Well, here at the Topher project, we’ve had news previously about the Queensland Castle Law petition that has been going very well.
Well, I’m going to upgrade that from going very well to breaking records. It is, in fact, set a new record for the largest number of signatures for a Queensland parliamentary petition ever in history. Robbie Katter MP joins me right now to talk about it. Robbie, thank you so much for joining me here on the Topher project.
[From video] To a real pleasure to be reporting this back to you. [End video]
Well, it’s fantastic and look, I can’t claim much credit, unfortunately, but I’m going to claim a little bit of credit for helping to amplify this particular um castle law petition. For those that may not be familiar, well, let’s first talk about the numbers. 116, 289 people as of this moment as we’re recording this. What was the previous record and why do you think this one has resonated so deeply with so many Queenslanders?
[From video]
It was 109,000 was the last one. And we’re usually lucky if we get 5,000,10,000, 20,000 in it. Is a really good result for a petition in Queensland. This one’s I guess hit the sweet spot because everyone’s desperate for an answer and a strong signal uh to be sent by the government. Like not every tool is 100% effective. No policy is 100% perfect. [End video]
You’re watching my interview with Robbie Katter MP talking about the castle law petition in Queensland. My name’s Topher Field. This is the Topher project and this is what I do. I bring you stories that others won’t. I bet you won’t hear much about this castle law petition in the mainstream media. Now, if you appreciate what I do and you’d like to help me to keep the Topher project going, then the best thing you can do is buy me a coffee I am caffeine-fueled by going to the button, the buy me a coffee button at topherfield.net.
And if you like my videos and you like my style, then you’re probably going to love my books. They’re all about law, government, power, and civil disobedience. How people like you and I can keep the government accountable even when it oversteps its boundaries. I’ve got two best-selling books on that topic. And I’ve also got the DVD of my award-winning documentary, Battleground Melbourne. This is all about the madness that went down during the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne, Victoria, my former hometown. There are, of course, also t-shirts and hoodies and a range of different designs. And everything you buy is going to help me to keep the Topher project going. Head over to goodpeoplebreakbadlaws.com and grab whatever it is that takes your fancy. Thank you so much for your support. Now, without any further ado, let’s get back to this interview with Robbie Katter, MP.
[From video]
But they wanted to know there’s some tools there that send a strong signal to people that aren’t invited or unwelcome in your home. And um in so many ways impact on your life through fear uh through infringement of your rights and um you know it just it’s that one step towards chaos and anarchy where people are just feel they can do whatever they want and uh police don’t sit outside my house 24/7 to protect me and my family. Um that rarely happens. So sometimes um they’re going to breach and um we’re going to do what we can to protect ourselves and their family. I think people would just like to know whether it does protect them effectively or not. They’d like to know that there’s someone in their corner or some laws that protect those rights when you moved into that position. [End video]
And I think there’s that bigger question we’ve seen time and again around Australia. This is an Australia-wide problem. We’ve seen where homeowners have taken steps to protect themselves, their loved ones or their property uh and have themselves ended up on on charges in in the Queensland situation. And obviously the Katter’s Australian Party you guys do great work, but you are one of the minor parties up there. You’ve got a couple of lower house seats there and you’re very well respected in the areas where you are. Is this likely to get widespread support, do you think? Is this something is this an idea whose time has come?
[From video]
Yeah. Well, that’s the art of politics just create that pressure and public momentum and you know um create that lightning rod of support for the supporters to get behind it. So it becomes um impossible for the major parties to ignore. So, you know, they want to they want to pander to the civil libertarians and everyone else that feels you can kiss and cuddle your way out of this problem. And well, good luck to them, but this is a big problem that we’re all suffering. And uh you know, in towns, if you live in Townsville or Cairns, man is where I live, but I grew up right near Townsville like four to five cars a day. Um you know, there’s only 180,000, 190,000. It’s not a big city and four to five cars a day. And uh that’s the motor vehicle theft in towns is three times the Australian average. Break-ins three times, violent crime four times. And um you know, we’ve the government’s we’ve had a change of government in Queensland last year and and they come in and um you know, not surprisingly, they’ve changed a few things, but mate, they’re tinkering at the fringe, at the edges. They don’t they don’t want to make the big decisions. So um yeah, just it’s jobs of parties like ours to um put some of those and I wouldn’t even call this extreme by any means. In fact, if you really look at it, you think it’s a pretty moderate sort of amendment.
