Victoria’s Premier Dan Andrews declared martial law on August 4, imposing a curfew (8 p.m.–5 a.m.), mandatory masks, and $20K fines for COVID-19 violations, enforced by military and police. Critics question the extreme measures after 11 deaths in aged care facilities linked to poor hygiene and a hotel quarantine failure involving underpaid guards. Comparisons to China’s authoritarian tactics and concerns over rushed vaccines—like those tied to political pressure—highlight broader fears of government overreach, including Teresa Tam’s controversial statements. Meanwhile, China’s unsolicited seed shipments globally raise suspicions of biological warfare, while TikTok’s data misuse and potential spying ties underscore tech risks. Andrews’ refusal to engage with inquiries and Trudeau’s 2015 charity audit suspension further fuel distrust in pandemic-era governance. [Automatically generated summary]
The state of Victoria, that's what they call the state in which the great city of Melbourne is located, they brought in martial law and I got to tell you it is stricter than anything we had during the War Measures Act.
And I know some former Soviet citizens and I've talked with them at great length about what the Soviet Union was like under the communists.
And it was not as intrusive as what is happening in Melbourne, Australia right now.
I'll prove it to you in today's show.
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Okay, here's the rest of the podcast.
Tonight, Australia's socialist state of Victoria declares martial law.
It's August 4th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government about why I've others is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Melbourne is the largest city in the beautiful Australian state of Victoria.
It's a pretty big city, about 5 million people, about the size of Toronto.
Victoria the state has almost 7 million people in it.
And like all of Australia, it has been pretty much spared the coronavirus, at least compared to much of the world.
But then they decided to quarantine all returning travelers from overseas in a few select hotels, and they decided to guard that quarantine with security guards they found online for cheap.
And wouldn't you know it, some of those online security guards and some of the quarantine travelers who were cooped up and bored, well, they started having sex.
The guards, the guards, I'm using my quotation mark fingers.
I mean, these were just people that answered help wanted online ads to be guards.
And so I know this is shocking to hear.
The government's solution actually made things worse.
They managed to spread the virus.
The Premier of Victoria State is a socialist named Dan Andrews.
He's the worst.
He's signing treaties and partnerships with communist China.
He's not the Prime Minister of Australia.
He's the Premier of his state.
But in the face of his own federal government's opposition to China, he's signing onto their Belt and Road Initiative.
Here's a news clip of that.
The U.S. Secretary of State has issued a stern warning about any deals done with China under its Belt and Road initiative.
The Victorian government has been criticized for refusing to release federal government advice about the state's contentious economic partnership with China.
Secretary Pompeo says he isn't aware of the specific details relating to Victoria's Belt and Road initiative, but warned the U.S. would be prepared to disconnect if the deal adversely impacted America's national security.
Yeah, whoo, that snapped back pretty hard when Secretary Mike Pompeo weighed in, but it shows you what Dan Andrews is like.
He's even worse than Justin Trudeau and our pro-communist foreign minister, François-Philippe Champagne, if you can believe it.
He is in love with Xi Jinping, and he doesn't care who knows.
So when he had this outbreak of the virus from his hotel sex strategy online cheap security thing, well, who did he follow as a role model?
Well, totalitarian, authoritarian Xi Jinping.
I don't mean he issued a few tickets.
like we've seen in our fight defines campaigns in Canada, you know, guys getting nuisance tickets, some people spending half an hour in a police car, 90 minutes in a police station.
Those are terrible, and we're fighting those like crazy.
But what they're doing in Victoria, Australia is on a whole other level.
In some ways, I think it's even worse than what China did to its own people.
Let me read you a series of tweets that sums up what they've done in Australia in this one state.
And this is from a news reporter with a major network based in Melbourne.
Now, you tell me how this isn't exactly what martial law is.
This is actually worse.
So the first tweet is just the basic facts.
Victoria has 439 new COVID-19 cases.
