Is Chris Minns channeling Donald Trump?

It took two Labor leaders to help engineer Monday night’s violence in Sydney, proving Labor is not immune to the Trumps’ touch, writes Michael Pascoe.

NSW Premier Chris Minns would have you believe he doesn’t know one side of Sydney from the other. Protesters wanted to move away from Herzog’s location. That’s not the impression Minns gives.

This adds to the Trump-like concealment and denial of the violence he caused at the anti-Herzog demonstration in Sydney on Monday night.

He also suggested, in a Trump-like manner, that perhaps the public should not believe video evidence of a man with his hands up being repeatedly punched by police.

I expect the Labor Prime Minister to support Tony Abbott’s ideas. SMH:

“Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday that police who punched protesters should be commended and that future demonstrations should have police officers armed with tear gas and rubber bullets to counteract the pro-terrorist protests we have seen so often.”

Minns’ prayer for failure

NSW police hierarchy failed spectacularly By allowing a neo-Nazi rally to take place outside the Houses of Parliament in November.

Hierarchy failed tragically ($)Appallingly, on December 14, he refused a request for extra police at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in December, despite being told he was “high risk given its size, location and profile”.

The few petty officers on regular patrol duty at Bondi, and those who responded quickly from further afield, performed bravely and well; a tribute to force and selfless policing, but PM Minns is responsible for the hierarchy, not the ranks.

It’s a little late for Minns and said hierarchy to try to make up for their failures by acting tough and tough on pro-Palestinian protesters.

just as the local Israel lobby wants.

A geography lesson

To explain the issue for those like Minns who don’t know the geography of the Sydney CBD, the Prime Minister said: requested police had to keep City Hall protesters separate from 7,000 people attending the Herzog event at the International Convention Center in Darling Harbour.

To achieve this, police had to stop protesters marching toward Parliament House, a march prohibited under Minns’ anti-protest laws enacted for Herzog’s visit, Minns said.

ICC is 700 meters west of City Hall. The Parliament House is 1,100 meters northeast of the City Hall.

Marching to Parliament House would take protesters 1,800 meters from the ICC, a 27-minute walk according to Google Maps.

So, acting under orders, police attacked, pepper-sprayed, punched and trampled protesters to force them south towards Central Station.

Minns’ view of the subsequent violence was summed up by his reaction to clear video evidence showing a not-young, well-built man with his hands up being brutally attacked by police: “I would like to urge everyone not to look at a 10-second clip without the full context of the circumstances surrounding last night’s clashes.”

Why stop there?

Why not go all in on Kristi Noem and claim she is a terrorist?

The Prime Minister was moving in that direction in State Parliament on Wednesday, labeling those punched, pushed and trampled as “agitators” rather than protesters.

That probably included 76-year-old James Ricketson. caught ($) City Hall is cordoned off by police on the way to the train station. Instead, injured and assaulted, he remained in custody for five hours before being released without charge.

According to the police minister and commissioner, Prime Minister Minns, this was all good police work.

Weak coverage by mainstream media

Media coverage of the violence at the time was poor, beyond images, and soon became predictably partisan, with the usual suspects.

For the main newspaper out of Murdoch Sydney, initial coverage largely covered various allegations from police, politicians and protesters; which did not fulfill the journalistic principle: “If someone says it’s raining and someone else says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote either one.”

It’s your job to look out the window and figure out which one is right.

But early Tuesday afternoon SMH ($) He managed to take action by reporting what his reporters saw.

What’s notable is that, other than one protester biting a police officer’s thumb and then getting punched hard for the issue, the reporters covering the story didn’t actually see violence against police, but they did see a lot of police violence against protesters.

Not that Chris Minns would care. There might be raw onions somewhere waiting to be eaten.

Albanese’s role

To be fair, Minns’ performance is an afterthought, a sophomoric reaction to events only partially of his own making.

During these few days, every punch, every protest, every insult and attack received, every angry headline in one way or another,

It is the responsibility of only one person: Anthony Albanese.

It was his decision, and his alone, to pay Herzog an official visit. To hear him say in the Federal Parliament that this is the Governor-General’s job is an insult to the intelligence of the country. Sky News commentators.

It is hard to imagine anyone too stupid to imagine the inevitable consequences of such an invitation to appease a small but powerful lobby group that sees only the positive side of denigrating Israel’s critics. On this basis, they are among the winners with the most press coverage.

Is Albanese that stupid or just doesn’t care?

My suspicion, without any scientific basis, is that much of the Australian Labor Party regards the Herzog state visit as a very regrettable mistake.

This doesn’t matter as “ALP” now appears to represent the Albanian Workers’ Party.

This was planned. And Chris Minns owns it.