Scott Morrison accused of Trump-like remarks on Victoria protests

Labor frontbencher Ed Husic has accused the prime minister of trying to establish “some sort of moral equivalency like what we saw with Donald Trump at Charlottesville”.

His comments come after Morrison told reporters he had “no tolerance” for violent, anti-government protests when asked about sustained civil unrest in Victoria.

But the prime minister said it was now time for “Australians to take their lives back” and for governments to wind down pandemic management.

Husic told the ABC he was “stunned” and “alarmed” by Morrison empathising with community frustration at a time when rising extremism “represents a threat to democracy – where people will cross the line beyond protests to violence and … threaten parliamentarians in the conduct of their duty”.

The Labor frontbencher said when protests involved people wielding nooses it was not a time for “political messaging to be woven in”.

“I just think it’s wrong and it’s something I have been concerned about … for a couple of years now and have been saying post-Christchurch – this is something we need to take on,” Husic said.

“The minute an Australian’s life is threatened … you deal with this strongly, firstly, in terms of force of law, and secondly, you need to do the patient work behind the scenes in terms of deradicalisation and working out how to defuse this”.

A pandemic management bill introduced by Victoria’s Andrews government has triggered significant and sustained protests in Melbourne. Demonstrators have compared the Victorian premier to Hitler and one demonstration included a gallows prop, protesters posing with nooses, and chants of “Hang Dan Andrews”.

The Age has reported that counterterrorism officials have charged a Victorian man who encouraged anti-lockdown protesters to bring firearms to parliament and kill Andrews, and are continuing to investigate other alleged extremists involved in the protests.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney on Thursday, Morrison said Australia was “a civil, peaceful society” where disagreements were not handled with violence.

He said disputes needed to be ventilated respectfully “no matter how frustrated people might be”. Morrison said he did not support state Liberals endorsing the protests or associating themselves with extremist messaging.

But Morrison also declared it was time for the governments of Australia to allow people to make their own choices.

The prime minister said Australians had “done an amazing job” during the coronavirus pandemic “but now it’s time for governments to step back and for Australians to take their lives back.”

“Over the last couple of years, governments have been telling Australians what to do,” Morrison said.

“Now there has been a need for that as we have gone through the pandemic, but the time is now to start rolling all of that back.”

“We now have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, we have one of the strongest economies to come through the pandemic and we have one of the lowest fatality rates from Covid in the world.”

Morrison on Thursday dissociated his government from measures such as vaccine mandates, even though the commonwealth sought a vaccination mandate for aged care workers.

The prime minister said apart from very limited circumstances, “We aren’t in favour of mandatory vaccines imposed by the government.”

“Businesses can make their own choices on the law but we aren’t about telling Australians what to do,” the prime minister said. “Vaccines only are mandatory in cases where you’ve got health workers that are working with vulnerable people.”

Morrison said as the proportion of Australians being vaccinated headed for 80%, “Australians can have their lives back”

“They should be able to go to get a cup of coffee in Brisbane, when you’re over 80%, regardless of whether you’ve had the vaccines or not.”

The contentious Victorian legislation is intended to replace the state of emergency legislation underpinning the state’s public health response.

But the disgraced former Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek has revealed he intends to torpedo the proposal.

The NSW government this week also considered a proposal for some emergency powers to be extended – but that extension was delayed after a party room backlash.