21,000 tests done yesterday.
456 Victorians in hospital.
38 Victorians in intensive care.
And 11 new deaths, all in aged care.
That's what they call seniors' homes.
1,186 active cases in aged care.
Now, I'm sorry to hear about the 11 deaths.
It's important to note that, like across the West, the death toll is overwhelmingly very old people who are locked up in old folks' homes.
Poor air circulation, perhaps poor hygiene from workers who go from patient to patient or even facility to facility.
I don't have the ages here, but in British Columbia, as we saw last week, the average age of the deceased is 85 years old.
So we have 11 new deaths in a state of nearly 7 million people.
I'm not happy about that.
But it's 11 people in a state of 7 million.
It's barely one in a million.
Look at this.
I'll read some more tweets from this reporter.
Enforcement.
3,000 door knocks conducted.
More than 800 people weren't home.
Exercise is now banned for people isolating.
500 plus ADF coming to Victoria.
That's Australian Defence Forces.
Close contacts of known cases will be door knocked randomly too.
New $4,957 fines for individuals who breach isolation.
So you're literally sending armed soldiers to the homes of people who are sick.
Oh, and to their friends.
What are you doing that for again?
$5,000 fines for people who step outside of their house?
As we've told you before, the virus does not transmit outdoors through casual contact.
It transmits in the house.
That's why all 11 deaths are seniors in a stuffed up seniors home.
Seniors who aren't allowed to go out and about.
No one gets the virus from being out and about.
You're literally sentencing people to stay in houses or apartments, some of which are tiny, and you think this is going to make fewer cases?
And a $5,000 fine.
So bankruptcy for the average Joe.
The average bloke can't afford a $5,000 fine.
You'll scare some people with that number, but you'll make other people even more desperate.
And look at this.
This is the next tweet in this series.
Work permits.
Piece of paper signed by employer and employee.
Must be carried with you.
Shown to officers if pulled over.
Easily identifiable.
Essential workers, nurses, cops, et cetera, can use their current work ID.
Paperwork will be online later today.
There's some irony there in that all health care has been ground to a halt, except extreme emergencies.
So the hospitals will be empty, just as they are here.
So expect lots of cancer, cataract, heart disease, strokes, whatever.
Expect a lot of those things to rise while we chase the virus that has 11 deaths.
Recent fines, 161 fines issued, 60 for no masks.
Someone bought a car after 8 p.m.
Well, you know, the virus, the virus can tell.
If you buy the car at 7.59, virus don't mind.
You buy a car at 8 p.m., virus mines.
Oh, get this.
Police had to smash windows of four cars after occupants refused to give details.
38-year-old woman not wearing a mask smashed policewoman's head into concrete.
She's been charged in bail.
Did you get that?
Police had to smash windows of four cars.
I mean, they absolutely had to, guys.
Come on, guys.
They had to smash the windows.
Public health dependent on it.
The virus made me do it.
So someone's in the car, windows rolled up.
Chance of spreading the virus, zero.
But better smash the glass, you know, for health reasons, you see.
Were there kids in the car?
Did the person get glass shards?
Well, who cares?
Look, this is for their health, you see.
And their trust in police.
That's going to rise, isn't it?
I can see why that Premier Dan Andrews, I can see why he loves China.
He's acting like a communist dictator himself.
Here's our friend Avi Yamini, who just happens to live in Melbourne.
Take a look at this video.
I'm going to play about two minutes of this video from Avi, and then I'll come right back.
Take a look.
So let me get this straight.
We did a full 12-week lockdown to flatten the curve.
And it only failed because Dan Andrews hired gumtree security guards to manage the hotel quarantine of international arrivals.
We now know that his dodgy security companies that he paid millions of dollars, then underpaid overseas students to do the guarding.
Andrews' untrained guards then went and caught COVID from the travelers and spread the virus far and wide in our community undetected for weeks.
