Share

cover art for Inside Australia’s Covid internment camp

UnHerd with Freddie Sayers

Inside Australia’s Covid internment camp

•

Hayley Hodgson, 26, moved to Darwin from Melbourne to escape the never-ending lockdowns — only to find herself locked up in a Covid Internment Camp without even having the virus.

She’s just returned from a 14-day detention at Howard Springs, the 2000-capacity Covid camp outside Darwin to which regional Covid cases are transported by the authorities. In an exclusive interview with Freddie Sayers, she recounted her experiences.

It all began when a friend of hers tested positive. She recounts how investigators came to her home shortly afterwards, having run the numberplate of her scooter to identify her as a ‘close contact’. They asked if she had done a Covid test, and in the moment she lied and said she had, when she in fact had not yet. This set in train an extraordinary series of events.

“So then the police officers blocked my driveway,” she says. “I walked out and I said, “what’s going on, are you guys testing me for COVID? What’s happening?” They said, “no, you’re getting taken away. And you have no choice. You’re going to Howard Springs. You either come with us now, and we’ll put you in the back of the divvy van. Or you can have a choice to get a ‘COVID cab’… I just said, “I don’t consent to this. I don’t understand why I can’t just self-isolate at home, like a lot of other people are doing.” And they just said, “we’ve just been told from higher up where to take you. And that’s all that there is.”

She was ordered to pack a bag and was told that she could be released once she tested negative. Collected in the back of a rented van, she was then transported to Howard Springs. On arrival, she was told that she would have to stay there for the full 14 days.


For the full story check out The Post from UnHerd.

More episodes

View all episodes

  • John Mearsheimer: We're all realists now

    01:06:57|
    The 'realist' approach to international relations was not long ago considered a dangerous idea. But with increased Western interventionism in Ukraine, Israel and even China, thinkers that were once exiled from liberal academic circles have suddenly gained ground. Prof. John Mearsheimer, one of the earliest proponents of a 'realist' approach, joined UnHerd's Freddie Sayers for a conversation about war, peace and politics.

  • Megyn Kelly: The Washington Post is doomed

    26:03|
    Megyn Kelly joins Emily to preview Election Night on Undercurrents.

  • Glenn Loury: Why black men are warming to Trump

    32:10|
    UnHerd's Freddie Sayers meets Glenn Loury to discuss what the US could look like, post election.

  • Mattias Desmet: Are you suffering from mass formation psychosis?

    46:44|
    Professor of psychology and author Mattias Desmet is the world expert on mass formation psychosis, a condition he observed during the pandemic years. He joins UnHerd's Florence Read to unpack the links between herd mentality and totalitarianism.

  • Rosie Duffield: Why I quit the Labour Party

    39:55|
    Rosie Duffield quit the Labour Party less than 100 days after she was elected MP for Canterbury. She likened working under UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer to being in an “abusive relationship”. UnHerd's Freddie Sayers spoke to her in the aftermath of her ferocious condemnation of her former comrades.

  • David Owen: A radical life

    01:21:19|
    David Owen has spent the last 60 years at the heart of British politics. After becoming a Labour MP in 1966 and serving as foreign secretary under Jim Callaghan from 1977-1979, he became disillusioned with the direction of the increasingly Left-wing Labour Party. Owen co-founded the Social Democratic Party and went on to lead it twice. In the 1990s, he was an EU peace negotiator in the former Yugoslavia and co-authored the consequential Vance-Owen Peace Plan. He joined UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers live at the UnHerd Club, to talk about his life in politics, the ideological shifts of the recent decades and the future of the British Left.

  • Robby Soave: "I'm sick of one-sided fact-checking"

    36:55|
    Robby Soave joins Emily for a rapid response breakdown of the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz hosted by CBS.

  • Liz Truss: I think I was right

    01:11:50|
    As arguably the most controversial Prime Minister in recent British history, Liz Truss has become the face of free market libertarianism and its discontents. She joins UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers to discuss her new book, ‘Ten Years to Save the West,’ and the lessons she learned from her turbulent time as a Conservative leader.

  • Curtis Yarvin: Welcome to the Dark Enlightenment

    01:29:51|
    UnHerd's Flo Read speaks to Curtis Yarvin at the Unherd Club. Curtis Yarvin is the philosophical godfather of the so-called ‘New Right’, a movement that defies simple categories and political expectations. His writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug explores everything from anti-democracy to accelerationism. He joined UnHerd for an evening of conversation and audience Q&A.

Comments