DEAR News Of The Area,

REFERRING to the recent article published this month regarding the community meeting at Nambucca organised by Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA), it should be noted that anybody who bothers to look up the RDA website can see that this group is far less concerned with democracy and more concerned with spreading misinformation and promoting conspiracy theories.

The website is awash with an array of emotionally charged rhetoric and visuals to evoke people’s grievances of the COVID pandemic and thus lull the naïve and the delusional into a false sense of belonging.

Early in August, ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) raised the national terror threat to ‘probable’ due to a rise of extremism across the political and ideological spectrum.

At first glance the headlines could be taken to suggest that this was due to the current issues arising from the conflict in Gaza, however Mike Burgess (Director of ASIO) clearly states that the “decision was not related to the war in Gaza and broader tensions in the Middle East”.

He also said that “this trend increased during COVID” and that “provocative inflammatory behaviours are being normalised” and “trust in institutions are eroding”.

These statements would therefore indicate that the terrorist threat is more likely directed at anti-establishment groups aligned with narratives such as those of RDA.

Further to this, RDA is focused on isolating Australia from the World Health Organization (WHO) which is a very short-sighted view regardless of any woes one might have of its functionality.

The WHO has been criticised for failures in its response to COVID, however it was the response and mandates of the Australian federal and state governments of the time that ultimately affected our lives, and in the post-pandemic period it has become nothing more than a ‘blame game’ amongst political parties rather than having a constructive conversation to understand how we could do things better.

Only last week the Director-General of the WHO declared the Mpox outbreak in Africa a public health emergency of ‘international concern’, which highlights the very reason that we should be working proactively with this important body rather than advocating for dissension.

Giving credit where credit is due, the topics of keeping cash alive and digital identification do have merit, although the statement made by the Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan regarding the latter is drawing a longbow in assuming that storing personal information online is comparable to a society described in George Orwell’s novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ in which people live in a dystopian world controlled by an ever-watching all-seeing totalitarianism government.

The irony is that the biggest critics of online information storage are the biggest users of social media platforms to disseminate their message to the masses.

Cyber security is as important as both national security and health security, but if we are to be connected online then there is always going to be the need for providing personal details to do so.

We don’t live in 1984, we live in 2024, and with that comes challenges to a technological lifestyle.

Regarding the other topics discussed such as cost of living, immigration, housing, and the gender identity debate, these I am sure will be much deliberated upon as we move closer towards the coming federal election.

Democracy burns bright in Australia already. We don’t need to reignite it with conspiracy theories.

Regards,
Adam FULLER,
Mid North Coast.