The madness didn't end there.
The government then allowed a massive Black Lives Matter rally here in Melbourne.
And shockingly, there was a mass outbreaks weeks later at a housing commission towers where numerous of the Black Lives Matter protesters live.
I'm no rocket scientist, but I think I got this one figured.
But in response, Andrews imposed another stage three lockdown for six weeks to re-flatten the curve, which in the 14-day incubation period got 10 times worse.
So he introduced compulsory masks.
Still, each and every day went by.
It was obvious they weren't helping at all.
So now, after blaming every other person, Dan Andrews has declared Victoria a state of disaster.
That essentially gives him even more power to, one, enforce his original state of emergency restrictions, and two, add and execute even more exceedingly harsh rules, including a freaking curfew.
I haven't had one of those since I was a kid.
So there will be a curfew across metropolitan Melbourne from 8 p.m. this evening and it will run from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. each and every day.
Meanwhile, Andrews still refuses to answer any questions relating to his hotel quarantine debacle that put us in this mess in the first place.
In fact, his judicial inquiry into what went wrong starts this week and guess who isn't appearing to answer?
Any questions?
That's right.
Dictator Dan or any of his ministers?
Imagine my shock.
With respect, those questions are being asked because the answers aren't there.
Because the answers are to be provided by the retired judge and the judicial inquiry.
I think that's the point that I'm trying as politely as I possibly can to make.
The truth is, we don't need to waste any more time or money on an inquiry.
Every sensible person has already figured it out.
Only idiots still believe a word that man utters these days.
And it's clear that this lockdown and curfew won't last only six weeks, just like it didn't take 15 days to flatten the curve with or without masks.
Who knows if they'll even manage to take back control from this outbreak or not.
The only thing for certain, this lockdown will cost livelihoods and lives of people already struggling to cope.
Spot on.
Now you can see all of Abby's work at TR.news.
I'm trying to arrange a time when he can join us via Skype, which is a bit hard because of all the time zones.
I want to talk to him what it's like living under martial law.
I've never known anyone who's lived under martial law since the Soviet era.
But check out some of these rules.
These are official rules published just insane.
Stay at home with a one-hour exception in 24 hours for exercise.
You know, that's exactly what Tommy Robinson lived under when he was in solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison.
He was allowed one hour a day out of his cell.
Hey, same in Australia.
And look at that.
Literally no visitors allowed.
At least Tommy Robinson could have visitors once a week at Belmarsh Prison.
Obviously all schools are cancelled, etc.
No weddings allowed, just none.
Sorry, guys.
The dictator says no weddings, so sorry.
Literally every place closed.
You can't even get into a car with someone else who does not live with you.
This story here from ABC, that's Australia's state broadcaster like the CBC.
They say that fines are actually as high as $20,000.
By next week, there will be 4,000 household visits by authorities every day.
An additional 500 Australian Defence Force troops will be joined by 750 Victoria police officers plus 300 extra health officials for widespread checks across the state.
Yeah, they're going to be spreaders, by the way, in case you're wondering.
They want to ensure that those issued with stay-at-home orders are remaining in their residences rather than sneaking out.
Yeah, sir, I got news for you, and I'm not an expert in anything, but I don't think you can treat people like this, not in a free society.
That's totalitarian.
Even the Soviets didn't live like this.
New restrictions on business and industry will come into force from 11.59 p.m. on Wednesday.
Employees in permitted industries will be required to carry a worker permit when traveling to and from their workplace.
With Melbourne under curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night, checks and enforcement will be carried out on public transport with the support of protective services officers.
The worker permit is a piece of paper.
Your employer fills it out.
They sign it.
You sign it, Mr. Andrews said.
You carry it with you.
And then you're able to demonstrate so there's not a sense of anxiety or a sense of having to tell your story 17 times.
Okay, so they acknowledge that they're creating a sense of fear and panic and insanity, enforced by soldiers, massive fines.
