Lizzy Rose, the woman behind a group of 'Karens' refusing to wear face-masks. Photo / Instagram
"So here I am in Bunnings."
So begins yet another video of a disgruntled customer arguing with staff after being asked to put on a face mask.
Over the weekend, an anonymous woman was universally slammed for harassing employees at a Bunnings Warehouse in Melbourne. Later, footage emerged of the same woman berating staff at a post office.
The internet labelled her "Bunnings Karen". And it turns out she isn't the only one.
A second woman, Lizzy Rose, has posted footage of herself refusing to wear a mask at a Bunnings in Maribyrnong, news.com.au reported.
Psychic 'Lizzy' Rose is a self proclaimed high priestess witch who performs exorcisms for a living when not disrupting shopping aisles.
Why the anti-maskers keep targeting Bunnings, of all places, I do not know. Perhaps they need gardening tools to dig up all those piping hot conspiracy theories.
Anyway, the video shows Ms Rose, proudly maskless, touring the aisles with a trolley in search of some plastic pots.
"I have a medical exemption for being here and shopping here. And yet, they're threatening to call the police on me, and asked me to leave," she tells the camera.
"Because as far as they're concerned, my medical exemption is irrelevant. And it's actually not. As we know, I have every legal right to protect my health and myself, and I am exempt and I have all the documents to prove it. So let's see what happens."
Rose proceeds to note how "sad" it is that people are not "looking at the facts".
"It's interesting, isn't it, how so many people are so fearful. It's so sad that people are just so fearful of what they're told, what they're programmed. It's really, really sad," she says.
"They don't actually โ they're all zombies, and they're not actually researching and looking at the statistics and looking at the facts.
"People are so very silly. And it's so very sad that they're not evolved enough to see. So, I'm getting the pots that I need โ plastic pots, here we go โ and we'll see what happens. Travelling down the aisle. It's really, really sad."
Oh come on pic.twitter.com/u4g3XV04TA
— cam smith (@sexenheimer) July 26, 2020
On Monday night, Bunnings posted "a note from our Managing Director, Mike Schneider", which read: "Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have put the welfare and care of our team and customers at the core of what we do.
At this point, a staff member appears behind her. He can be heard speaking to the police on the phone, and telling them Ms Rose has "a bogus piece of paper".
"It's not a bogus piece of paper, it's a legitimate piece of paper. I would not have a bogus piece of paper," she says.
"So the man is on the phone now to the police. He's calling the police, despite the fact that I am actually here shopping, I'm a paying customer, which is my right. And, you know, want to get these pots for my garden."
Rose does manage to locate said pots for her garden, so she sets off for the checkout.
"So, I have my pots. I have my shovels, which is what I came here for. And we'll be approaching the counter now, to see if they'll accept my money," she narrates.
"Remember, this is about being a cashless society, and there's a whole other agenda here. So let's see what happens. Let's see what happens to the system of corruption.
"This is about your control, this is about your compliance, it's about silencing you. That's what it's about."
I'm sure you don't need to hear this, dear reader, but just in case you do โ mask-wearing is actually about slowing the spread of the coronavirus in the hope that, as a result, fewer people will die.
Rose herself once believed this. In a social media post on April 5, she told her followers to "stay home, stay safe" and wear masks.
"I urge everyone, the minute you step outside please wear a mask and gloves, don't listen to the government saying that you don't need to," she said.
"Why do doctors and nurses wear personal protective equipment? Because the virus is invisible and contraction is airborne. We can all contract COVID-19. We could all be carriers of the coronavirus. We could also be immune to the virus. We could have already had the virus and recovered. We could currently have the virus and think it's just a mild flu and therefore not seek testing.
"Don't be fooled, the virus is real."
To all the health care professionals across the world ๐บ I send you my strength, energy โฎ and support. ๐ ๐๐ Please stay...
Posted by Lizzy Rose on Saturday, 4 April 2020
Back to the Bunnings video.
Upon reaching the counter, Ms Rose gets into an extended argument with a staff member.
"I'm sorry, do you have a โ did you speak to someone about the face mask?" the young man asks.
"Yeah, I'm exempt," Ms Rose replies.
"I'm happy to show you. It's within my legal rights not to show you, because I've got a medical reason for being exempt. But I'm happy to show you, because you're being quite pleasant to me."
"Sure. No worries," says the employee.
He then notices that she is filming the exchange.
"Don't record me please. This is a private area," he asks.
"OK well, you've got my private information, so I'd ask for you to give it back," Ms Rose responds.
"OK. So, in order for me to serve you, condition of entry is to wear a mask, and that's why I'm asking, please -" he starts to say.
