Come along, it will be a riot. Here is the story that proves once and for all that the Staff Soviet at the ABC is truly a law unto itself.

A law unto itself – and living on another planet. One, presumably, where the New South Wales Supreme Court has ruled that today’s Sydney protest can go ahead.

The ABC sorta-kinda acknowledges that. Sorta, but only in passing — and with more fudge than Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

The ABC goes as far to admit that Indigenous people may be particularly at risk if they attend. Black Lives Matter, after all.

But then there’s fudge.

And, yet again, fudge galore. Fudge more preposterous than anything ever cooked up on the Netflix dessert disasters series, Nailed It.

And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, there’s this.

“Protesters may choose masks to avoid facial recognition software”? That wouldn’t be because they’re planning to do something a teensy-weensy bit illegal, would it? Violent? Not that the ABC is prepared to consider that possibility. That would be casting a values judgement (although they’d probably call it “white privilege”).

Their ABC. Beyond a joke, beyond redemption, propped by more than a billion bucks of our taxes a year and with a hand always out for more so it can spurt shite like this, regardless of potential legality and — most ironically of all, given the notional subject — public safety.

Big hat tip to reader Tony.

3:00 pm update: After this piece was published, the New South Wales Court of Appeal overturned the ban on the Sydney rally, making it an authorised public assembly. The article has been left unchanged as it comments on the situation as it stood when the ABC published its item. As of 3:00 pm, the ABC story had not been changed to reflect the court ruling.

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