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.