"If you're exempt though, you don't have to. So I'm happy just to get my things and to go," she says.
The staff member once again expresses his discomfort with being recorded.
"I'm not recording you, I'm recording myself," Ms Rose tells him.
"But you recorded me as well," he said.
"But you work here, and I have every right to protect myself after what just happened down the aisle," she says.
"That's fine, but I don't want to be recorded. I just don't want to be recorded, because it's a private area, and in fact you're breaking the law by recording me. Yeah you are. This is private property," says the worker.
"But I'm here, proving to you that I have every right to be here. Can I just pay for my things? Can I just do that?" Ms Rose says.
Finally, she agrees to stop the recording.
After leaving the store, Ms Rose filmed another, 15-minute video of herself in her car, talking about the incident.
"I just went there to shop. I wasn't going there to cause trouble," she tells the camera, which leads one to wonder why she was recording her visit to Bunnings at all.
Bunnings YOU are a complete and utter disgrace. Mr Dan Andrews I CALL YOU OUT VvvV #areyouawakeyet
Posted by Lizzy Rose on Sunday, 26 July 2020
Rose also slammed the store in a social media post this morning.
"I went shopping in my local Bunnings where I've spent thousands of dollars over nearly 18 years and was rudely, illegally denied customer service due to not wearing a facial mask, despite the fact that I produced a legal medical certificate of exemption," she wrote.
"Management stalked me and called the police, lying, stating to police that my exemption was 'bogus', which is completely untrue.
"This is absolutely disgusting treatment of a customer and a direct contradiction to Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria's, instructions stating that no person with a medical exemption is to be refused service, goods or products.
"The system is corrupt. Justice must prevail."
Bunnings' Chief Operating Officer, Deb Poole, acknowledged there had been "a couple of disappointing incidents" over the weekend, but staff had responded in a "fair and balanced" manner.
"The irresponsible behaviour by a few is incredibly disappointing and can increase the risk for our team and other customers," Ms Poole said.
"This behaviour is unacceptable and we reserve the right to deny entry to our stores for customers who refuse to wear a mask and don't have appropriate exemptions.
"Any customers who do not respect the hard work of our team will be denied entry and if needed will be referred to Victoria Police.
"We are grateful to the police for their support and to the vast majority of Victorians who, like us, are trying to do the right thing keeping everyone as safe as possible."
She pointed out that any customers who don't want to wear a mask can shop online and have products delivered to their home.
Rose is a professional psychic. She runs a private Facebook group called "The Illuminating Army", which describes itself as a place for people to "discuss, share, inspire and reveal the truth as they see it".
In other words, it's a group in which people share conspiracy theories.
Having urged her followers to wear masks back in April, Ms Rose has since done a complete 180 and become firmly anti-mask.
"I do not consent. We, the Australian people, do not consent to forced mask wearing," she says in a video posted on July 19.
"To the Australian government, you can take your control and your fear-based evilness away. We the people do not consent to these draconian laws. Be they gone!"
She then casts a couple of face masks into a fire.
"If any member of the Victorian Australian government or its corrupt policing system tries to mask me or fine me, I will bear down on you and your kin with fire," she warns.
"May you burn, may you suffer, may your forced imprisonment on our people now be your lesson into the dark night of the soul.
"We do not accept your horrendous and illegal rules all for your power game while you f*** our country in the arse.
"Paedophiles I call you out."
Ms Rose also styles herself as a high priestess of the "Order of Wisdom Learning and Light". On August 4 she has scheduled a "ritual of justice on the Australian government".
"Those who are meant to know when and where this will occur will know," the event description states.
"The government uses the occult against us and has for hundreds of years, it's now time we use it to our advantage in response to their evil, inhumane agenda."
Yeah.
If we can return to the real world for a moment, Australia's deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, spoke to the ABC this morning. This is what he had to say about the original "Bunnings Karen".
"The vast majority of Australians will have been disturbed by that. This is a small minority," Dr Coatsworth said.
"I would like to commend the staff member and the staff in Bunnings, and I'm sorry they had to deal with that. There is no room for that behaviour in Australian society.
"We're in this fight together, against coronavirus, and mandatory mask wearing is not an enormous ask. I don't view it as a human rights or civil liberties issue. It is something that we need to do to help bend the curve and bring us down the other side."
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also addressed the anti-maskers at today's coronavirus briefing, where we learned Victoria had recorded more than 500 new cases.
"Seriously, one more comment about human rights. Honestly. It is about human life," Mr Andrews said, clearly a little exasperated.
"Standing in the car park of Bunnings, reading whatever nonsense you have pulled up from some obscure website.
"Frankly, their behaviour is appalling. Their views have no basis in science or fact or law."
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