Mainstream media are finally reporting on the Victorian government’s new bill to hand authorities the power to arrest anyone, even if they have not committed an offence.
10 News Melbourne reports: “[The] new law would give police the power to preemptively detain anyone with COVID or their close contacts even if they haven’t broken the law. All that’s required is that the officer thinks they might breach restrictions in the future.”
The report notes that the Health Department could also empower non-police, such as Public Safety Officers or Work Safe Inspectors, to preemptively detain citizens.
The new legislation places “no limit on detention time, no legislative oversight and no clear avenue for appeal.” Those detained could be placed in quarantine facilities to be monitored by authorities.
The law could see the arrest, not only of anyone the state deems a “conspiracy theorist” and therefore likely to neglect current restrictions, but also their family members and close contacts even if a crime has not been committed.
(Tom: Someone should tell these would be tyrants that this contravenes the basic legal premises on which our society is founded – most notably Magna Carta and Habeus Corpus and the English Bill of Rights.)