Why talk about Covid. It is clear that no proper investigation will ever be held into the unnecessary but deliberate removal of our freedoms, right to choice, right to free speech, and economy-wrecking lock downs borrowed from Communist China. There will be no investigation by the people responsible for the atrocious behaviour - because they are still in charge: the politicians and their advisors, the bureaucrats: many of whom would have to put themselves behind bars for what they did if they allowed the truth to be discussed publicly.

And, they are still there because they've got voters too frightened to take a chance, and replace them.

The protests were ignored at the time, and telling war stories in 2025 won't change that. If something like Covid happened again, everything would be the same as it was then; particularly now that Albanese has sold out Australia to the WHO.

There are no Spartans in Australia.

Three hundred stand in defiance… of basic public health measures, with utter disregard for anyone but themselves.

This article reads less like history and more like COVID-era, anti-science fan fiction. Melbourne protesters are Spartans and Daniel Andrews was Xerxes - because apparently resisting lockdowns is now the moral equivalent of holding the pass at Thermopylae.

Get real.

Spartans faced spears, arrows, and certain death. Melbourne protesters faced fines, restrictions, and the discomfort of not going to Bunnings.

Nobody was enslaved. Nobody was dragged off for dissent.

And let's not pretend the protesters "saved the city," it was vaccines, contact tracing, and the cooperation of millions who made sacrifices without shouting about it on Facebook Live.

Yes, the arrest of Zoe Buhler was jarring, and overreach in hindsight, but turning her into some Rosa Parks of the anti-lockdown movement is revisionism at best. It was one of many missteps during a complex and evolving emergency, not proof of tyranny.

Viljoen leans hard on symbolism - Shrine of Remembrance, ancient Greece, Topher Field speeches - but the actual outcomes? The lockdown continued. The roadmap was delivered. Life moved on. And most Melburnians, while exhausted, understood the stakes.

You don’t need to mythologise a fringe protest to have a legitimate conversation about government overreach or the psychological toll of lockdowns.

I’ve got time for honest critiques of lockdown policy. But this kind of hero cosplay just cheapens the real suffering of that period - on all sides. There were no warriors here. Just citizens - some scared, some angry, most doing their best in an unprecedented mess.

History deserves a lot better than this.

Yep, sick reading, this is more of that Sovereign Citizens nonsense. At the moment an anti-vaxxer/Sovereign Citizen is hiding out in Victoria, accused of shooting dead two coppers dead, and wounding another. Another one of their folk hero's, Thomas Sewell has been remanded in custody on serious assault charges. ttbn are you a Sovereign Citizen?

The lockdowns saga was a revelation as to the timidity of the average Australian. Hit them with a little fear and they are prepared to surrender all their liberties in a trice. ...

"those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Franklin (Ben not Buddy).

At the time I found it shocking just how compliant the Australian people were when confronted with what turned out to be false fears.

It was heartening to see some people stand against the authoritarians of the left, but the way the majority of the polity succumb was revealing as to how fragile democratic freedoms truly are, in the face of government disinformation.

Its not the slightest bit surprising to see Chairman Dan hob-knobbing it with fellow authoritarians in Peking this week.

As to the history of the 300...

The author writes..."I recommend Zack Snyder's 2006 epic film 300."

Nup. That's the last place to go to see the truth of Thermopylae. I once managed to sit through the entirety of this piece of fiction, noting every historical error I found. I ended up with 5 closely written pages of errors.

If you want a proper historic understanding then read Peter Green's "The Greco-Persian Wars" or better yet Herodotus's History.

The author wrote..."buying precious time for the Greek city-states to prepare-culminating in the Hellenic victory at Plataea the following year."

The real victory was at Salamis in the same year. Plataea was the coup de grâce.

BTW, although we always talk of the 300, there were also 700 Thespians ( and a smaller number of Thebans) who fought an died alongside the Spartans.

mhaze,

Franklin’s quote is brought up every time someone’s asked to wear a mask or queue for toilet paper. But quoting 18th-century revolutionaries during a 21st-century pandemic is just posturing.