Um all it does is open I think at the moment there’s limitations on what sort of force you can use. Basically says you can only use equal and opposite force. So, you know, I guess theoretically you’re supposed to yell out to the intruder, ask them how big their stick is that they’ve got so that you have to drop the baseball bat just in case. Um, you know, that’s the laws at the moment. We’re saying just drop that component of it. So, you can use whatever force necessary. Use a bazooka if you have to, if that’s what you got available to you. But use what you need to to do the job and and I don’t think it’s going to take too many incidents before they go back to prison and they say, “Mate, it actually didn’t work out that well for me working.”
Changed out there. The criminals say it’s changed out there now. Actually, people are starting to stand up for themselves and it’s it’s not so much fun anymore. I think we can turn the culture. I’m not saying we’ll fix everything overnight, but I think it’ll be a really good tool to turn turn around that culture. [End video]
Well, speaking of people standing up for themselves, we’ve seen a few such incidents down in Victoria. That’s my former home state. I’ve moved out of Victoria now, but the crime wave of course down there is is very well publicized. It may not be as severe as what you’re describing in parts of Queensland, but it certainly is an extremely large problem. I want to play you a video. This went viral yesterday. Uh this is a brothel worker protecting herself and her co-workers using pepper spray. There was an aggressive male. We can see the video here. This is courtesy of Herald Sun who first broke this story. A male’s jumped the counter. Uh two of the brothel workers there are obviously demonstrating with him. Uh he’s physically pushing them around. You’ll see him push one of them now. And then one of them simply pulls out some pepper spray and bang, that fast, instantaneously. Um, this guy then goes on to jump the counter and make his way out. I’ll let that video play. But Robbie, how many more scenes like this do you think Australians need to see before we actually have that light bulb moment to say, well, yes, the two people who are guaranteed to be on the scene of a violent crime every time a crime happens is the perpetrator and the victim. And surely it makes sense that the victim can stand up for themselves.
[From video]
Yeah, surely. Mid that pepper spray is a great idea. It’s great again middle. Um um a tool that can be used to try and turn this stuff around because at the moment all too often, as you say like I mean if I just limited myself to stories here in Mount Isa it’s only 20,000 people in the middle of nowhere. I limited those the stories I’ve heard of home invasions, stabbings, you know, youth threatening this death, beaten to death with clubs by kids. And this is um and something’s got to turn around. And like I said um you know police can sometimes be doing a really good job but they can’t sit outside my home 24/7 and then on the flip side of things, I’ve had multiple stories and some of them friends of mine that have one of them spent $60,000 and uh to save himself seven years in prison. Um and didn’t kill anyone, didn’t maim anyone, didn’t even do any permanent damage to anyone. Um but that’s that’s what you get. And that was for people invading his home. So um it’s it’s happening now. And um turn them around. And you know like even if you’re being compassionate about this and really want to think about these criminals, probably the best thing that could have happened that fella getting sprayed with pepper spray hopefully wake up himself and think probably wasn’t a great idea to take that approach, might rethink it next time. You know back 30-40 years ago a lot more people got punched in the face for doing something like that and they stopped doing it after that and everyone says well v’s terrible yes it is terrible it’s not it’s not great but tell you what you can learn a lesson from. Um you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a punch in the face, but some discouragement does help people from doing the wrong thing, and it can often be the catalyst for them turning their life around. [End video]
And I think one of the things that a lot of these bleeding hearts miss in all of this is that people aren’t usually escalating to machete brawls, for example, down here in Melbourne as their very first crime. They’re not usually carjacking or breaking and entering. There’s been an escalation that has happened and it’s only because they feel like they’ve gotten away with those earlier crimes that they then escalate to that level. Here in Victoria, we have or down in Victoria we have an endless stream of headlines about young people killing themselves in cars that they’ve stolen. And this is literally leading to these young people’s lives being ended because no one actually arrested them. And not literally they were arrested and released usually multiple times but no one stood up to them in a way that that really stopped them in their tracks. Can I put a a controversial um thought to you and you’re welcome to agree or disagree if you if you will but to me it looks as though the current policy settings which are pretty much universal Australia-wide there’s there’s a test of capsicum spray happening in the Northern Territory and under some circumstances capsicum spray use can be legal in West Australia as well but broadly speaking, what we have is a situation where governments around Australia are actually disarming victims for the protection of the criminals for fear that the criminals might get hurt. Is that how you see it as well?
