Victoria Burns as Jacinta Fails to Unify Citizens

If you’ve lived in Victoria long enough, you know Melbourne can do protest culture better than most cities. Marches have always been part of the civic rhythm here with unions, climate, wars, lockdowns, rights campaigns. The point is usually to be heard — loudly, visibly, sometimes inconveniently — but ultimately within a shared understanding that public order holds.

Lately, though, that shared understanding has felt shakier. Not because Victorians have suddenly become more politically engaged, but because more demonstrations are tipping into confrontation.

Rival groups turning up for the same event, police lines separating crowds and the kind of scuffles that make the rest of the city feel like a bystander to someone else’s rage. The question many people are asking is simple. Is this just a run of volatile weekends, or is Victoria drifting into a new normal of street level violence and is Premier Jacinta Allan’s government meeting the moment?

The Disruptive Pattern that is leading to total breakdown

One of the most visible flashpoints in 2025 has been a series of anti immigration rallies and counter rallies in Melbourne’s CBD. In October, the ABC reported tensions flaring as opposing groups took to the streets again with two Victoria Police officers hospitalised after unrest.

That matters because it signals a shift in our state. the story isn’t only the cause being protested, but the clashes between communities who increasingly see each other as enemies rather than neighbours. Reporting around these events has described police attempting to keep groups apart while projectiles are thrown and brawls erupt at key CBD intersections.

And when governments talk about “a small minority” causing trouble, they’re not wrong but that minority is now skilled at hijacking attention, pulling moderate participants into chaotic scenes and leaving the broader public with a sense that the centre cannot hold, nor can the leader of our state and her words are ignored by the masses (the first sign of a failed government).

When police deploy “public order” tactics, it becomes political

As these confrontations escalated, the state’s response has become part of the controversy. After October’s unrest the ABC reported the police minister defending the use of rubber bullets and pepper spray to “maintain the peace.”. For many Victorians, that’s confronting on two levels. First, because it’s a visible sign of volatility; and second, because “maintaining peace” can quickly become a debate over proportionality, rights, and whether the state is policing behaviour or policing dissent.

This is the tension Allan’s government has struggled to navigate. Cracking down risks inflaming grievances; doing too little risks normalising intimidation and street violence. Either way, public confidence erodes. A leaders role when it comes to their people is compassion and understanding, instead Jacinta is meeting the people who voted her government in, with force and violence which sees protestors escalation their use of force.

The person shot by a rubber bullet today, returns with friends and projectiles tomorrow as they now see an enemy of their state. So continues the cycle of violence.

Jacinta Allan's Strategy: Militarisation of Police

The city protestors aren't the only location where we are seeing a heavy handed Jacinta, farmers raising concerns of fertile land being confiscated to run powerlines through their crops. They have raised many concerns but as confirmed by the Prime Minister. Their concerns haven't been listened to.

Jacinta Allan just changed legislation giving police more powers and sent them into the farmers lands and deployed them across the streets. This move only causes more resentment from the community and something that, George Orwell's 1984 serves as a stark warning about.

The dangers of increased and unchecked police power, illustrating how it leads to a totalitarian state where individual freedoms are obliterated and fear is the primary method of control. The "Thought Police" in the novel are the ultimate symbol of this oppressive authority.

You don't have to look too hard and far to see Jacinta Allan's Government is fast becoming a totalitarian state.

Either way, it isn't a long stroke of the brush to see our state is falling apart and there is a reason behind it. Jacinta Allan has been unable to lead the people, to inspire hope, to provide the people with what they need today. A shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen and someone who makes the right decisions.

It is leaders like Jacinta that give women a bad wrap in politics and blocks more good women leaders from coming forward. Jacinta should read the room and retire before our state crumbles to nothing.

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