Australia's Soft Launch of Authoritarianism
“Those who object to the erosion of civil liberties and increasing control are being called un-Australian, un-democratic, far right and deeply misguided. It’s a play taken directly from the dictator’s handbook”
Tony Morley, September 28th, 2026
“The freedom of speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter. ” — George Washington, Newburgh Address, 1783
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Tony Morley
Australia's Soft Launch of Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism rarely manifests overnight, with citizens going to bed in the evening and waking to the sound of marching jackboots and banners bearing the new dictator's face flying in the streets. Rather, the decline into authoritarianism is often slow and deliberately measured, arriving as a steady series of reasonable-sounding bills, designed to restrict freedoms and impose control incrementally.
The bills come packaged in the language of safety, security, the protection of children, the fight against bigotry, the reduction of harm, and the prevention of hate. Bills, often prepared with little public review, and passed by the Senate in the dead of night. The Online Safety Act 2021, the proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill, and the Digital Duty of Care legislation are part of a larger plan to distract from the mismanagement of the country, and stifle the objection of its people.
In Australia, the advance of authoritarianism has been marked by a steady stream of legislation, and government posturing that has been intentionally hostile to general liberty and freedom, or at the very least, woefully negligent and indifferent to the liberty of Australians.
Those who object to the erosion of civil liberties and increasing control are being called un-Australian, un-democratic, far right and deeply misguided. It’s a play taken directly from the dictator’s handbook, repackage dissent as national extremism and legislate against it, a pre-emptive move to silence those opposing government coercion before their voices gain traction.
“Those who object to the erosion of civil liberties and increasing control are being called un-Australian, un-democratic, far right and deeply misguided. It’s a play taken directly from the dictator’s handbook”
Since being elected in early 2022, the Labor government under Anthony Albanese has ramped up surveillance and control, clamped down on liberty, and told the average punter, with unwavering bureaucratic confidence, that the Labor government knows better than you how you should live your life.
Governments consistently reach for the levers of control, not from a place of strength and prosperity, but from a position of weakness and decline. And the record here is quite clear. The tighter a government clamps down on personal and economic freedom, the more the economy declines, and the poorer the country, and subsequently its people, become. Milton Friedman documented this relationship across dozens of economies: political freedom and economic freedom are not merely correlated — they are mutually dependent. Stifle freedom, and you stifle the prosperity of the people.
It comes as no great surprise that as the economic situation in Australia continues to decline, and the disquiet at falling standards of living grows, Labor has reached deeper into the Orwellian toolkit of authoritarianism.
The Albanese government have plunged the country into economic decline, negative growth, and skyrocketing debt that has climbed from roughly $50 billion in 2006 to over a trillion dollars just two short decades later. According to the Institute of Public Affairs, the Australian government may not return to a budget surplus until 2046, running an outstanding debt that may stretch until 2080. A child born today may well be approaching retirement age at 54 years old, by the time the government returns from the abyss of debt. To put the scale of this fiscal failure into perspective: Australia now carries more government debt per capita than at any point in its peacetime history — and we are being asked to believe that the same government driving this decline is competent to arbitrate what is and is not objective truth.
Relentless government spending, rising taxes, unmanaged inflation, and falling purchasing power are the fruits of a government running a country for the glorification and survival of government, not the service and benefit of its people.
Australians are living through an escalating cost-of-living crisis, with families struggling to pay for accommodation, food, and energy. A country gripped by unchecked inflation, climbing debt, falling productivity, and the very real prospect of recession and a notable fall in living standards, and yet — Labor is at the helm, pushing full speed ahead on the big issues: climate policy, the Digital Duty of Care, and policing free communication. Labor is driving falling living standards and democratic backsliding in parallel, while pronouncing it a job well done; and then policing communication that contests their proclamation of success.
When the government have the power to rule on what is and isn’t “misinformation”, when the government create systems that control what you can say, what you can post, what you can read — free expression declines, gradually replaced by self-censorship and a monopoly on permitted reality; scripted according to the regime in power. History offers us no example of a government that acquired the power to define and manage truth, and then subsequently used that power to better the lives of everyday people. Not one.
If we can agree that governments tend to treat their citizens as a tax base to be exploited, and I’d argue they do, then it follows that the chief tendency of government is to extract the most resources from their people, with the least outcry and unrest. And when they can’t prevent outcry, they first restrict who can hear it, and then ultimately, whether it’s even legal to express protest. Labor is building the legal infrastructure to manage dissent, and preemptively shape the narrative of Australian discourse. They’re not even trying to hide it. When asked by 3AW radio host Neil Mitchell in August 2023, “You are dictator for five years. What do you do? What’s your first act?”, Albanese replied in part, “If I could do something, maybe ban social media, would be handy.”
What is democracy if not the unionisation of citizens in the election of leaders, and the selection of priorities, in accordance with the wants and needs of the people. What is Labor’s attack on free speech and free communication if not union-busting writ large. It is increasingly effective control over our collective ability to shape the nature and direction of our culture, economy, and the very nation itself.
Australia’s declining freedom and liberty are not the product of accident, but of design. It is the natural outcome of a political philosophy that has little to no trust in individuals to make decisions about their own lives, their own money, their own speech.
While it remains available, the public forum is the last place everyday Australians can fight for the free marketplace of ideas, advocating the case for a freer Australia, one governed by the people, for the people. Labor appears to have forgotten that government is enacted and sustained to serve the people, not to coerce the people into the service of government.
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