MoModa Kitchen and Bar | Losing In The Lucky Country

In a unique social media twist senior members of COVID conspiracy group, Reignite Democracy Australia ‘dobbed in’ the restaurant that hosted them for an illegal dinner.

What happened?

It just so happens that Victoria’s current lockdown coincided with the long planned Australia-wide Millions March Against Mandatory COVID Vaccinations organised by Health Rights Alliance. The vaccine is not mandatory. So anti-vaxxers seize on the possibility of a COVID “vaccine passport” and the health workers who may be asked to have the vaccine. Thus a perfect storm for prancing protestors was afoot. On Saturday far from any actual risk and always mere steps from the safety of her car Monica Smit was role playing political dissident/freedom fighter (more on that below). Three hours later she was sipping wine with around 15 RDA friends dining illegally at Moda Kitchen and Bar in Seddon. We know this because one of the group posted a photo with a timestamp and details*.

Fi Reilly wrote;

Moda restaurant in Seddon. Getting on with business. Great hanging out with fellow freedom fighters.

How could this happen? How could Australia’s self-appointed government-in-waiting be so careless? More so, how could our brave freedom fighters end up so safe and cosy and warm whilst the people they encourage had so successfully antagonised police only to ultimately find the inside of an ambulance? More on that dastardly disparity below also. First let’s review some points.

A march during lockdown

In Victoria the venue for the Millions March was Flagstaff Gardens. The last such march in Melbourne saw the crowd gather in the Botanic Gardens on February 20th. Back then our frenetic COVID conspiracy theorist and wannabe political saviour Monica Smit seized the opportunity to promise that she and RDA “are coming” for the jobs of government. Since that time Smit has continued to push thoroughly debunked theories about COVID-19 and to urge civil disobedience in her followers. QR codes, face masks, social distancing, vaccination, temperature readings are all attacks on rights say RDA. Laws protect those who refuse to comply states their disinformation narrative.

Meanwhile back in reality, at 11:59 pm Thursday 27 May, Victoria went into ‘circuit breaker’ restrictions following a rise in community based COVID-19 cases. Restrictions include wearing a face mask, maintaining social distancing and travelling within 5 km of home unless meeting requirements to exceed that distance. In short a lockdown. The reasons scarcely need to be repeated but nonetheless the Department of Health state regarding stay at home directions:

The purpose of these directions is to address the serious public health risk posed to the State of Victoria by the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

It’s worth noting that the organisers of the Millions March posted a cancellation, of sorts, on Facebook just before 11am;

HRA wishes to advise that the official broadcast of the MMAMCV event has been cancelled due to vital team members pulling out. This was not the outcome lead organisers wished for, but it has been taken out of their hands. […]
For those still attending the gathering, some HRA members will be there alongside you, but have had to pull out in an official manner.To all that still attend, it is your event now – rock on!

Agent Smit

Described by the Herald Sun as a “protest inciter” Smit herself was keeping well away from any protest. Exactly one hour after the ‘official’ cancellation was posted by HRA a mask-less Smit was warning of a police checkpoint at Victoria and Peel Streets Melbourne. Her real aim was for the sole purpose of being seen breaching regulations. To enjoy the attention that Monica loves so much. In a performance that’s almost as sad as it is funny, Smit offers;

And by the way, police monitoring this channel (it’s actually a Facebook Live video) I have a single friend who lives ’bout five hundred metres from Flagstaff Gardens. So I’m here as support, so you can go jump.
Yeah that’s right.

I shudder to imagine that huge police Monica-monitoring unit, a large wall screen displaying satellite data, row after row of computer monitors streaming code, and the small army of headpiece-wearing keyboard crunching surveillance experts who wince in fear when told to “go jump”. No doubt they even have a code name for her. The Bored Identity perhaps? Yes. Let’s go with that.

Having counted “three or four hundred cops”, and perhaps thinking of old spy or war movies when someone ‘reconnoitres the perimeter’, The Bored Identity tells viewers;

So, I’ve done a parameter of the park.

