You’d think Scott Morrison couldn’t possibly be more infuriating after inexplicably saying how Australia doesn’t have a history of slavery, but he somehow managed to do it after playing the double standards card in criticising the Black Lives Matters protests for ignoring COVID-19 health advice.
The GOAT team talk about the George Floyd protests, Black Lives Matter, and how you can help while in Australia on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
During yet another rambling COVID-19 Australia update presser (via The Guardian), Scott Morrison wasn’t too happy about the many thousands of people who blatantly ignored his advice by rocking up to all those Black Lives Matter protests the other weekend and decided to call double standards on those who attended for risking everyone’s health.
“The medical advice is that this is an unsafe thing to do. It puts not only your own health at risk, but it puts other people’s lives at risk. It puts the – in economic terms because of the risk of a way that could come from these events, it puts the livelihoods of other Australians at risk, people’s businesses. The very clear message is that people should not attend those events because it is against the health advice to do so.
“And so I would strongly encourage people to exercise that responsibility by not attending those events and respect their fellow Australians by … seeking to express those in another way.
“This is not about the issue that people are raising; this is about people’s health and welfare and I would urge Australians to respect that by not attending those events.”
Jesus, where to begin with this one.
No one is denying that COVID-19 is still something to be worried about in Australia or that it’s a big health risk to host one of these big protests. It’s just that hearing Scott Morrison calling the Black Lives Matter protests a health advice “double standard” shows not only how hypocritical he is but it makes it clear whose lives matter most to Scotty.
Case in point: when idiotic COVID-19 protesters put on those ridiculous anti-lockdown demonstrations, Scotty responded with a flippant “It’s a free country.” He was also pretty cool with getting people back into stadiums for big sporting events.
While we’re on the topic of double standards, it’s also worth pointing out that Scott Morrison ignored NSW COVID-19 health advice and lockdown rules when he moved his family from Sydney to Canberra.
So what’s changed, Scotty?
This “double standards” thing seems to be a new talking point of Scott Morrison’s because he’s trotted it out a number of times over the past week when talking about the Black Lives Matters protests, all without a touch of irony.
It’s just really interesting to see how Scotty’s tune changes so dramatically depending on who is doing the protesting. White, far-right protesters get the “free country” comments while progressive, Black Lives Matter and Indigenous protesters get labeled as “double standards” and threatens to charge them for attending rallies.
But hey, we should be used to this sort of inconsistent messaging from Scott Morrison by now.
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