Franklin wasn’t talking about airborne viruses. He was talking about the right to govern oneself under an unelected monarchy, not the right to wander around Bunnings mid-outbreak.

You frame compliance as cowardice. I see it as cooperation. Millions of Australians didn’t panic. They didn’t hoard ivermectin or start Facebook livestreams about tyranny. They stayed home, wore masks, looked out for their neighbours, and got us through a once-in-a-century crisis.

As for “false fears,” 20,000 Australians did die from COVID, even with restrictions. Globally, the number's over 7 million. We weren’t scared of shadows - we were responding to real risk.

And no one “surrendered all liberties.” We voted. We criticised. We held inquiries. We had protests. Some of them made global headlines. Others, like the 5 September protest, were so poorly attended they had to be mythologised into a Thermopylae cosplay to seem important.

As for the history lesson, you’re not wrong about Salamis or the Thespians. But it’s telling that you engage more seriously with the film critique than with the actual comparison being made.

The author of the piece turned a lockdown protest into the birth of Western freedom. That deserved mockery, not footnotes.

Trumpster,

The words of the slave owning Benjamin Franklin; ""those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Seems old Ben didn't apply that to black people.

Are you also one of the nut jobs called a Sovereign Citizen.

"At the time I (sovereign citizen mhaze) found it shocking just how compliant the Australian people were when confronted with what turned out to be false fears." Yep, there was no Covid, in fact the "vaccine" was a mind controlling drug, put out there by The Illuminati. How are Thomas Sewell and Dezi Freeman doing, they both claim to be Sovereign Citizens.

In fact, over 28000 died of Covid (or with Covid) in Australia. More in Victoria than any other state despite, or more likely because of, it being the most locked down jurisdiction in the country, if not the world.

Of the 28000, 96% were elderly and those younger had comorbidities. Healthy adults under 60 were effectively immune. Yet they were the ones locked down and stopped from doing their jobs. Although, as you'd expect, public servants were protected from that and allowed to avoid the lockdowns.

Masks? now shown to be ineffective at best, dangerous at worst.

Stay at home? Being indoors has been shown to be significantly more dangerous than being outdoors.

Still its good to see the usual government sycophants haven't learned anything and will bow to new authoritarian instructions in the future.

"Yep, there was no Covid, in fact the "vaccine" was a mind controlling drug, put out there by The Illuminati."

I don't think any of that is true Paul. But you'd know more about that than me

Trumpster,

"Yep, there was no Covid, in fact the "vaccine" was a mind controlling drug, put out there by The Illuminati." That was ear bashed to me only a few months back by a nut job who said he was also a Sovereign Citizen, gave me his business card to boot, do you have a business card? That was before the likes of Thomas Sewell and Dezi Freeman were claiming the same thing. Trumpster, a simple question, do you also profess to being a Sovereign Citizen, your post seems to indicate that way. What you say?

Bad luck that Old Ben was also a slave owner. BTW your man The Donald has renamed the Pentagon The WAR Department, rather apt wouldn't you say, considering America starts most of the worlds wars.

mhaze,

28,000 Australians died, and you’re still trying to spin it as proof the response was worse than the virus.

Yes, most who died were elderly or had comorbidities. That’s how most viruses kill. But "only the vulnerable" is a chilling standard for deciding who gets protected. You don’t not build flood levees because "only people on low ground will drown."

And the idea that "healthy adults were immune" is flat-out wrong. Many did die. Many more were hospitalised. And tens of thousands now live with long COVID - chronic fatigue, brain fog, organ damage. Not everyone’s fine just because they didn’t end up in a morgue.

As for lockdowns "causing" deaths in Victoria: no serious analysis backs that up. Victoria had higher deaths despite lockdowns, not because of them. Delta hit harder here. Aged-care outbreaks spiralled before vaccines were widely available. Cherry-picking the death toll to attack public health measures is intellectually lazy, and morally grotesque.

//Masks were ineffective.//

False.

