Polish MPs Criticise Australian “Covid Madness”

Polish MPs have lambasted the Australian government for its “totalitarian” Covid lockdown policies and “human rights” abuses.

Gathering outside of the Australian embassy in Warsaw, the group of politicians, which included the former leader of the Liberal KoLiber party, Jakub Kulesza, accused Australia of “unsubscribing herself from the civilised International Community” after “contracting Covid madness.” 

Thousands of police officers were deployed to Sydney and Melbourne over the weekend as increasingly large crowds gathered in defiance of the government’s lockdown and mask mandates. In Australia’s second-largest city Melbourne, which entered its sixth lockdown on August 5th, officers employed pepper spray in an attempt to disperse a gathering of 1,000 demonstrators while a further 2,000 officers were deployed to road checkpoints around the city. 

Speaking at the Conference of Confederation of Freedom and Independence outside of the Australian embassy, Kulesza labelled Australia as a quasi-Democratic nation and provided a list of examples including curfews, 5km travel limits, and ‘stay-at-home’ orders for what he said was the Australian governments “totalitarianism.”

“The whole world sees what is happening in Australia. Australian police oppress, harass and attack peaceful citizens, depriving them of their fundamental freedoms. It’s hard to call it anything else but madness. Increasing ever-sharper lockdowns, which can be called totalitarianism, have led to record increases in infections, showing that drastic restrictions do not make sense.” 

Proceeding, the representatives of the former-Soviet bloc nation argued that, with the promise of some freedoms being restored on October 11th, vaccinated and un-vaccinated citizens would be “divided between better and worse.” 

“This is how totalitarianism is born. These are not conspiracy theories … How much freedom has been lost in Australia can be seen in how the police, with great brutality, suppress protests, and aggression against citizens.” 

Kulesza continued to “warn the people of Poland” from allowing the Warsaw government to “follow the example of Australian authorities” before another MP commended Australians who had protested against the lockdowns.

“People aren’t protesting because they’re bored. It would be absurd to not protest having their freedoms taken away … In terms of lockdowns, we are dealing with the manipulation of data and the manipulation of the number of tests done. The more lockdown laws were introduced, the less effective it was.” 

Demanding that “Australia stop these practices immediately and return to human rights and civility,” a third MP called on the Polish leadership to “condemn” their Australian counterparts and promised that “legal aid” would be organised to “evacuate Polish dual citizens as refugees from the People’s Republic of Melbourne.” 

Agreeing with the Polish politicians’ sentiments, Harry Richardson, the editor of Australian libertarian magazine The Richardson Post, said that the “level of disgust these Polish MPs share for the totalitarian bastardry shown by the Victorian police, in particular, is crystal clear. 

Australia's lockdown restrictions in Victoria, New South Wales, and Canberra will remain until at least 70% of people aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated - with current estimates for the date of the Australian reopening falling on October 11th. However, according to Reuters, people who are not fully vaccinated will continue to be barred from joining the vaccinated in the resumption of community sports, dining out, shopping and other activities. 

“Unlike most cases in the world, if you are not vaccinated you will have to wait at least four or five weeks... in order to participate in things that the rest of us can participate in,” former state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in a televised briefing. “If you want to be able to have a meal with friends and welcome people in your home, you have to get vaccinated.”