John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog highlights the latest evidence of Australia going mad.

I used to think that Australians are a freedom-loving people, but that has turned out not to be true. Crocodile Dundee is dead; Pajama Boy now rules.

For many months, Australia has labored under one of the world’s most extreme, and most destructive, shutdown regimes. Its national and state governments have pursued the irrational dream of banning a virus from their shores. Good luck with that: it isn’t going to happen.

So, for the last year and more, Australia has been home to demonstrations, protests, and often extreme state responses to those demonstrations. Vaccine hysteria and masks are bad enough, but Australia actually has camps for people who have been exposed to covid. Not those who have contracted covid, but those who allegedly have been exposed.

The camp system has come into focus after a news story broke within the last few days. Three aborigine teenagers were confined to a camp because they allegedly had been exposed to covid. In fact, they tested negative for covid the day before they escaped. But they considered their confinement to be ridiculous and made a break for freedom. The government set up checkpoints on highways in response. …

… It is remarkable, in an allegedly free country, to say that “several wards” have “escaped” from a “government quarantine facility,” even though no one claims that they are sick or have done anything wrong. …

… God forbid that kids who might have been exposed to covid, but who tested negative, could have “any contact with members of the public.” Don’t take any chances, “chase [them] on foot,” and lock them up! …

… This might be the most depressing aspect of this story:

“I also want to point to the overwhelming compliance that we’ve had, given several hundred people have been placed into the Centre of National Resilience.” …

Is that an Orwellian name for a camp, or what?