It is a combination of their previous behavior plus the behavior of the various agencies.

For example: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/23/gover...

The fact that law enforcement even asked for this would be to many people completely unacceptable.

It's why, despite their efforts to assuage people, so many people will not trust this government.

The backdoor legislation means that at a later date, after the code is released, they could request a backdoor to the app and _no one_ could talk about it. All the legal provisions are there.

This just goes to show that the police and security services will stop at nothing to increase surveillance of the general population.

It beggars belief that the police see COVID-19 as an opportunity in such an overt manner - but you can bet the security services see it as an opportunity in a much more circumspect manner.

I honestly believe that they will not bypass any opportunity to increase surveillance and that any kind of tracking that is normalized now will be expanded in the future.

I don’t believe that the people pushing this knowingly have bad intentions, but all the last decades have taught is “never give an inch.”

That's a false dichotomy. They could be totally fine with the intent of this app, but concerned with its potential secondary effects. And "something they did in the past" suggests they have stopped doing it.

> "something they did in the past" suggests they have stopped doing it.

No it doesn't. All evidence of their proclivities is from the past. It means they have form, a record, of bad behaviour.

Remember how the use of the Tax File Number was going to be strictly limited? And have you noticed you cannot scratch your bum without quoting it now?

Mission creep is a thing.

My own impression from observing his public behaviour is that Scott Morrison is a lying liar who tells lies when convenient to himself.

Yes, and Scotty will use the crisis to lower company tax and regulations, whilst thousands of poor souls line up at Centrelink. It's sad. The app is poorly conceived and probably useless. This is how we sleepwalk into a surveillance dystopia. But if it tracks politicians' illicit dalliances and time with lobyists, property developers and tax haven financiers, that could be useful. Just need a bureaucrat to do a copy and paste, then send to Wikileaks.