John Stapleton addresses the madness of the past few years elegantly and with an urgent clarity that puts most commentators – and all politicians and bureaucrats – to shame.
Steve Waterson, Senior Editor, The Australian.
With terrifying clarity and a unique literary flair, John Stapleton chaperones us through our social decline and the loss of our civil liberties.
Dean Sewell, multi-award winning news photographer.
At a time when the powers that be wish that Covid questioning would simply go away, there are those, sadly few in number, who continue to probe the inconvenient issues. And tell the real stories of the Covid madness. John Stapleton, again, is leading the charge. Indispensable reading.
Paul Collits, leading Australian political commentator.
John Stapleton is one of only a handful of journalists with the integrity and courage to challenge the Covid narrative. “Australia Breaks Apart” is destined to be a masterpiece.
Dr Guy Campbell, Australian Medical Professionals Society.
The humanitarian crimes committed by Australian authorities against their own citizens, beginning in early 2020, will live on in infamy, but it is the people themselves who create a nation’s history.
On the 12th of February 2022, the largest gathering of Australians in the nation’s history marched on the National Parliament in Canberra to protest the totalitarianism of the Australian Government, chanting “Sack Them All, Sack Them All”.
Crowd numbers are notoriously difficult to calculate and prone to distortion, but whatever the number, no politician, intelligence agency, police force or political strategist in Australia failed to notice that a massive number of people marched on the nation’s capital, with a remarkable amount of good cheer, jubilance and camaraderie; character traits which the nation’s leaders had failed to show in the years of authoritarian derangement.
Between 2020 and 2022 Australia was gripped by a madness which was spiritual, administrative, political, social and judicial in its dimensions. Australians who stood up against the rising tide of tyranny found themselves pepper sprayed, bashed by police, fined and imprisoned in dictatorial abuses which made headlines around the world, a warning to the world against Covid overreach.
A nation which once prided itself on its laissez faire approach to life and the friendly, easy going nature of its population lay besmirched by a descent into totalitarianism. All the systems Australians had come to rely on failed them at their time of greatest need, every last one of them: the mainstream media, the social media platforms, the legal, medical and academic professions, politicians, bureaucrats, the police, the military and the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Australia’s democracy proved virus thin.
Retired news reporter John Stapleton shines a light on one of the darkest episodes in the Australian story. Australia Breaks Apart is a fine demonstration of the old saying, journalism is the first draft of history.
Here is an extract from Chapter Three, The Derangement of Battle.
Instead of being in the middle of the action, as he might once have been as a city reporter, all Old Alex could do was watch from his aerie in the remote suburbs, the urban fringe beneath a sandstone escarpment, as military helicopters flew from the base at Nowra further south up to Sydney and back; and feel, if his mind was in flying mode, the high technical literacy of the pilot and the military intent of those on board, and feel in some ways the wonder of the ancients as they watched, through his eyes, those flying warships streaming through the sky.
A frightening pall; and truly, nothing made sense. Something else was afoot. He knew perfectly well the government apparatchiks did not care for the welfare of the populace, despite all the protestations of the show pony politicians parading in front of the cameras; if they did care they would have mingled with the common people, and never have rorted those billions of dollars off the backs of a slave population, just to squander it. He had been frightened long before they were born, long before humans.
Whether you could leave home, go to work, go to a restaurant, avoid being masked or jabbed, it was all at government behest.
Melbourne was well on the way to becoming the most locked-down city on Earth, with the Victorian Premier, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un lookalike Daniel Andrews, placing himself front and centre of the catastrophe on a daily basis, setting, surely, a world record for the longest continuous stretch of press conferences in the world, more than 100 days in a row.
Melbourne became a byword worldwide for absurd Covid overreach, for state violence and brutality.
Literally half the country was now shut down.
At midnight on Thursday 15th of July, 2021, Melbourne entered its fifth lockdown; originally for a five day period.
There were no Covid cases in hospitals in Victoria on the day of the announcement, yet these power drunk fools were shutting down the entire state.
Premier Daniel Andrews, who still had his supporters, all scared witless of “the virus” and turning to a “strong man” to save them, said: “We now have new cases, new exposure sites and a strain of this virus that is wildly infectious.
“We’ve seen this strain before – and you probably already know what we need to do next. Victoria will not wait to act. We know that not much good comes from waiting.