[From video]
Oh, yeah. And I mean, there’s I’ve heard some um some uh isolated evidence of that um where they’ve said, you know, you put that thing in your in your place or you put that in your house to injure that person deliberately, so you know, you’re a victim. So, I mean, yeah, there’s certainly um and it’s probably growing the evidence that the tables are turned. Like there’s um there’s literally more support in case in some cases and they might be isolated but I I think probably the strongest point you made there is that the it’s certainly been my experience well it’s not it’s just a fact that the the boldness, the audacity of the criminals like the boldness has increased. Um you know, man, 10 years ago when I’ve been a politician 13 years ago it was you had the occasional car theft, you had you know the occasional break-in. But now it’s it’s knives, stabbings, cars trying to run people down in the schoolyard in Mount I at 8:00 a.m. in the morning. Just yeah, off-the-charts boldness. And it is precisely that they can get away with it. So, what’s the next thing we can do? And it just keeps ratcheting up. And the government sort of sitting there twiddling their thumbs and then the bleeding hearts are sort of trying to characterize anyone that stands up like us like we’re saying now. They’re trying to characterize us as Elmer Fudd behind the door with a shotgun trying to, you know, um, chaotic vigilante down the streets with shotguns. That’s not the reality. Most of us are going to sit at home peacefully and under extreme duress, we’ll apply something. There might be a baseball bat there. There might be something else. We don’t know, but we’re going to try and assert ourselves in it again. And um, it’ll be the last time those kids ever do something like that again because they’ll have a good think next time. [End video]
Yeah. And I think it’s a really good point to say when we’re talking about castle law, we’re talking about being able to defend yourself against people that have used force to break into a home when people are sleeping usually but regardless of the time of day, this is not random encounters out on the street. We’re talking about being able to defend yourself inside the privacy in the confines of your own home. I just want to bring this petition back up. Hang on. It’s not allowing me to. Just a second. There we go. I want to bring this petition back up. We’re up to 116,289 signatures. It is eligible for all residents in the state of Queensland. How would people find this and how would people be able to find yourself and the Katter Australia party and throw their support behind you?
[From video]
Yeah, either like on our party website, the Katter Australia party website, on the Queensland parliamentary website and/or just our Facebook or websites all got links towards directing towards a petition and um you know be part of history because we can make a change and you know us just politicians and media commentators and um you know public figures saying this any one of us doesn’t really do it but altogether the chorus. It’s mount the pressure on all the politicians and get them to do the right thing and think about us instead of trying to pander to these um you know civil libertarians and whatnot that think they know better and and they’ve led us to the point we are now.
Can I make one more point quickly too on the um you know an interesting observation for me in Mount Isa I’d be generous saying 90% it’s probably closer to 99% of the crime is Aboriginal youth. And the interesting part for me forget the fact really that they’re Aboriginal but the amount of parents and grandparents I’ve had come and meet lot of bars they can eat a good flogging but on and and most of them say but we’re not allowed to smack our kids anymore Rob which the government tells me oh that’s not and and I would love a dollar for every time I’ve had the Aboriginal parents and grandparents came to me is when we lost the right to smack and discipline our kids, Rob, that’s when this all started. And they’re usually tougher on this stuff than me, you know what the punishment be for their own kids that are out there. Um, so you know, like same as your mace what was the pepper spray there with the female and the prostitute parlor? Like that’s that’s the same as uh I think it’s going to have these ideological flip-flops of people if they got the real story from what’s happening on the ground, these civil libertarians would be doing sort of yeah ideological backflips trying to position themselves on this stuff. [End video]
Well, it’s certainly true that the the state has decided that they can be a better parent than what parents can and I think the evidence would suggest that they’re probably failing to raise kids very well at all. Well, Robbie Katter MP, I’ll let you get back to being busy, but thank you so much for this petition and uh thank you for joining me on the Topher project.
[From video] Thanks, mate. [End video]
Cheers. That was Robbie Katter MP bringing us the good news about the success of the Castle Law petition in Queensland. I’m going to put the link to that petition in the description of this video and also I’m going to have a look and see if there are other petitions in other states that are still active and you can sign. I’ll put the links to those in the description of this video as well, so that hopefully no matter where in Australia you live, there will be a petition that you will be able to support. My name’s Topher Field. This is the Topher Project and this is what I do. I help busy people like you to make sense of the nonsense, cut through the crap, and understand the world in a way that our politicians mostly don’t want you to be able to understand it. Of course, with some exceptions, Robbie Katter MP being one of them. If you love what I do here at the Topher Project, then I’d be very grateful if you’d buy me a coffee via the button at topherfield.net. And also check out my books, DVDs, and merch at goodpeoplebreakbadlaws.com.
Thank you so much for watching all the way to the end. The algorithm loves you and so do I. Please like, comment, subscribe,