Randomised studies, including the Bangladesh and Danish trials, showed reduced transmission - especially when mask use is widespread. N95s are even more effective. "Dangerous" masks? Only if you get health advice from Facebook memes.

//Indoors is more dangerous than outdoors.//

True, and lockdowns didn’t tell people to crowd together indoors. They told people to stay apart. You know, to stop a virus that spreads through the air.

What’s revealing is how easily you downplay every protective measure - and how quickly you pivot to culture-war framing. "Sycophants." "Authoritarian instructions." "Public servants got off easy." It's not argument, it's just slogan soup.

This wasn’t perfect policy. It was triage. On the fly. In a crisis. And Australians overwhelmingly complied - not out of fear, but out of decency.

That’s the part you can’t seem to forgive.

This wasn’t perfect policy. It was triage. On the fly. In a crisis. And Australians overwhelmingly complied - not out of fear, but out of decency.
John Daysh,
I agree with that evaluation !

"You don’t not build flood levees because "only people on low ground will drown."

Actually you do.

"But "only the vulnerable" is a chilling standard for deciding who gets protected."

Good old JD...at it again. I didn't say "only the vulnerable" despite the now well-used fake quotes. If you look back through my posts over the years, and most of what the research now shows, the vulnerable needed to be protected. but not by locking up those not vulnerable. Let the rest get out into the community and develop a natural herd immunity, which would in turn protect those most at risk.

Victoria was the most locked down jurisdiction in Australia. It also had the highest death rate. You do the sums.

"//Masks were ineffective.// False."

Way behind the times, as usual. I don't want to get into all this again since it was well covered years ago and you're not really interested in learning something you'd prefer wasn't true. But I'd point you to the Cochrane Review which found "wearing surgical masks in the community probably makes little or no difference in preventing influenza-like or COVID-19-like illness (risk ratio: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.84–1.09)."

Or the DANMASK-19 Trial which found no significant difference in infections between a mask group and a control unmasked group.

Equally, other smaller studies suggested increased risk if the mask wasn't worn correctly as opposed to not at all, and reduced social development in children.

"and how quickly you pivot to culture-war framing. "

That wasn't a pivot. That was returning to what the article was about and away from your attempt to reframe it to something else.

"And Australians overwhelmingly complied - not out of fear, but out of decency."

No it was fear. And placing that fear above their liberty. And falling for the government's and health authority's fearmongering.

__________________________________________________________________--

"a simple question, do you also profess to being a Sovereign Citizen, your post seems to indicate that way"

No. But the difference between believing whatever the government tells you and thinking for yourself is probably too hard for you to fathom.

You’re right, mhaze, you didn’t say “only the vulnerable.”

But you implied that everyone else should’ve been out “building herd immunity.” Which sounds noble until you remember that herd immunity only works after mass infection - or mass vaccination.

"Of the 28000, 96% were elderly and those younger had comorbidities. Healthy adults under 60 were effectively immune."
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=23631#400037

And COVID wasn't chickenpox. It overwhelmed hospitals in developed countries and left tens of thousands with long-term damage.

The idea that we should’ve let it rip to protect the vulnerable by infecting everyone else was speculative at best - and catastrophic at worst. Sweden tried something close. It backfired. Their death toll soared, and they still had to lock down later. Meanwhile, Australia kept deaths incredibly low until Omicron, when vaccination levels were high enough to soften the blow.

Your "do the sums" line about Victoria ignores that it was hit earlier and harder, before most people were vaccinated, because we were trying to protect the vulnerable.

As for masks, the Cochrane Review has been widely misused (even the authors have said this). It doesn’t prove masks don’t work - it shows the limits of study design in real-world conditions. Meanwhile, lab and observational data still support the effectiveness of N95s and widespread usage.

But none of this really matters, does it?

Because this was never just about masks or herd immunity. It’s about a worldview - one where public health is tyranny, cooperation is cowardice, and anyone who complied “sacrificed liberty.”

And yet… Australia saved tens of thousands of lives. Hospitals didn’t collapse. People got vaccinated. Kids went back to school. The economy rebounded.

No government got everything right. But that’s not a reason to mythologise a handful of fringe protesters as the moral centre of the nation.

