makes right.”

 

Adolf Hitler, January 1942

 

With so many fines out there unpaid, perhaps Maurice Blackburn should lead a class action against Scott.  That would keep the Supreme Court busy.  The NSW Government may need to accede to the pressure or face a tsunami of lawsuits by those unlawfully issued with Covid fines – whether or not those fine have been paid.

On Thursday, 6 April 2023, Supreme Court Justice Dina Yehia SC delivered just that in the decision of Beame; Els v Commissioner of Police & Ors [2023] NSWSC 347.

In the judgment, her Honour note that section 20 of the Fines Act provides as follows:

“A penalty notice is a notice issued under a statutory provision to the effect that—

(a) the person to whom the notice is issued has committed the penalty notice offence specified in the notice, and

(b) if the person does not wish to have the matter determined by a court, the person may pay, within the time and to the person specified in the notice, the amount for the offence specified in the notice.”

Penalty notice must be clear and unambiguous.  This means that for a penalty notice to be valid, it must specify a particular offence. Her Honour found that the notices before the court did not meet this requirement to the standard required by the legislation.

“84. In respect of s 20 of the Fines Act, the statutory context and purpose favours an interpretation whereby the penalty notice offence must be clearly and unambiguously specified in the notice itself. Providing information that gives the recipient a clue or an indication from which they might be able to deduce or infer (using material outside the notice) the penalty notice offence is not sufficient”, her Honour found, adding later in the judgement:

 

“102. … The use of the word “specified” in s 20 of the Fines Act imports a level of clarity and unambiguity that may not be achieved by a short description identifying the substance of the offence. Indeed, this is precisely what happened in the present cases. A short description was included on each of the subject notices, a description which, in each case, is conceded to fall short of complying with Section 20 of the Fines Act.”

So the decision sets a precedent for not paying the remaining 29,017 COVID fines.

Don’t pay the fines!  Sack Scott – he’s the only COVID-NAZI still holding on to the expansionist superiority perpetrated by the NSW Liberal Party’s Lockdown Reich.

 

References:

[1]  ‘Matter of life and death’: NSW Police can enforce isolation bans‘, 15th March 2020, by Alexandra Smith, Sydney Morning Herald, ^https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/matter-of-life-and-death-nsw-police-can-enforce-isolation-bans-20200315-p54a9p.html

[2]    ‘Sydney quarantine hotel guests moved en masse after complaints of dirty rooms‘, 25th August 2020, by Josh Taylor, The Guardian newspaper, ^https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/25/sydney-quarantine-hotel-guests-moved-en-masse-after-complaints-of-dirty-rooms

[3]  ‘Ridiculous’: NSW police accused of handing out unfair Covid fines and targeting young people‘, October 2021, ^https://rlc.org.au/news-and-media/rlc-media/rlc-media-ridiculous-nsw-police-accused-handing-out-unfair-covid-fines-and-targeting-young-people

[4]  ‘Scott Morrison’s ill-fated holiday in Hawaii burns him again‘, 22nd November 2021, by Tony Wright, Sydney Morning Herald,  ^https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-s-ill-fated-holiday-in-hawaii-burns-him-again-20211122-p59b5h.html

[5]  ‘NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliott heads off on European holiday as bushfire crisis continues‘, 27th December 2019, ABC, ^https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-27/nsw-emergency-services-david-elliott-holidays-amid-bushfires/11828744

[6]  ‘Almost 3,000 children in NSW hit with fines of up to $5,000 for minor Covid rule breaches‘, 16 December 2021, by Redfern Legal Centre, ^https://rlc.org.au/news-and-media/rlc-media/almost-3000-children-nsw-hit-fines-5000-minor-covid-rule-breaches

[7]  ‘Police blitz nets 22,000 fines in 3 1/2 weeks. But did it help?‘, 21st September 2021, by Caitlin Fitzsimmons, Sydney Morning Herald, ^https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/police-blitz-nets-22-000-fines-in-3-1-2-weeks-but-did-it-help-20210909-p58qcg.html

[8]  ‘June 2022:  Complaint lodged against NSW Police over ‘excessive’ COVID fines‘, 5 June 2023, by Redfern Legal Centre, ^https://rlc.org.au/news-and-media/media-releases/complaint-lodged-against-nsw-police-over-excessive-covid-fines

[9]  ‘Revenue NSW cancels more than 33,000 COVID-19 fines after Supreme Court hearing‘, 29 Nov 2022, by Maryanne Taouk, ^https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-29/revenue-nsw-cancels-33-121-covid-19-fines/101710632

[10]  Revenue NSW, (NSW Government), debt collection webpage, ^https://www.nsw.gov.au/money-and-taxes/fines-and-fees/fines/difficulty-paying-your-fine/what-happens-if-you-dont-pay-your-fine#toc-recovery-action

[11]  ‘Complaint lodged against NSW Police over ‘excessive’ COVID fines‘, 5th June 2023, Redfern Legal Centre, Sydney, ^https://rlc.org.au/news-and-media/media-releases/complaint-lodged-against-nsw-police-over-excessive-covid-fines

[12]  ‘Supreme Court of NSW Declares COVID-19 Fines to Be Invalid‘, 8th April 2023, by  BY UGUR NEDIM, ^https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/supreme-court-of-nsw-declares-covid-19-fines-to-be-invalid/

[13]  ‘New South Wales government cancels more than half its COVID-19 fines — this is what it means for you‘, 30th November 2022, by Nakari Thorpe, ABC, ^https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-30/nsw-covid-fines-cancellation-explainer/101712408

[14]  NSW government under pressure to scrap further 29,000 Covid fines after court ruling‘, 30 Nov 2022 , by Christopher Knaus, The Guardian Australia,
^https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/29/nsw-government-under-pressure-to-scrap-further-29000-covid-fines-after-court-ruling#:~:text=The%20NSW%20government%20was%20forced,conceding%20they%20were%20too%20vague.

[15]   ‘Policing the pandemic didn’t work: report shows where COVID fines went wrong‘ – a report led by UNSW researchers has highlighted the negative effect of COVID-19 fines, 14th March 2023, by Rory Cross, University of New South Wales, ^https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2023/03/policing-the-pandemic-didn-t-work–report-shows-where-covid-fine