This week, a ‘voluntary assisted dying’ Bill will be presented to the NSW Parliament, following the recent passage of similar Bills in every other state. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is opposed to the Bill, as is, intriguingly, new Labor opposition leader Chris Minns. Both leaders will likely allow a conscience vote later this year or next.

Euthanasia is a vexed issue but the bottom line remains what it has always been: do we allow the state to sanction murder? And the key to how you approach this question can be found in the supposedly reassuring comments by the Independent (formerly Greens) MP pushing the Bill, Alex Greenwich, who claims that ‘we have the strongest safeguards for coercion, redress or people feeling any kind of pressure [to be killed].’ Really? As this week’s cover by Sarah

Roll up

Dudley and Ben Davis neatly points out, any discussion about euthanasia takes on a wholly different complexion when viewed in the light of Covid: have we really spent the last 18 months destroying our economy, ruining

people’s lives and livelihoods and causing myriad long-term health and mental health problems primarily to give the vulnerable elderly a few more months life on Earth only to turn around and now make it legal for them, or others, to take that life away? And as for protections against ‘coercion’ or undue pressure being applied, please don’t insult our intelligence and don’t make us laugh. Despite the Australian Immunisation Handbook and any number of international treaties that we are signatories to forbidding any kind of coercion or manipulation to force people to take a vaccine, that is precisely what is occurring to literally millions of otherwise vaccine-hesitant Australians who are reluctantly queuing up for the jab simply for fear of not regaining their stolen ‘freedoms’ or because otherwise they will lose their job.

In an exciting new development, The Spectator Australia has devoted this week’s entire magazine to the technological advances and fundamental changes in attitudes and ideas among our readers that are crucial if Australia is to reach the critical target of net zero emissions by 2050, or preferably sooner. We do this in the spirit not of political ideology or dogma but as a heartfelt, compassionate service to you our readers – to enlighten you, to help lift the blinkers and shackles of your own wilful ignorance and to guide you to the sunny uplands of climate compassion and an awakening of….

OK, ok, you get the gag. Sorry, we couldn’t resist it. This week the Murdoch tabloids launched a bizarre and cringe-

Rising seas

worthy campaign called ‘Mission Zero’, including a ludicrous 16-page wrap-around advertorial, no doubt to curry favour with the Morrison government by ‘selling’ the Liberal’s grotesque capitulation to ‘net zero emissions by 2050’. This betrayal of the people who put him in power will no doubt culminate in Mr Morrison prostrating himself before the high priests and priestesses of the climate cult in Glasgow in November. Timing is everything, and the uncanny timing of ‘Mission Zero’ exposes the laughable print campaign for what it is; not journalism, but propaganda. The good news: fish ’n’ chips shops (those that are still in business) across the land now have an additional 16 pages of pristine newsprint they can wrap their wares in, safe in the knowledge that no fingers have touched a single page of them.

News Corp is of course free to write and print whatever it likes, and if this peculiar and transparent volte-face translates into more satisfied readers and more subscriptions, then we wish them all the best. Conversely, those who feel this is a repugnant betrayal of their loyalty to these mastheads are of course free to look elsewhere for coverage on climate matters and energy that doesn’t take the form of patronising graphics, deliberate omissions (such as failing to mention Thatcher’s repudiation of global warming) or childish sloganeering. Indeed, why not snap up a subscription to The Speccie if you haven’t already – this magazine may well be the last island of refuge in the rising seas of climate hysteria, hypocrisy and betrayal.

the spectator australia | 16 october 2021 | www.spectator.com.au

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