That’s the original article’s sin - and all this noise is just a long-winded attempt to defend it.

You can keep pretending this was 1984. Most of us lived through it as 2020 - messy, flawed, human. And we got through it together.

"Sweden tried something close. It backfired. Their death toll soared, and they still had to lock down later."

False and false. Sweden never locked down later. And the Swedish excess death toll shows that their policy worked.

"it shows the limits of study design in real-world conditions"

Well some of us live in the real world.

"Meanwhile, lab and observational data still support the effectiveness of N95s and widespread usage."

That was never in doubt. Correctly worn, masks work. But in the real world outside the lab or the surgical theatre, they were worse than useless. A report from the CDC said that masks had to be changed every 3 hours or whenever they were touched. Also that they had to be so tight to the face that they left an indent when removed. But none of that happened in the real world. Indeed, governments were telling people to wear the masks and pull them down to eat and drink. But touching them even once meant their efficacy was eroded.

"And yet… Australia saved tens of thousands of lives. Hospitals didn’t collapse. People got vaccinated. Kids went back to school. The economy rebounded."

How do you know lives were saved? That's just unverifiable assertion. People got vaccinated under duress and then stopped when the dangers were no longer suppressed. And the economy did rebound. But only after adding 100's of Billions of dollars to the debt we'll be handing on to the next generation.

Your idea of success and mine are very different.

And all for a virus that was not much worse than a bad flu.

Indy,

Thanks for your comment. It's genuinely nice to be on the same side of a debate for a change.
_____

That’s selective history, mhaze.

//Sweden never locked down later. And the Swedish excess death toll shows that their policy worked.//

That’s selective history. Sweden didn’t impose a full lockdown like Australia, but they did introduce restrictions - school closures, gathering limits, travel advisories - and their own health authority later admitted mistakes, especially in protecting aged care. Their excess deaths in 2020–21 were much higher than Norway, Denmark, or Finland. Saying their “policy worked” only holds if you ignore their neighbours’ far better outcomes.

//Masks had to be changed every 3 hours… governments told people to pull them down to eat and drink… efficacy eroded.//

No serious researcher claims real-world mask use was perfect. But imperfection doesn’t equal useless. Lab studies, observational data, and population-level trends all point to the same thing: widespread mask-wearing reduced transmission. Dismissing them as “worse than useless” is the very definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

//How do you know lives were saved? That's just unverifiable assertion.//

We know because counterfactuals are the bread and butter of epidemiology. Compare countries: Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea kept deaths extraordinarily low early on, before vaccines. The contrast with the US, UK, and Brazil isn’t speculation - it’s lived reality, written in the numbers.

That’s not speculation, that’s how we measure lives saved.

//All for a virus that was not much worse than a bad flu.//

This is the myth that refuses to die. COVID killed millions in just a few years. Seasonal flu never came close to overwhelming ICUs in developed countries, nor did it leave millions with chronic complications. Even now, the long COVID burden dwarfs what influenza leaves behind. To call that “not much worse than flu” is to flatten a mountain into a molehill.

In short: Sweden’s “success” vanishes once you compare it properly. Masks weren’t perfect, but they mattered. And the “bad flu” line is denial, not debate.

We've been through all this a few times before.

"We've been through all this a few times before."

Yes we have. and you still don't get it.

"Compare countries: Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea kept deaths extraordinarily low early on, before vaccines. The contrast with the US, UK, and Brazil isn’t speculation - it’s lived reality, written in the numbers."

So you want to compare three countries that, due to geography ,were able to institute quarantine with countries that couldn't. Nothing to do with lockdowns. Good to know.

That’s quite the pivot, mhaze!

//So you want to compare three countries that, due to geography ,were able to institute quarantine with countries that couldn't.//

Ah, so we’ve gone from claiming that the lockdowns didn’t work to acknowledging that the lockdowns did work - but only because of geography.

Geography helped, yes. But quarantine alone doesn’t explain the outcomes.

