There are stories that entertain, and then there are stories that jolt the nervous system awake. Stories that don’t ask for agreement, but trigger recognition – a tightening in the chest, a flicker of unease, the sense that something familiar has crossed a line.
The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, belongs firmly in the second category. It is not consumed lightly. It imprints. It trains the body to recognise how control takes hold, how silence is enforced, and how people adapt to conditions that once would have been unthinkable.
This is not a tale about red cloaks and bonnets.
It is a study of how rights are removed quietly, legally, and incrementally, while the public is distracted, reassured, or exhausted into compliance.
And that is why it feels uncomfortably relevant to Australia now.
How Gilead Didn’t Arrive Overnight
Margaret Atwood was explicit about one thing:
nothing in The Handmaid’s Tale was invented.
Every mechanism of control in Gilead has existed somewhere, at some time, under the banner of law, morality, safety, or order.
In the story:
- Women do not lose rights in one dramatic announcement
- Laws are reframed as protections
- Power is transferred administratively
- Oversight disappears first
- Dissent becomes suspicious
- Language is weaponised
- Compliance is normalised
By the time people realise what has happened, the legal architecture is already in place.
The genius of the story is that tyranny arrives dressed as reason.
Australia’s Comfortable Illusion
Australia still sees itself as immune to this trajectory.
We are democratic.
We are relaxed.
We are governed by common sense.
Yet quietly, draconian legislation is being passed with minimal scrutiny, often:
- Rushed through Parliament
- Buried in omnibus bills
- Delegated to regulators rather than courts
- Shielded from meaningful judicial review
- Framed as “safety,” “harm prevention,” or “efficiency”
Public consultation shrinks.
Parliamentary debate shortens.
Ministerial discretion expands.
This is not a conspiracy.
It is a structural shift.
And structural shifts are exactly how Gilead begins.
When Oversight Is Replaced With Authority
One of the most chilling aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale is not violence.
It is process.
Rules replace rights.
Permission replaces liberty.
Compliance replaces consent.
The law becomes something done to people, not for them.
In Australia today, we are seeing:
- Expanded executive powers
- Reduced avenues for challenge
- Increased penalties without proportional safeguards
- Surveillance normalised as administration (Under his eye)
- Speech regulated under harm frameworks without clear thresholds
These changes are often defended as necessary.
That word should always slow us down.
What “Defining Who Counts” Actually Means
In authoritarian systems, the law slowly stops treating everyone as equal participants.
Instead, it begins to sort people.
Not always openly.
Often administratively.
“Who counts” becomes shorthand for who is fully protected by the system and who is merely managed by it.
At first, the exclusions feel technical, not moral.
People who don’t count fully are often those who:
- Lack political influence or public visibility
- Have limited financial resources
- Are self-represented rather than professionally represented
- Depend on discretionary decisions rather than enforceable rights
- Sit outside dominant institutions or approved narratives
They are still present.
They are still regulated.
But their ability to challenge power quietly erodes.
The Myth of “If You’ve Done Nothing Wrong”
In Gilead, many people initially believed the system will not affect them.
They are wrong.
The belief that “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear” assumes that the law protects people based on innocence.
Authoritarian systems do not work that way.
They do not first ask whether you are guilty or innocent. They ask whether you are compliant, useful, or inconvenient.
Protection does not flow from having done nothing wrong.
It flows from fitting within what the system currently tolerates.
At first, this distinction is almost invisible. The law still exists. Courts still operate. Rights still appear intact. But in practice, the system begins to decide whose rights are enforceable and whose are conditional.
Those most affected are rarely the worst offenders. They are usually those without power, without resources, or without institutional protection. People who cannot absorb risk. People who cannot afford prolonged challenge. People who rely on discretion rather than entitlement.
They are still governed.
They are still regulated.
But their ability to question or resist steadily narrows.
That is why the myth persists. Most people remain untouched for a long time.
Until they are not.
History is consistent on this point.
Why Watching This Now Matters
The Handmaid’s Tale is currently available on SBS On Demand for a limited time.
That timing feels less symbolic than coincidental.
This is not escapism.
It is civic literacy.
The series asks questions that Australians should be asking right now:
- Who holds power, and who oversees them?
- What safeguards are being removed quietly?
- What language is being used to justify it?
- Who benefits from reduced scrutiny?
- How easy would it be to challenge the system if it turned on you?
These are not radical questions.
They are democratic ones.
Dystopia Doesn’t Announce Itself
Dystopia does not arrive with sirens.
It arrives with forms, notices, regulations, and silence.
It arrives when people are told not to worry.
When debate is framed as dangerous.
When compliance is equated with virtue.
The Handmaid’s Tale is not about fear.
It is about attention.
And attention is exactly what this moment in Australia requires.
By Dawn Kelly, Founder of the Inner Compass – Guiding you to align with the highest expression of your true self.
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