Fox New Tucker Carlson slams Australia’s Covid lockdown restrictions as ‘like North Korea’

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has slammed Australia’s ongoing Covid lockdowns likening the ‘totalitarian’ country’s draconian restrictions to a ‘science-fiction’ film.

The right-wing firebrand went on a tirade against the extreme measures sounding off on a police manhunt for a Covid-positive patient in Sydney.

He also laid into bureaucrats in a bizarre incident in outback Australia where a dog pound shot its animals after the area was given stay-at-home orders.

Carlson also railed against the heavy-handedness of officers during recent capital city protests and scolded Premier Daniel Andrews for telling Victorians they are forbidden from watching the sunset.

‘In Australia, the government has implemented total lockdowns nationwide, and imposed martial law to enforce those lockdowns,’ the host said on his TV show Tucker Carlson Tonight.

‘What’s the justification for this? Here are the numbers: from mid-July to last week, the entire nation of Australia — that’s 25 million people — has averaged about 1.5 Covid deaths per day.

‘That has been enough to justify the end of Australia and totalitarianism. In one recent case, authorities executed rescue dogs — shot them to death — to prevent Australian dog lovers from travelling to adopt them.

‘Leaving your home is not allowed, so they just killed the dogs. And the population put up with it. They were told they had to.’

While much of Australia remains under lockdown including New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, these stay-at-home orders are not nationwide as Carlson claimed.

Nor is Australia living under martial law, which is the replacement of civil rule with temporary military authority in a time of crisis.

The freedom-loving American host went on to say Australia’s nightly news now looks like a ‘science fiction film’, referring to the police manhunt for 27-year-old Sydney fugitive Anthony Karam.

‘Was he a mass killer? No. He dared to venture outside of his apartment complex. For doing that, the media showed surveillance footage of him entering his elevator and sneezing without covering his face,’ Carlson said.

‘There was nobody else in the elevator at the time. For that, there’s now a nationwide manhunt underway. An arrest warrant has just been issued. We’re not making this up.’

But the arrest warrant was not issued for ‘sneezing’ with investigators searching for Karam after he had tested positive for coronavirus on August 14 and allegedly refused to self-isolate at home.

Another news segment on the program showed 60 church-goers in Sydney being arrested after breaking lockdown laws by attending a service.

Carlson read a police statement calling the flouting of restrictions ‘selfish and arrogant’.

‘What else is selfish and arrogant in Australia? It’s not just going to church or leaving your apartment or trying to adopt a rescue dog. Watching the sunset is also selfish and arrogant,’ he said, referring to the Victorian Premier’s recent statements.

Daniel Andrews had lashed Melburnians for flouting lockdown restrictions by ordering takeaway cocktails and watching the sunset.

‘I’m sure it was a beautiful sunset. But that’s not in the spirit or in the letter of these rules,’ Mr Andrews says in the clip.

‘Scolded for watching the sunset. Executing rescue dogs. A nationwide manhunt for a guy who sneezed alone in an elevator. No one in Australia is laughing at this. No one is standing back far enough to see the lunacy on display — they’re too far gone,’ Carlson said.

‘If that were to happen in Tehran, we’d all tug our chins and say, ‘That’s the mullahs, they’re not like us.’ But it’s not Iran, it’s not North Korea — it’s Australia. What we thought was a rules-based society.’

The comment about rescue dogs came after Bourke Shire Council in regional NSW shot dogs at a rescue centre last week to prevent volunteers risking infection by travelling to pick them up.

The shootings were slammed by animal activists and prompted intervention from the council’s watchdog.

He accused Australians of ‘tolerating authoritarianism’ during the pandemic.

‘You can either rebel immediately and say we are not putting up with this. I’m sorry we are a free people and a free country…or you can sit back and watch it accelerate and in the end you’ll end up like Australia, and watch them shoot your dogs,’ Carlson said.

There have been 984 Covid-related deaths in Australia since the beginning of the pandemic.

The US has seen a staggering 646,667 fatalities, more than any other nation in the world.

He also took aim at New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for bringing in a nationwide lockdown with a handful of new cases.

‘Consider New Zealand, a famously placid outpost in the fast-shrinking Anglosphere,’ he said.

‘A single Covid case on the island — not a death from Covid, but a case of Covid — has shut down the entire country. New Zealanders have been told they are no longer allowed to talk to their neighbours.

‘Don’t talk to your neighbours — stay in your bubble! That’s New Zealand. But it’s freer than Australia.’

New Zealand’s outbreak, which began with a returned traveller from Sydney, has now swelled to nearly 150 cases.

Similar to Australia, lockdown was imposed in New Zealand because of fears about a mostly un-vaccinated population, with just 24.6 per cent of the nation double jabbed after delays in supply and administration.