If it were just about being an island, then the UK - also an island - should’ve matched Australia. It didn’t. If you want to credit “geography,” you also need to explain how Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea (all densely populated and close to China) also had far lower death tolls early on than the US or Brazil.

What those countries had in common wasn’t location. It was coordinated public health policy: fast testing, clear communication, targeted restrictions, and yes, lockdowns where needed.

You want to pretend Australia’s success had nothing to do with decisions, just geography and luck. That lets you avoid admitting that millions of Australians who followed the rules did the right thing, and that lockdowns, for all their flaws, bought time for vaccines and saved lives.

But the numbers still tell the story:

- Australia’s COVID death rate in 2020-21 was dramatically lower than countries without similar restrictions.
- That gap only closed after vaccines rolled out.
- It wasn’t just luck. It was choices.

So yes, mhaze, we’ve been through this before. And the evidence hasn’t changed. What’s shifted is the framing - from lockdowns being tyranny to working because of geography.

You don’t get to have it both ways.

"Ah, so we’ve gone from claiming that the lockdowns didn’t work to acknowledging that the lockdowns did work - but only because of geography."

Lockdowns weren't the same as national quarantines. Lockdowns didn't work. Quarantines worked for a time, until they were lifted.

Thanks for the clarification, mhaze.

So now we’re in agreement that restricting movement at scale did save lives, at least temporarily.

Call it quarantine, lockdown, stay-at-home orders - it’s all the same principle: limit spread by limiting contact. The difference is just what you’re willing to brand as legitimate.

The thing is, quarantine only works when backed by internal controls, and those controls were lockdowns. You can’t seal the border and then let the virus rip inside. Ask Western Australia, which kept COVID out early and used lockdowns to contain outbreaks. That’s why they had one of the lowest COVID death rates in the world.

You keep claiming that lockdowns didn’t work, but you’ve already conceded that national-level movement restrictions did. That’s not a rebuttal of lockdowns - it’s a rebrand.

And yes, restrictions were eased later - because they bought us time for vaccines, treatments, and preparation.

That was the point.

So if your final position is that “quarantine worked, but lockdowns didn’t,” what you’re really saying is: you agree with the public health strategy - you just didn’t like the name.

Hi Mhaze,
When I said I recommended Zack Snyder's 2006 film, '300', I was leaning towards its epic nature, the ‘vivid and spectacular representation of the defiant stand taken by Leonidas and his elite Spartan warriors’. The film attempted to hold the modern viewer in awe of the skill, heroism and sacrifice of the Spartan band, with a surreal, almost comic book portrayal. If you’re searching for historical accuracy, yes, go and read Green’s essay, or Herodotus. But that’s not what Jack Snyder was aiming for. He wanted to capture the weight of their achievement and bring it to a modern appreciation.

Compare this with other modern films, for which the history has been quite plainly and adequately documented, such as ‘Chariots of Fire’, ‘Apollo 13’, ‘The King's Speech’, or ‘Sully’, or a dozen other movies I could name. They’ll all trim historical nuance to fit a two-hour runtime, favouring heroic arcs over complexity. It’s not cheating history, but more a reflection of the attention span of a modern person, and how long they are capable of sitting in a theatre without needing a toilet break.

John Daysh,
Thanks for giving your perspective of the COVID era, and your defence of the Aus authorities’ COVID response. I think there are as many perspectives as there are thoughtful people. It was a complex time. I’m simply happy that I have the freedom here to give my perspective. Mine was a perspective shared by many, yet largely silenced and excluded from the mainstream media at the time, and subject to sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious forms of censorship. The censorship was real, which is partly why certain numbers of people felt compelled to take to the streets, to ensure that their voices could not being ignored.

You challenged that the street protesters were not subject to violence in any manner comparable to Spartan warriors, including death. Of course not. The comparison to Thermopylae in 480 BC was not for its violence, but for its symbolism of defiance.