Yeah, this isn't going to end well.
Are they surprised that some people are snapping?
A young policewoman who was enforcing coronavirus restrictions in Melbourne's southeast has allegedly had her head repeatedly smashed into concrete paving during a confrontation with a woman who wasn't wearing a mask.
The 26-year-old constable was on patrol with another officer when they approached the 38-year-old and asked for her name about 5 p.m. near a shopping center in Frankston.
Yeah, I don't support smashing a cop, but you're going to see more of that.
Biological Attack Threat00:05:44
You treat citizens like prisoners.
They're literally getting the Australian prison authorities to enforce the thing here.
Don't be surprised if you get the odd prison riot.
You know, there's an old saying that no one in prison is guilty.
Just ask them.
But the fact is no one in Melbourne is guilty.
They haven't been tried or convicted of anything, but they're being sentenced to solitary confinement.
Melbourne's a city as big as Toronto and it's being turned into a giant prison cell.
Don't be surprised if they defy their guards a bit.
And all of this is happening because in the state of Victoria, 11 senior citizens in seniors' homes died from the virus.
Hey, how about we take every single senior out of every senior's home and don't put them in a jail?
Take them somewhere nice.
And give them each a nurse and lots of happy things, not banning them from visiting family, but facilitating visits.
Probably outdoors in the sun and fresh air.
It's Australia.
Don't turn an entire state into a prison.
I know that's how they do it in China, Dan Andrews' favorite place.
That's not how free countries do it.
Say, if Justin Trudeau and Teresa Tam and Patty Haidu ever decided to go full Mao Zedong on us here in Canada, do you really think that either the media party or the Conservative Party would even object?
I mean, they haven't objected so far, have they?
Stay with us for more.
Well, I'm always slightly amazed and delighted when our next guest makes time for us.
I say that because he is one of the most sought-after commentators on U.S.-China relations.
He's also a scholar who writes for our friends at the Gatestone Institute.
He has a new publication out there.
It's called China Seeds, a Biological Attack on America, a very curious development.
Without further delay, let me welcome back our friend Gordon G. Cheng, a must-follow on Twitter for all your China news.
Gordon, great to see you again.
Can you explain for us what are these mysterious seeds?
People in America, people in Japan, other countries have been receiving just seeds from China, a very strange gift.
I suppose the instinct is to plant them.
Why is China sending the world mysterious seeds and what happens if we plant them?
Well, thank you so much, Ezra.
And I'm always honored when you ask.
So thank you very much.
Oh, it's our pleasure.
These seeds, we don't know what's going on here, but this is a global issue because it's gone to all 50 states, gone to Canada.
As you mentioned, Europe, UK has got them, Japan.
And also, there's mystery soil in addition to the mystery seeds.
Someone in Taiwan got soil from China unsolicited.
Many people think that this is a brushing scam, you know, where people are sent goods unsolicited and then others write fake online reviews in order to boost popularity.
But there's really no evidence that this is brushing.
So we've got to be very concerned.
Even if there is an innocent explanation for all of this, and I don't think that there is, but even if there were, these seeds can be invasive.
They can cause damage to livestock.
They can harm and disrupt the environment.
We know that some of these seeds will cause weeds, and the Indiana Department of Agriculture is worried that that would severely restrict the soybean crop in that state.
So there's real concern.
And by the way, some of these seeds have purple coatings.
Could be insecticide, fungicide.
Who knows what those coatings are.
But we've all got to be concerned that this can really cause great damage to the recipient countries.
You know, I know you and I have talked before about Xi Jinping having a warlike stance towards the West, but it's not a hot shooting war.
It's an asymmetrical war.
It takes the form of cyber attacks, industrial espionage.
So the idea of a biological war against the agriculture of the West, it may seem shocking and like a black swan, something nobody thought of before, but it could fit with Xi Jinping's militaristic approach to the West.