The Bored Identity then meets an admirer named Layla. A stranger we learn. They gush praise at each other sharing promises of fighting for their rights no less and the rights of Layla’s dog. So brave is The Bored Identity she admits on the monitored “channel” that she earlier drove past police, and then;

I yelled out the window, I said ‘Go catch some real criminals’, I go ‘Go do ya job for goodness sakes’.
Gosh!… I’ve got my single friend here – she needs my support. Actually ya know what I’m really doing?
[Whispers to the admirer who is suitably impressed. She ‘loves it’ in fact]
That’s my support for the day. All right Layla. Ga’Luck!
[Bored Identity walks off]
Uurgh! Gosh! Well, yeah. It’s gunna be interesting guys.

Clearly The Bored Identity is a highly trained operative. Masquerading as an attention seeking dimwit who provides video evidence on a self-described monitored “channel” that she is indeed in breach of stay at home restrictions is surely a clever ruse. The police based Monica-monitoring unit stood no chance.

On a more serious note police had earlier urged Victorians to respect efforts to combat the pandemic. On Saturday The Herald Sun later reported;

Victoria Police urged people to obey the current CHO directives.
“We are confident the overwhelming majority of Victorians will be doing the right thing and adhere to restrictions so we can all return to normality as soon as possible,” the force said in a statement.
“Those who choose to blatantly disregard the CHOs directions can expect to be held accountable and fined.”
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission added, “Any protest activity should comply with the public health directions in place at any given time.”

Teflon coated

It is difficult to track all movements of The Bored Identity from this point until the restaurant. There was another ‘channel’ – what you might still call a Facebook Live video – which was a laneway-based recap of the day’s protest. This was a little strange as RDA didn’t appear anywhere near the protest. For reasons unknown that video has been deleted. But fortune has smiled upon us as a screenshot with a comment survives;

This commenter writes;

So once again you have “avoided” being arrested and later posted photo’s (sic) of yourself sitting in a restaurant with others who seem to always avoid arrest Hmmm. You commenced the day by telling people where the police were gathering but didn’t make any video from the actual park. Hmm. You later made a video from a laneway afterwards, boasting the protest was a big success. If I was cynical, I would say you and your crew are in cahoots with the police – of course you COULD just be teflon coated.

These points are inescapable. I mentioned in my last post on RDA that Monica Smit is likely deceiving her followers. But rather than being in league with police I’d argue she will always have a safe way out and is highly adverse to any genuine discomfort. The strange new blend of conspiracy theory with biblical fundamentalism that she caters to is growing rapidly and is no doubt quite lucrative. Whatever the case Monica Smit her partner Morgan Jonas and other RDA members chose to spend up at Moda Kitchen and Bar in Seddon.

Restrictions that apply to restaurants (see item 16 and 19b) state;

A person who owns, controls or operates a food and drink facility in the State of Victoria may operate that facility during the restricted activity period only for the purposes of takeaway collection or delivery of pre-ordered goods.

Just cleaning

As we’ll see below media reported the owner of the restaurant denied knowledge of the diners. But again we may thank Fi Reilly;

The relevant part of this screenshot is;

And loved having lunch with everyone afterwards in Seddon. We were just finishing lunch when the business got a call the police were on the way. People who dob on business is such a low act in my mind. Let’s all continue to support these types of businesses.

Being in cahoots aside, one does wonder why the business would get a call to say police were on the way. Tends to defeat the entire purpose of dealing with an offence. Perhaps it’s really an attempt to convey a composed exit. Nonetheless these images were on Twitter by Saturday evening and not long after the text of them accompanied news reports.

The Herald Sun reported;

More than a dozen anti-vaxxers, including protest inciters MONICA SMIT and MORGAN JONAS, were photographed at Moda Kitchen and Bar in Seddon on Saturday afternoon despite statewide coronavirus restrictions which have shut restaurant doors and banned public gatherings.
The photograph, posted on encrypted communication app Telegram, was deleted on Sunday as the restaurant faced huge public backlash and threats of customer boycotts.
A Department of Justice and Community Safety spokeswoman said the incident will be investigated by the government’s coronavirus enforcement team.
“This claim has been referred to the Victorian Government’s High-Risk Industry Engagement and Enforcement Operation for investigation – and it will take action as necessary,” the spokeswoman said.
Moda Kitchen and Bar denied opening its doors to the anti-vax group, despite police confirming they were called to the Victoria St restaurant over reports of “a group not wearing masks” about 4.30pm on Saturday.
“We were closed. We went there to clean but we were closed. I don’t know what people are talking about,” the restaurant owner told the Herald Sun.

