It’s becoming more and more obvious that last week’s neo-Nazi gatecrash of the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne was a grubby, politically-motivated stitch-up.
From the very moment the LARPing edgelords in their silly masks were ushered through the police cordon and allowed to do their ooh, so edgy Heil Hitler salutes, it’s been obvious that something was up. The Australian Jewish Association, defending Kellie-Jay Keen and Let Women Speak, were just one group to question police actions.
There was some very odd policing. While the Victorian police held back the trans activists who arrived to disrupt the rally, they did not do the same to the Nazis. Rather they seemed to facilitate their entry to where the women’s rally was taking place on parliament steps.
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Now a leading barrister — who, in 2015 was raised to the level of “Legend” by the Victorian Bar — has raised the threat of legal action against police.
Leading criminal barrister Remy van de Wiel, KC, has written to chief commissioner Shane Patton, putting him on notice over the vile ‘heil Hitler’ salutes.
In a letter obtained by the Herald Sun, Mr van der Wiel says the police’s failure to halt the hate act amounts to a breach of a legal agreement signed off by former police chief Christine Nixon in 2008.
“Victoria Police’s decision to enable the neo-Nazis to engage in unlawful conduct and the subsequent failure by Victoria Police command to charge those officers who so allowed that conduct with a breach of discipline, amounts to a breach of the Deed of the Release,” he says.
The deed of release was part of a confidential settlement reached with a victim of crime following a years-long legal battle over police failure to act.
It included an agreement that police would be ordered to report all racially or religiously motivated incidents and determine any offences that may have been committed.
The edict was formalised in a Chief Commissioner’s Instruction to police officers in 2008. The original order expired after 12 months, but was updated and incorporated into the Victoria Police Manual.
In a letter to chief commissioner Shane Patton and Daniel Andrews this week Mr van de Wiel, KC, accused police of breaching the Deed of Release.
“I am deeply concerned by the decision of Victoria Police to allow neo-Nazis … to march and protest on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House on 18 March 2023 and make repeated public heil Hitler salutes,” he wrote.
“The executed Deed of Release obliged Victoria Police, through the Chief Commissioner, to issue an instruction to all members of Victoria Police obliging them ‘to uphold and enforce the rights of all people in Victoria not to be subjected to unlawful discrimination on grounds such as race, religion, sexual preference or gender’.
“The Deed of Release explicitly states that ‘a breach of this new Instruction would constitute a disciplinary offence’. Victoria Police’s decision to enable the neo-Nazis to engage in unlawful conduct and the subsequent failure by Victoria Police command to charge those officers who so allowed that conduct with a breach of discipline, amounts to a breach of the Deed of the Release.”
Herald Sun
A Victoria Police spokesperson claims that “the priority of police was to ensure safety and prevent violence”. Which begs the question of why they ever let the violent trans activists, who punched police horses, attacked women, and spat and screamed abuse, anywhere near the perfectly legal Let Women Speak rally. Nor, indeed, why they failed to prevent the presence of groups notorious for their violence, such as Antifa and Socialist Alternative.
Police were also notified before the rally that social media chatter indicated that local neo-Nazis would try to gate-crash the rally.
Something Victoria Police were apparently too willing to facilitate.
Such is Dan Andrews’ Victoria.