Well, certainly.
We've known that for decades China has had a biological weapons program.
It was supposed to turn it to peaceful purposes when it ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, but it's given no evidence that it's done so.
The U.S. State Department's most recent report on weapons of mass destruction has a very pointed sector on China because it talks about China's dual-use research, which is probably a violation of the convention.
We know that Beijing in December and January of this year took steps that led inevitably to the spread of the coronavirus beyond China's borders.
So that was, in essence, a biological attack.
Therefore, we've got to be concerned that there are malicious motives behind these seeds in the soil.
Yeah.
We'll need some sort of scientific investigation.
I don't even know how one could determine the true nature of seeds.
Here's a picture I found on Twitter that claims to be someone in Japan who planted it, touched it, and whose hands swelled up.
Now, this could just be a rumor.
Concerns Over TikTok Surveillance00:08:54
This could be an internet prank, someone hoping to jump on the bandwagon.
But the fact that it, you know, one wonders if this is true, more research is necessary.
It's probably going to be very technical research done in Western labs because there may be some genetic modifications here that are not easily identifiable to the eye.
But let me move to another form of Chinese asymmetrical warfare, and that is the extremely popular social media app called TikTok.
Last I checked, TikTok is the number two most downloaded app in the world after WhatsApp, the communications tool.
Every young person I know is obsessed with it, addicted to it.
It's really a musical karaoke dance app, but Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have been talking seriously about banning it.
Can you give us an update on why they want to ban it and if that ban will actually happen?
Yeah.
People are concerned about what TikTok is doing.
It's been caught surveilling users.
Apple caught it twice this year, in April and in late June.
We know that TikTok has misused information on minors.
And there's also concerns that TikTok was used by China to inflame the George Floyd protest in the United States and maybe even trying to manipulate the political process in the U.S. in the run-up to the November 3 elections here.
Those are unconfirmed, but nonetheless, we should investigate them because there have been numerous, there's been numerous evidence pointing in that direction.
President Trump has said that he would ban TikTok, but he's also most recently said that he would give TikTok 45 days to come to a deal and to sell itself.
And Microsoft is in negotiations to buy TikTok in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.
We'll see how that goes.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which is an interagency panel, is also involved in those negotiations because of the sensitive national security implications.
There's one reason the administration doesn't give for banning TikTok, but I think it's the most fundamental one of all.
Ezra, American apps are not allowed in China.
So why are Chinese apps allowed in the U.S.?
This is an issue of reciprocity and fairness.
And for this reason alone, I think the president is right to ban TikTok.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Now, I think the company that owns TikTok is called ByteDance.
So theoretically, they would be selling this popular app to, let's say, Microsoft.
I don't know much about Microsoft these days, but I'm guessing that if they moved their servers to America and decoupled from China and made sure that there were Microsoft executives in the place of the old ByteDance executives, it seems to me that that could remove some of the threat.
It would deal with the reciprocity issue you just mentioned, and it would probably deal with the surveillance issue, although you never know.
Do you think that would be acceptable if ByteDance sold TikTok to Microsoft?
Do you think that would remove the critical nature of this?
Well, President Trump has indicated that that would be acceptable.
But there's one other thing that we would need to do, and that is to go through every line of code of TikTok software to make sure that nothing's embedded in it.
So this would really be a top-to-bottom investigation, and it just absolutely needs to do this because TikTok has been caught in unacceptable behavior.
Yeah, in a way, going through every line of code in an app is sort of like going through every line of genetic code in the seeds.
What you see on the outside may hide the true nature within the inside.
What a high-tech challenge.
Gordon, I want to give a quick shout out to your Twitter feed because I rely on you to give me the latest in U.S.-China and China-world relations, too.
Very much relevant to Canada.
So if you're not yet following Gordon on Twitter, please take a moment and go to Gordon G Cheng on Twitter.
It's a must-follow account if you care about the news.
