RIP, freedom movement 2020-22

After years of predicting that the Victorian election would be the culmination of a people’s revolution to wrest control of the state from Premier Dan Andrews, a near-negligible election showing has put what could be the final nail in the coffin of Australia’s anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine freedom movement. 

The movement’s major figures and groups are now struggling — or in some cases refusing — to accept the reality that they represent an already-fringe minority whose support and relevance are fading even further.

Parties affiliated with the freedom movement barely registered in the count for Victoria’s lower house. The conspiracist Freedom Party has won less than 2% of the vote so far, with other similar groups like the Angry Victorians Party and the Health Australia Party trailing far behind.

The upper house looks to be no different. Catherine Cumming, an active participant in Victoria’s freedom protests while serving as an MP, looks set to lose her seat. 

For all the noise in the seat of Mulgrave — which became ground zero for the war on Andrews — the premier easily retained his seat on first preferences, even with a swing against him. 

While signs were pointing towards the Australian freedom movement’s collapse earlier this year, the movement’s leaders promised victory up until polling day. Victoria has been the heartland of the movement since the state’s strict, extended lockdowns. When this failed to eventuate, online communities for freedom, anti-vaccine and broader conspiracy movements were filled with disbelief, despair and despondency. 

The prominent figures who accepted the election result were visibly disappointed: “Of course, we’re really not happy with the overall outcome of the election,” Freedom Party founder Morgan C Jonas said on a Sunday night broadcast.

Others sought to downplay the importance of the election, even as they spent years hyping its importance. 

“It really does not matter who the premier is,” Australian anti-vaccine group Reignite Democracy Australia’s founder Monica Smit said in a video.

Perhaps ironically for a movement that has styled itself as democratic, figures such as former MP Craig Kelly and early anti-lockdown activist Fanos Panayides have blamed the result on Victorians suffering from “Stockholm syndrome”.  

There have been some low-energy claims of electoral fraud. As during the federal election, these have arisen from sheer disbelief at the result, as well as misunderstandings of vote-counting and election-calling processes. Andrews’ opponents in Mulgrave, Liberal candidate Michael Piastrino and independent Ian Cook, have both called for a recount of the seat’s votes. None, so far, have gained significant traction outside of these circles. There have also been scattered calls for violence. 

The freedom movement has little to show for all the attention, loud protests and livestreams. Victoria’s election was the eighth Australian federal or state election since the start of the pandemic, and the freedom movement has failed to significantly impact any. 

Its best result was in the 2022 federal election where both One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and United Australia Party (UAP)’s Ralph Babet scraped in. Notably, these two belong to pre-existing fringe parties who tapped into the reaction against COVID-19 restrictions, but who also came with existing advantages like Hanson’s public profile and UAP’s enormous advertising spend.

At times, various Liberal leaders tried to appeal to the COVID-19 restriction reactionary vote. Advertisements attacking Andrews for vaccine mandates and the promise of the Victorian Liberals’ Matthew Guy to rule out lockdowns echoed similar efforts by Scott Morrison before the election. This doesn’t appear to have won over much support for Guy, not that there was much to win. If there was significant opposition to vaccine mandates, it’s certainly not a salient issue in November 2022. 

A snap protest was called for the day after the election to contest the result: “Whether your [sic] left or right it’s time to unite Victoria says no,” read a video circulating on social media. By the time it kicked off, there were, by one observer’s count, six people and a dog in attendance.