The Daily Mail UK published an almost identical piece. The restaurant’s Facebook page vanished soon after, likely going private as criticisms filled comments. The Instagram account followed today shortly after Victorians discovered its presence. Another inescapable point to this story is that the vast majority of Aussies really don’t have any respect for social saboteurs like Reignite Democracy Australia or for businesses that would happily breach regulations to accomodate them. Victorians are striving to get through a serious public health challenge. Many businesses doing the right thing are hurting. Thousands of workers and staff are losing income.

With all this talk about rights and freedom-fighting what about the rights of those doing the right thing? RDA and Co. of course have no answer.

The RDA rabbit hole

Their arrogance stems from bizarre claims like this on their Facebook page;

EXPOSING OUR MEDIA’S RECENT VENTILATOR LIE: One Day, One Victorian On a Ventilator, the Next Day, None!
Victoria’s ‘7-day snap-lockdown’ only exists because there was a need to coerce v8ccination.
General jab hesitancy and public disinterest created an urgent government need to counter-market; and thus, this lockdown serves primarily as a marketing drive for an otherwise undesirable Pharma product. There is no “outbreak,” no actual new cases, and certainly no “Indian double mutant strain.”
It was all meticulously preplanned – with every component strategically devised to ensure a successful psychological operation for public manipulation. The unusual media fixation on an “infected case” that was traced to the 3 Monkeys bar on Chapel Street, was the scheming strategists giving an ironic and knowing nod to the film 12 Monkeys (about a killer virus) – and they are laughing at us. […]
The other day, the media delighted in revisiting the idea of the true medieval horror of hooking a human up to a ventilator – intubated, and comatose, as they battle ‘a flu-like virus’ while being fleeced a small fortune for the privilege of being slowly tortured to death… well, it so happens that there are now ZERO people in Melbourne’s ICUs and not a single person on a ventilator, and not a single death since last year. […]
This lockdown is a criminal act perpetrated by a criminal government, pursuing a criminally coercive v8ccine agenda. It is a lie, founded on lies – and it shall all ultimately collapse by the sheer weight of endlessly being propped-up against the opposing gravity of truth.
Let us continue to contribute to that weight.

There’s more like this of course, including the baseless assertion that this “vaccine experiment” is punishable by death under the Nuremberg Code. Or the video of Monica Smit extolling loopholes she has found to get around QR codes. You see, families leave phones at home when going for a cafe brunch because they seek “quality time”. Monica acts as if you’re going to believe that. So they can’t be expected to use the QR code. Wink, wink. Enter dastardly plan to use alternatives to QR codes. Like, pen and paper.

Apart from promoting the DHHS reasons for not wearing a mask visitors are urged to download and print out copies of the following You Can Say No flyers to bother innocent members of the public with.

The Facebook page of our ‘future government’ is packed full of such pointless opposition to barely inconvenient aspects of life during a pandemic. Smit and Jonas seem driven by an out of proportion belief in their own importance and intelligence. All throughout is a concerning number of even more concerning prayers or proclamations relating to God, Jesus/Yeshua and the bible along with the belief that this pandemic was foretold in said bible. Pastor Paul Furlong of The Revival Church tells visitors;

God’s word says we cannot forsake the gathering of the saints, and do so even more it says as the days become more wicked and evil and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is at hand, I believe we’re right there right now.

There is strong promotion of Peacemakers Australia. This group are like a real life manifestation of the Game of Thrones malignant religious sect the Sparrows. Complete with obsessed, testosterone fuelled thugs and verse quoting bible waving women, they too see their role foretold in Gospel and psalms. Popping up around all this are the regular crackpot COVID trouble makers from Craig Kelly to Matt Lawson.

Ultimately in the three short months since I last wrote about Monica Smit and Reignite Democracy Australia they have become at once more extreme and less in control of those they attract. They are nothing more than attention-seeking, exploitative charlatans and a problem for any democracy. Australia is a long way from anything like the storming of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January 2021 in Washington D.C. But if the belief in the right to do something like that here needs a home, it would find it amongst this awful amalgam of people.

Reignite Democracy Australia still has nothing Australia needs.