Police demand money for free speech

The revelation that Nigel Farage was charged for police attendance at his meeting in Australia is unbelievable, and is an indictment of the sad state of freedom of speech (or lack thereof) in this country.

Nigel Farage, past Member of the European Parliament and ex-leader of UKIP, came to Australia to pass on his experiences and ideas. He did not ask for police protection. However, when his meeting was to be held, the NSW Police demanded that he give to them $3000 for protection, or else they would close his meeting down.

In an interview with Channel 7 News, Nigel Farage said “The fundamental point is that, for a meeting where conservative views were expressed, a ransom had to be paid. And I would argue that if I had been a representative of Black Lives Matter, or the climate change movement, that wouldn’t have happened. … basically, a ransom was demanded for this event to go ahead, and the New South Wales Police asked for three thousand Aussie dollars to be paid up, otherwise they’d stop the event from taking place. … another email came through to say unless the contract was signed by 4 o’clock, they’d stop the event going ahead.”

In the same interview, Farage quite rightly noted “free speech … should be free”.

When Milo Yiannopoulos visited Australia a few years ago, the Victorian police force demanded $50,000 from him – for doing their job. Apparently, it can be cheaper to be robbed by a shotgun-wielding bank robber than it can be to deal with the police. Maybe when making these sorts of demands the police should wear balaclavas and point their guns – at least that way the meeting organisers would know that they were being robbed.

To many people these police demands may sound like extortion, or some kind of protection racket – and it would be hard to disagree with such sentiments.

These anti-democratic shenanigans being carried out by police bureaucrats is disgusting. Police demanding money from people holding public meetings is completely at odds with the Australian ideals of democracy and freedom of speech; such money-grubbing and politically-biased behaviour belongs more in some kind of a Banana Republic than it does in a modern society such as ours.

Considering the leftward-leanings of the Public Service, it is no surprise that these types of police tactics are used to abuse and undermine the activities of patriotic and conservative people, but are not used against the feral leftists who roll up to scream abuse at decent people, often with the aim of trying to shut down patriotic meetings (heaven forbid that the general public should hear a point of view that is not beholden to the way of thinking of the Cultural Marxists and Neo-Communists).

The police don’t charge loony leftists thousands of dollars for their antics (whether that involves spitting at people, throwing urine-filled condoms, or any other such feral behaviour); as per usual, the rabid communists get preferential treatment. Likewise, the police don’t charge the organisers of Leftist street marches for all of the police resources used on those occasions. These politically-biased police “ransoms” are directed towards patriots and conservatives. It isn’t being argued here that such charges should apply to all sides of politics; the police shouldn’t be charging anyone for doing their job (to protect the rights of the people and to keep the peace).

The focus of the politically-motivated police seems to be concentrated on attending homosexual Mardi Gras events, supporting transsexuality, and monitoring social media posts which might “offend” some leftist ratbag. The police seem to be far more interested in Political Correctness than they are in truth and justice.

The state governments of Australia need to change the politically-biased behaviour of the police (and if such behaviour stems from government policies, then the governments need to be turfed out). The Farage incident occurred under a Liberal Party government, whilst the Yiannopoulos incident occurred under a Labor Party government; both sides of the political divide stink to high heaven. No-one should be charged for policing; we already pay sky-high taxes for police protection and everything else.

When one of the biggest threats to democracy and freedom of speech is the police, that’s when you know that our society has gone to the dogs.





References:
Nigel Farage claims that police threatened to shut down his speaking event in Sydney”, 7 News Australia, 28 September 2022
Milo Yiannopoulos and tour organisers yet to pay $50k bill for extra police at show”, The Age, 16 July 2018 (Melissa Cunningham)
Nigel Farage”, Wikipedia

Leave a Reply