“Waiting could see more people infected and the number of exposure sites explode.
“If we act now – while we’re right on the heels of this outbreak – we can give ourselves every chance of getting ahead of it. If we wait – we lose that option.
“Which is why, on the advice of the Acting Chief Health Officer, Victoria will go into lockdown tonight, meaning there are only five reasons to leave home from 11:59 pm on Thursday 15 of July 2021.
“That means you can only leave home to get the food and the supplies you need, for exercise for up to two hours and no more than five kilometres from your home, for care or caregiving, work or education if you can’t do it from home or to get vaccinated at the nearest possible location.
“These restrictions will be in place for five days.”
Only a week earlier the Victorian government had been announcing an easing of restrictions and a relaxing of their “traffic light” system which classified other sections of the country depending on their perceived danger. All of Western Australia and the Northern Territory had become green zones.
Then the departmental advice had read: “Existing red zone arrivals from areas that are now orange zones who have had a test since arriving in Victoria and have received a negative result no longer have to quarantine unless they have been in contact with a confirmed case or a known exposure site. If they haven’t had a test since arriving back into Victoria, they must continue to isolate, get tested, and stay isolated until they receive a negative result.”
A week later and the Victoria’s Health Department was declaring: “Engagement teams, supported by Defence personnel, made 350 household visits to permit holders yesterday. Of those, 337 were red zone permit holders, 328 from NSW and 9 from the ACT. A small number were found not to be isolating and will be referred to authorities for appropriate action.
“You must have a valid permit, exception or exemption to enter Victoria, even if entering from a green zone.”
It was no wonder the public was confused. Unsettled. Frightened. Couldn’t keep track of the endlessly changing diktats, had no idea who or what to believe, and were willing to roll up their sleeves for an experimental “vaccine” which, as it turned out, stopped neither infection nor transmission and for which the long term consequences were entirely unknown.
On the streets of Melbourne, just hours before the city entered its fifth lockdown, protesters marched through the Central Business District. Demonstrators called for an end to draconian measures. Hours before Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced the state would enter a five-day snap lockdown from midnight.
Protesters on social media described lockdowns as “human rights abuses”, with many claiming they were just regular everyday people who have had enough.
Hundreds numbering into the thousands chanted “Sack Dan Andrews” on the steps of historic Flinders Street Station, reputed to be the world’s busiest train station back in the 1920s. They then marched from the station to Parliament House, chanting “Freedom” and shadowed by a large police presence.
Signs read: “You Can Say No”, “I Have a Choice”, “Lockdown Kills”, “This All Ends When We Say No”, “No Common Sense!”, “Government Lies! This Is A War! Injections the Weapon!” and “Indict the Real Criminals: Soros, Gates, Fauci.”
TOTT News, which unlike most of Australia’s bought and sold media were on top of the story from the beginning, editorialised: “The frustration is understandable. So many people have lost their businesses, their homes and have had their families ripped apart. Many more are in a really bad way.
“How many more waves can be survived by this perpetual operation?
“Lockdown 5.0 for Melbourne. 16 months into this pandemic saga. What an absolute farce.
“The Victorian government wants to replace temporary state of emergency laws – which need to be passed through parliament to be extended or changed – with new permanent powers. As predicted, the Orwellian ‘war’ against the ‘invisible enemy’ was never meant to ever end. Rather, the narrative was always designed to morph into a state of indefinite propaganda.
“It is all by design, and only will change when people say enough is enough.”
One speaker was heard yelling: “Here we go again. Once again, Daniel Andrews has jumped at his own shadow and thrown millions of people’s lives into chaos.”
Another conservatively dressed middle-aged man shouted through a loudspeaker: “We need a pathway out of this, a way for it to end. I propose to set a date. When the Emergency Powers end. When the restrictions end. When all the coercion and human rights abuses end.”
One young man addressing the crowd declared: “What has been going on in this country has no place in a free society.” Yet another: “Ladies and gentlemen. Our backs are up against the wall. If we do not get involved our country will be lost forever.
Addressing the crowd Topher Field, later to produce the powerful documentary Battleground Melbourne, said: “Make no mistake, lockdowns are not helping us get through this pandemic. They are keeping us locked in the pandemic.”
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