One last question, if I may.
We've recently seen consulates in U.S. and China have a reciprocal closing.
The U.S. consulate in, I think it was Xi'an or Chengdu, I'm sorry, I think it's Chengdu, and then the Chinese consulate, I think it was in Houston, both closed.
I don't find this a bad thing.
I find it becoming more honest and more candid about the decoupling.
I mean, I'm sure it's inconvenient for a lot of people, but I actually think that reducing diplomatic relations and stopping the pretense that everything is normal, my hunch is that that's a healthy thing.
What's your opinion, Gordon?
You know, I agree with you, Ezra.
The Houston consulate was involved in spying.
There were a number of targets, including U.S. energy companies, because of their South China Sea connections.
Also, there are hints that it was spying on medical institutions trying to grab information about a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
There are suggestions that are unconfirmed that the Houston consulate was engaged in fueling through logistics and through financing the George Floyd protests.
Also, we know that that consulate was involved in Operation Fox Hunt, which is China's attempt to coerce people in the United States to return to China, and it was surveilling Chinese students in the U.S.
So there were many reasons for Secretary of State Pompeo to close the Houston consulate.
I'm really happy that he did so.
And by the way, yes, China closed our Chengdu consulate, but to me, that means many fewer American hostages or potential hostages in China.
So I'm not upset about the closure of the Chengdu consulate.
Yeah.
Well, and by the way, I think that everything you mentioned that was allegedly happening at the Chinese consulate in Houston, I am quite sure would be happening in Canada too, whether it's in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and of course in Ottawa.
So I hope we follow more closely the American approach, especially on Huawei.
I think Canada is alone amongst the five Eyes security network that is still dallying with Huawei.
I find that very concerning.
Gordon, there's so much I'd love to talk to you about, but I know your time is precious, so we'll say goodbye now.
Great to see you.
We follow you at Gordon Gicheng on Twitter.
We love to see what you do next, and I'd encourage everyone to read your essay on these mysterious seeds at the Gatestone Institute.
Great to see you, my friend.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Gordon Chi Cheng, what a smart guy.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue about mandatory vaccines.
Mike writes, I'll die before I take any vaccine.
Now, a pro-vaccine person would say, yes, you're going to.
But someone who is more skeptical would say, this is a disease that targets people average age of 85.
And if you're not living in a senior's home, your chance of contracting this disease and dying from it is markedly less than the annual flu season.
Maybe it's worth taking a vaccine, but I'm not sure if I would take a vaccine made in China, hastily rushed to market, just because politicians want me to take it.
I'm open to vaccines, by the way.
I just don't think I'm going to take a vaccine on a World Health Organization official pandemic that the World Health Organization and Trudeau's got every single thing wrong so far.
And there's so clearly a political agenda behind it.
Yeah, I'll wait a bit on this one.
Thanks.
Elizabeth writes, I have a feeling that you're going to be getting a vaccine whether you want one or not once you get thrown in jail.
Well, that's the weird thing is because all the governments in the West emptied their prisons of actual criminals claiming they were afraid of the virus.
And yet they put into jail, at least in some cases, people who didn't wear a mask.
I don't get that.
But yeah, I mean, Teresa Tam herself talked about it, handcuffing, jailing people, tracking them for not taking vaccines.
It's very much about control.
I'm not sure how much is actually about health.
Trudeau And Charities00:00:43
On my interview with Manny Montane Grino, Paul writes, of course, Trudeau will get away with the Wii scandal.
He paid good taxpayer money to the media party to look the other way.
Yeah, it's more than that.
You know, when Trudeau took office in 2015, one of the first things he did was suspend audits of charities because a lot of his friends' charities were being audited, including Gerald Butt's charity, which was called the World Wildlife Foundation.
I think Trudeau sort of sent a message to charities, do whatever you like, you will not be audited.
Is it any surprise that the more crooked ones took advantage?
Well, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.