But since you mention violence, that’s certainly what Dan Andrews and Victoria Police were promising to greet any protester on September 5. So while the levels of violence didn’t really eventuate that day, my respect for the bravery of each of the protesters was immense, not least because they arrived not knowing how things would unfold. If only 20 turned up, rather than 300, which was always a distinct possibility, then VicPol might have felt emboldened to run roughshod over any measure of propriety. They knew they had all mainstream media totally in their palms to tell whatever story they would want for the 6pm news.

And later, as protests grew going into 2021 we saw what levels of violence VicPol was willing to unleash on peaceful protesters, which included firing rubber bullets on several occasions to disperse crowds – a fact that mainstream media have tried to keep hush hush as much as possible. For rubber bullets have been known on many occasions to cause death.

Michael Viljoen

Thanks for the reply, Michael.

I appreciate the clarification of your intent. But let’s be honest, your original article was not just “your perspective” of a complex time. It cast a symbolic halo over 300 lockdown protesters by comparing them to Leonidas’ Spartans at Thermopylae - as if their defiance formed the moral backbone of Australian democracy.

That’s not nuance. That’s myth-making.

You say the comparison wasn’t about violence. But you brought up the Spartans’ sacrifice, the Persian threat to democracy, the failure of Athens without resistance, and even quoted the movie 300. That isn’t subtle. It’s theatrical framing designed to recast a fringe protest as a foundational moment for civil liberty.

And while you now say protesters didn’t know what would happen, the reality is: they showed up to a strongly discouraged gathering, not Tiananmen Square. Yes, Victoria Police overreached at times and that should be debated. But rubber bullets weren’t fired that day, and no protester was shot or killed. To invoke Thermopylae, then quietly cite the possibility of rubber bullet deaths, is a rhetorical bait-and-switch.

You also said these protesters were “largely silenced” and that “mainstream media” conspired to suppress their voices. I’d suggest the circulation of your article - and the fact we’re debating it now - undermines that claim.

I’d also note that if there was a coordinated MSM effort to suppress dissent, it was remarkably inconsistent. Murdoch-owned outlets make up a large share of the mainstream media, and they spent years giving airtime to anti-lockdown voices, vaccine sceptics, and civil liberties talking points - often from people with a shallow grasp of freedom and a tendency to apply it selectively.

No one is saying the COVID response was perfect. But rewriting a modest protest as a moment of epic civic resistance doesn’t clarify history. It distorts it. You’re free to express that view, but others are just as free to challenge the romanticism and factual gaps it contains.

That’s discourse, not censorship.

John Daysh,
If you’ve read this article as: wishing to honour the 300 lockdown protesters, by comparing them to Leonidas’ 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, in gathering for a defiant stand against a wannabe tyrant, in defence of Australia’s democracy and civil rights; then that’s perfect, and spot on. That’s exactly what I was aiming for.

Of course, there are differences. What was the same: their determination to make a stand, to demonstrate to Premier Andrews and his inner cabinet that, despite his despotic dreams and visions of complete power to govern over every inch of the daily lives of his constituents, he will still ultimately have someone to answer to.

The other main similarity between the 300 Spartans and the 300 brave Melburnians was their ability to inspire others to follow behind them. There were 300 on 4 September, the biggest anti-lockdown protest to that date. Then 1500 on Cup Day, 3 November, of which 400 were kettled and arrested by police, charged with ‘gathering in a group more than 10’. And finally about 12 months later, 20 November, 2021, 150,000 marched from Parliament to Flagstaff gardens.

The main question for me is, who had it right, the Premier with his total societal lockdown strategy, or the 300 protesters, who had the ability to see early in the piece how deleterious that strategy was, and how it was achieving nothing positive? With the benefit now of five years of reflection, I think you might be able to see how right they were in hindsight, which is why I felt to write something in their honour.

It was never a real pandemic. It was a successful propaganda exercise. But I fully agree with you that some commentators, such as Rowan Dean on Sky News were challenging the accepted narrative. I just disagree on the definition of ‘Mainstream Media’ (Sky?). I never said that the censorship was total, only that it was there, sometimes subtle, often not. I’m eternally thankful that OnlineOpinion remains such a champion of healthy free speech, for which COVID served to highlight how desperately we are in need.