Federal MP Craig Kelly has slammed Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, branding him a “sociopath” after footage emerged of Police officers confiscating an Australian flag during the September 5, Freedom Day rally.
The footage begins just before Victorian Police officers spotted the man who was carrying a flag pole with an Australian and a United States flag.
“Take that flag and get out of here,” Police can be heard yelling at the man as they approached.
“Move the flag and go,” the officer said again after threatening to fine the man if he does not comply.
The officer then instructs his team to “Take the flag off him.”
Officers are then seen ripping the flag from the man’s hands before shoving him away.
“My blood is boiling,” Kelly said in a Facebook post that included the video of the incident.
“Never in my lifetime did I expect to see ‘authorities’ forcibly prevent someone from peacefully flying an Australian flag in a public area and confiscate it off them.
“Watch this video and you’ll feel sick in [the] stomach as Dictator Dan’s militia spot someone unravelling an Australian flag, and how this incites them (like a bull that sees a red flag) and they call out ‘get the flag, get the flag off him’ as they pull the flag down and confiscate it.
“Don’t they know that our flag is [a] sacred object?” Kelly went on to ask.
“I would suggest that, given our Australian Constitution has an implied right to free political communication – that that also includes the right to carry and display an Australian flag in a public area.
“The founders of our Constitution will be rolling in their graves tonight, wondering how a mad sociopath took control of a state, and that citizens were having their Australian flags confiscated.”
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