South Australia became even more totalitarian today, with ALL businesses having to report their customers to Big Brother Steve via the QR app or manual sign in. South Australian's have already increased their online buying by 65% this year.

Marshall, a one time small business owner himself, will go down as the man who wrecked retail and drove away thousands of jobs.

Ttbn,

Yep, totalitarianism has been around in Australia for a long time.

At the beginning of the Second World War, that totalitarian Menzies - and then that totalitarian Curtin - demanded that all able-bodied people in Australia contribute to the war effort, men and women, everybody apart from essential workers and women with kids. No doubt dictated to by that totalitarian Churchill who had the same secret communist policies.

What a couple of communist bastards, Menzies and Curtin ! How clever was Pig-Iron Bob, pretending to be anti-communist and sucking up to Japan, while all along he was working for Stalin and the Comintern ?

Joe

One silly comment only, so I have to accept that most of the sheep are happy with government surveillance and having their movements traced, all because of a disease that kills a mere 1% of the people who contract it. Those dying already having one foot in the grave. What a bunch of ba lambs. The Great Reset is going to be a doddle for its perpetrators. You 'will own nothing, and you will be happy' is their latest jingle.

Eventually, the incompetent authorities, as they are laughingly called, are going to have to let the virus rip and nature take its course. When your number is up, it's up. Vaccine, no vaccine. Compulsory or voluntary. Yada, Yada. We are all getting a lesson in the fragility of man against nature, and the useless of our politicians when they are actually called on to earn their money.

I'll go with the politicians on this, Australia seems to be doing much better than many other countries.

See that a new strain has appeared in England.

Is Mise,

You are entitled to surrender to Big Brother; in this case, for no good reason at all. But Big Brother hasn't done much in the China virus area, except wreck the economy and jobs and small and medium businesses, and hand out money like the socialists they have become. Our relative good fortune has been due to luck, weather and geography.

I made one of my rare sorties to a shopping precinct this morning and, in shops at least, surveillance was being ignored.

It is a delicate issue: the virus is real, serious and must be dealt with, but digital technology is an even bigger plague in the long run and no vaccine is in sight.

Marshall has so far done well and acted in a balanced way, but he did cross a red line with the latest decrees, breaking the right balance.

In his own words, it was OK to introduce COVID check-in into clubs and restaurants because these places are optional - "don't like it, don't enter".

But introducing the same for people getting their life-essentials, including food and medicine, is not on!

Same for places of worship: no one has a right to interfere between someone and their God, this is essential because this is what life is about in the first place.

I must imagine the pain this causes the Jewish community, where neither the use of electrical devices nor writing is allowed on the Sabbath and major Jewish holidays (when the most important communal prayers occur). One solution they could have previously implemented to register their attendance in synagogue is to have a board of beads with everyone's pre-written names and phone-numbers, so when they enter they simply move their bead to the other side. The new decrees no longer allow it. When one is faced with the choice of obeying God or obeying secular authorities, there is no doubt whose orders one should follow (notwithstanding that actions could be hidden from secular authorities, but not the other way).

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Dear Ttbn,

Government surveillance is a problem, but the safeguards in this case are pretty good. I would be more worried about the possible abuse of data by commercial bodies and family members. The promised "Scantek" technology could have solved some of these privacy-holes, but Marshall has fallen silent about it.

«Those dying already having one foot in the grave.»

Yes, but many others are left with permanent holes in their lungs, hearts and brains - none of which I would like to have.

Yuyutsu,

What are the safeguards? All I've heard is that information is kept for 28 days. Do I believe that? No. Politicians cannot be believed.

Of course, there will be people who don't have smart phones, or do have smart phones and deny that they do, because they don't know what information they will be revealing about themselves and they will will use the pen and paper sign in (if anyone in a shop they enter bothers to ask them to do so). They might put in their correct name and 'phone number, or they might put in someone else's, or the might make a name and number up.

It's all a farce, and passive resistance is always available to those who object to Big Brother tactics. And there's not a thing Big Brother can do about it.

And, before anyone tells me how irresponsible it is to try thwart Big Bother in the case of the China virus, and that I should be in it "all together" with them, I say bulldust! When my number is up, it's up. I take precautions without the interference of Big Brother; so can every one else.

Hi Hanrahan,

I think I can follow your logic: we're all going to die sooner or later, so why not sooner, if someone has done nothing about themselves and their health ? Or later, for those who have ? So the mean gets pushed up. Win-win-win.

You put your finger on a huge funfancial issue: if so, why spend anything at all on health ? Why can't people either look after their own diet and exercise OR take the consequences of not doing so ?

Yes ! Imagine the savings for all thinking Australians ! Look after yourself, don't worry about anyone else, and the virtuous will come through and probably live long lives ! And in much greater social comfort too !

But who listens ? Almost nobody. So most people are doomed. And there's nothing anybody can do about it. Yes, yes, the half-wit 'Left' worry incessantly and fruitlessly about it. But Hobbesianism wins every time.

Joe

Dear Ttbn,

I would break the law for a good reason, for a just reason, but not for a whim or emotion: why turn yourself into a liar just because government behaved improperly? Why grant them such power to corrupt you?

For passive resistance, simply avoid shops. Go hungry if you need to, following Gandhi's example! While Marshall usually behaved sensibly, this time he placed the economy above basic freedoms, so hit him where it hurts most, in his "economy". When merchants experience the deep downturn, they will do the screaming themselves.
Another way, you could instead stand outside a shop and shout to the shop-keeper, ask them to come and sell you what you need OUTSIDE, in the street.

I do not approve of mobile phones, I find them immoral, never had one, never will, but my understanding is that it is legally sufficient to physically not have one on you when visiting a shop - what you have or not at home is irrelevant. You could also have it uncharged then use the paper option absolutely legally. Mind you, the shop-owners and possibly also other customers could read your details off that paper. Scantek should solve this because your scanned details will be transferred electronically directly to government, not through the shop-keepers.

I don't think that Marshall has a Big-Brother attitude, he just made a mistake and went too far driven by his economic philosophy. Fatigue could also be a factor. If indeed he had such Big-Brother attitude, then it would be right to thwart him in any way we could, but I sincerely don't think that this is the case with Marshall (though it is with Victoria's Andrews).

Regarding safeguards, I believe that the data is secure, also the announcement that this information won't be used for any other purpose, including law-enforcement. We have seen this in the case of the Spanish pizza-boy. I honestly believe that contact-tracing will never be used in court, not even to capture an escaped prisoner. The danger is rather that ordinary criminals and greedy merchants could abuse the information, not government.

Yuyutsu,

You say, "For passive resistance, simply avoid shops."

Yes. I'm doing that. My wife and I are not big consumers and apart from food shopping, we are avoiding shops, and the usual cafe lunch we have when we do our weekly food shop has ceased until the surveillance has ceased. It's unfortunate that most people will up put with anything rather than forgo their incessant consumerism.

We don't have to be Christians to follow the Benedict Option to protect ourselves from increasingly mad, dictatorial governments.

PS,

I'm surprised that you trust the government more than I do.

No need for sophisticated electronic surveillance down in South Aussie. Marshmallow Marshall only needs to stick his head over the back fence in the village of Adelaide and he could see what the other two inhabitants are up to, whose off to the corner shop etc.

"What are the safeguards? All I've heard is that information is kept for 28 days. Do I believe that? No. Politicians cannot be believed."

Phone books are forever.