These last 5 months have been an interesting time for humanity. The only real way of describing it would be simply; The deep breath before the plunge, the world tensing itself before a rapid, unplanned descent into chaos. 

Or else it would be except for the fact that our resident potato farmer, Monsieur Dutton, appears to have jumped early and landed in a deep puddle of sewerage of his own making, by claiming that peaceful protest is the same as the Port Arthur Massacre. Let's break down how we got here: 

Ever since his very thinly veiled election campaign which we knew as the No Vote won, he's committed to summoning himself back into the public consciousness every few weeks with some reactionary nonsense; be it demanding Australians boycott Woolworths over not selling cheaply made Chinese plastic with the flag on it, to actively supporting anti-climate change conspiracy theories and rubbishing renweable energy in order to boost the push for nuclear power in Australia, to falsely claiming the Albanese government had made cuts to border security, when in fact Border Force had recieved $252m more in funding. 

On all of these occasions and more, Dutton was able to push his side of things with only minimal resistance from anyone who knew better, and consequently his rhetoric grew more aggressive and frequent, and his popularity (Particularly amongst the far right) grew steadily, even amidst the revelations of his shelling the taxpayer 6 grand to go to Gina Rinehart's birthday and committing to dumping laws that protect Australian workers if elected as Prime Minister. 

But despite it all, I suspected that eventually he would grow too confident, would stick his neck out too far and say something not even the Coalition could stand behind. And here we are. 

Characterising an entirely peaceful Pro Palestinian protest as being equal to the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history, then demanding that people who don't 'Subscribe to Australian values' leave or be deported.

This will probably be the most heinous thing to come out of Voldemort's mouth this whole year for a number of reasons, not in the least the tremendous disrespect to the families of the 35 people killed at Port Arthur for no sake other than some minor political point scoring, but it is hardly unexpected.

 The Coalition have a history of gross insensitivity in their political speech, Dutton being one of the worst for it. His comments on Wednesday also broadly align with their beliefs and goals as a party; Being anti freedom of political expression, anti minorities, and pushing anti labour sentiment using hyper sensationalised rhetoric with violent connotations to create divisions that can then be exploited. 

With this oration, i surmise we have been given a rare and honest look into how a Dutton led government would be, and it is a dark prospect indeed. Politicians undermining the foundation stones of democracy as casually as you or I might order lunch from Mc Donald's, demonising and likely criminalising any protest or other political expression that doesn't line up with Right Wing doctrine, cascading eventually into state sponsored extra legal conduct against minority groups the Coalition doesn't approve of. If you find this a bit far, consider that these conclusions are drawn near verbatim from the man's own words. They're all but shouting their future crimes for all to hear, and it's time we listened. 

Dutton and his ilk have come out and said stuff like this before and they will again. Outrage is an essential part of the Coalition's engagement strategy. This time however, and every time going forward, he must be met with unanimous and total resistance, to make it clear that using unspeakable tragedy to further political goals and assist the dehumanisation of an ethnic group is no longer acceptable in our society. 

And if we don't, if we can stand by and blithely accept opinions that even members of the Liberal party consider to have crossed a line as being legitimate political discourse, then I don't think it's a stretch to say that we are lost as a country.

But we can take steps to fight that outcome. Share this petition widely, so more people understand the threat we now face, be outspoken against Dutton and his reactionary nonsense wherever it arises, take steps to help deradicalise those who he's fooled, and in time, his momentum against our society will be stopped for good.