Odd things have happened during our few days of living under a police state — what else can you call it? — here in Sydney, and while I managed to emerge unscathed from Chinatown yesterday it seems that the day before one of Miranda Devine’s best mates was swept up there by over-zealous boys and girls in blue. And what was the worst thing about it? Why, he isn’t even a Leb! The NSW Police are incapable of stopping the real criminals – the thugs who launched the 2005 revenge attacks on Cronulla, for instance. Furthermore, despite the fact the gigantic overkill was the result of Federal, State and City authorities working together, Miranda opines This is what happens when you appoint underwhelming neophytes, David Campbell as Police Minister and Andrew Scipione as Commissioner. It’s a sign of an emasculated, rudderless police force, with systemic small-man syndrome, acting like bullies in an attempt to cover up weakness, and chronic dysfunction.
I fully understand Miranda’s anger, of course, and think the whole episode was gross. As the news report said: Jailed for jaywalking. It is disgraceful that a man simply going to Yum Cha with his eleven-years-old son would be treated so brutally and have to spend close on 24 hours locked up. I trust he is talking to his lawyers.**
However, if he had been from Macquarie Fields, or was a testosterone-addled Lebanese, I don’t think Miranda would have been complaining…
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