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The largest Australian state has announced that it will rescind or refund thousands of fines imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Gateway Pundit reported, “The commissioner of Fines Administration rescinded 33,121 of the 62,138 Covid-related fines that had been issued…All penalties, including license suspensions, will be lifted. Refunds will be issued to those who have already paid.”
The announcement was made following a successful court challenge by two Sydney, Australia, residents who claimed their fines were invalid. The two residents argued in front of the New South Wales Supreme Court that “their fines were issued in such vague terms they could not be legally enforced,” according to the Daily Mail.
The hearing did not go ahead because the government conceded the fines were invalid, and the Commissioner of Fines Administration then withdrew 33,121 penalty notices.
Australian citizens were subject to some of the harshest lockdown enforcement penalties throughout the pandemic.
In the state of Victoria, residents were fined for leaving their homes and breaking state curfew orders. Police also began traveling door-to-door doing “welfare checks” on residents, where they were asked if they planned on leaving their homes and if they planned on attending anti-lockdown protests.
During one such protest, nearly 2,000 protesters in Melbourne marched in the city’s central business district, opposing the strict lockdown orders and vaccine mandates. Construction workers, who were ordered to comply with mandatory vaccinations or face termination, protested outside the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining, and Energy Union building.
Shortly following the protest, riot police swarmed the protesters and shot them with rubber bullets and pepper spray for being in violation of the government’s lockdown orders. Over 200 protestors were arrested by police.
In South Australia, the state developed an app to enforce lockdowns and quarantines. The app contacted residents at random and asked them to provide proof of their location within 15 minutes. If they failed to do so, they were arrested.
And in the Northern Territory of Australia, police arrested those who tried to escape from government-constructed Covid quarantine camps installed to keep people from escaping, as reported by the BBC.
