The Australian government has made an extraordinary decision to deeply divide the Australian community under the guise of advancing social cohesion and bringing us all together. How such a patently stupid political decision could be made by educated adults is beyond comprehension. Once again this is not one of my typical blog posts where I write as a professional (academic) macroeconomist. I am writing this as an active author that is now facing suppression of my capacity for self-expression by an increasingly authoritarian government machine (at both federal and state levels) that has been, it seems, captured by a particular lobby group that exercises its influence and power in the most pernicious and robust fashion. What is the issue? The Australian government has invited the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Australia as their guest and is tipped to make a formal address to our federal parliament. The decision is wrong on so many levels and the subsequent responses of the governments (state and federal) to what they now realise is a mass groundswell of opposition among the community to the decision is even worse.