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Australia is F'd

It seems that Australian politicans have gone mad over censoring and restricting access to the internet.

After much lobbying by the public, it seems that the misinformation and disinformation (MAD) bill will be defeated in a vote but the plans to ban under-16-year-olds from using social media is likely to pass into law very soon.

Using the catch-cry "won't someone think of the children" to justify their draconian diktats, Aussie politicians look set to impose this restriction via legislation but the true motivation behind the move is far more sinister than it at first appears.

The only way to enforce age-restricted access is through the mandating of a digital ID for all Australians -- something the Aussie government has been trying to push onto its people for quite some time now.

Claiming that they're simply trying to protect children from harm, whilst actually looking for an excuse to ram-through wildly unpopular digital ID legislation is an outrageous abuse of process.

You might think that Australians' rights are protected by way of the democratic system under which they live.

You'd be wrong.

Unfortunately, the two major parties in Australia think and act as one. In fact, it has been branded a "uniparty" nation.

Instead of defending Australians against this wildly unpopular piece of legislation, the Australian opposition have decided to simply not turn up to work on the day this matter goes to a vote. The vast majority of Liberal and National senators were simply absent when the matter was up for debate.

How cool is it to have a job where attendance is optional?

How cool is it to have a job where you can simply absent yourself when there's real work to be done and suffer no cut in pay or other censure?

That's the life of an Aussie politician I guess.

The level of outrage within the ranks of Australians is clearly evident in this thread on X and I expect a good many of these gutless politicians will find themselves without a job come next year's federal elections across the ditch.

Proponents of the bill have even admitted that it will be easy for under-16-year-olds to sidestep the law by using VPNs but they're not really concerned -- because this move has nothing to do with protecting the young. It's all about making sure that every Australian must have a digital ID that allows the government to track their online activities. Doubtless this will include building databases of those who may express anti-government sentiments in the online world.

Once Digital ID has been forced on the Aussies you can bet your bottom dollar that the MAD bill will resurface in one form or another. The combination of Digital ID and MAD will allow the government to track down and prosecute anyone who voices an opinion that is anti-government.

Yes, I kid you not, the MAD bill proposes to make it an offence to publish online, any opinion that is critical of the Australian government.

This is utter insanity but hopefully the Australian people will not sleepwalk their way into such a draconian world.

Now I see that the UK is making noises about following Australia's lead and restricting social media access for 16-year-olds. Once again, this is all about tracking and collecting "evidence" against the public that the government is supposedly there to serve.

Remember, in the UK it is now considered a significant crime to post anything on social media that can cause alarm or distress or offense to another. Given how many snowflakes now inhabit the world, that means even the most innocent of opinions can result in real jail-time and people have already been punished for simply mis-gendering others.

It is perhaps only now that I see the importance of the USA's second ammendment and understand why the UK, Australia and New Zealand have increasingly eroded the rights of firearms owners.

When you arm agents of the state and disarm the citizens then you can impose *anything* and there will be no effective push-back by those citizens.

I fear that governments have lost their way and forgotten that they are elected to serve, not to dictate and rule.

Sadly, a tiny part of me thinks that it's time for another world war to remind us of the importance of protecting and treasuring our freedoms and rights.

Have things really become so bad?

Carpe Diem folks!

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