By Patrick Staveley, Digital Reporter.
Author and retired journalist John Stapleton has spoken of his disbelief in how state governments reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting Australians have lost trust in them.
Retired news reporter John Stapleton has released an explosive new book, Australia Breaks Apart, slamming the country’s “deranged” pandemic response and his fears of history repeating itself.
The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented in Australia, statewide lockdowns were enforced across the country and residents were hit with restrictions on when and why they could leave their houses while some families were also prevented from seeing each other due to border closures.
Stapleton appeared on Chris Kenny Tonight to discuss the timely release of his new book, as the host renewed calls for a royal commission into COVID-19.
The author said “it was one of those things, you couldn’t make this up” that the rules and restrictions imposed on Australians during the pandemic were established with no “medical evidence”.
“A simple question was where’s the medical evidence, what advice are you acting on and they all refused to release it. There was no medical evidence, they were just acting that way because they could”, Stapleton said.
Author John Stapleton has released his book Australia Breaks Apart which delves into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Picture: Sky News Australia
He said the rules brought in across the country were “mind-blowingly complex” and “induced a kind of societal anxiety and fear”, claiming many Australians may have completely lost trust in the government.
“One of the takeaways from the book is if they could do it once, they could do it again and a lot of the laws that were in place then are still in place. They could do this all over again,” he said.
“When you look forward, how is anyone going to trust the government again after this, it’s a serious question the government has to answer.”
Chris Kenny agreed the snap decisions made by state and federal government were done on “so little evidence, so little cost-benefit analysis, so little public debate”.
“I don’t think most people realised they had those powers and effectively just taking control of the states under the pandemic powers, the emergency powers,” Kenny said.
“I think a lot of people were surprised that the state governments had these powers, these emergency powers, they were slapped on before anybody actually really understood those legislative powers but the thing is subsequently we’ve learned from a lot of medical experts that they say the lockdowns were the wrong approach and that all the evidence suggests we did more harm to ourselves than good.”
Stapleton said the effects of the pandemic are still being dealt with today for many people in Australia.
“People are still struggling to this day – still dealing with the fines…the consequences that flow on, still dealing with children who’ve lost so much of their education,” he said.
“It’s easy to move on as people understandably want to move on but you’ve got vaccine-injured, businesses being destroyed, if your children are damaged from the lockdowns, school absences…it’s a bit more difficult to move on and forgive and forget.”
The book Australia Breaks Apart is out this week.
It’s blurb refers to the period of 2020 to 2022 as a time where Australia was “gripped by a madness which was spiritual, administrative, political, social and judicial in its dimensions”.
FOR BOOKSTORES
The book is available through the Ingram Catalogue at 40% trade discount.
FOR ORDERS OF ONE CARTON OR MORE
A CARTON IS 12 BOOKS
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$AUS 228.31
Rush Service – Usually prints in 1 business day
$AUS 284.35
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FOR INDIVIDUAL BUYERS
The book is slowly becoming available at most major online outlets, and will go up across multiple platforms over the next 30 days.
The price currently varies enormously, as is not uncommon in the first few days of a title going live.
The single cheapest way to see the book is on Kindle. In America it is priced at $US 6.15. The Australian website price for Kindle is $AUS 9.16.
The paperback edition is currently $43.99 through Amazon.
Ignore the rather alarming $96 price tag at the top and click on the button immediately below tabbed “Other New”.
It has also become available at Australia’s largest online bookstore Booktopia. Paperback edition is currently $48.36 and their eBook edition is $10.99.
Video also linked in The Australian here.