Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I won't muck around. I'm here to stop the jabs and the mandates, protect the kids and tell the truth—my body, my choice. Every day I engage with people who are suffering from vaccine injuries or impacted by COVID mandates. Vaccine-injured Andrew is tormented by excruciating pain 24/7. After surgery last week, he's distraught that his life is ruined. Katherine has worked for two years and is overwhelmed with depression after having her application for compensation rejected, even though two doctors agreed that her injury was caused by the vaccine.

But today, I received a video message pleading for help from Dazzle, a beautiful 16-year-old girl who needs a double lung transplant due to the side effects of chemotherapy and surgery. Dazzle has been fighting cancer since she was 13. She has been through several rounds of chemotherapy, ending up on life support and dialysis, and endured a bone marrow transplant, which her body rejected. If that's not horrendous enough, now two major hospitals are refusing to do the transplant because she hasn't had any COVID-19 injections. One of the specialists even said that Dazzle is a health risk to other fully jabbed patients. At first, she was told she'd need two jabs; now she's told she needs four—three up-front and a booster in six months. But Dazzle doesn't have six months to wait. Her medical advisers need to remember they took an oath to 'do no harm', because terrible harm is exactly what they're inflicting on Dazzle and her family by demanding she is jabbed four times!

For more than two years, I've been raising the alarm regarding mandates and vaccine injuries. But I don't stand here to be adversarial—COVID has ripped our country apart, and we need to start healing as a nation. I appreciate that you might think I don't understand how hard it has been for government to make quick decisions around the pandemic whilst incorporating policies on the run. I accept their decisions were made in good faith. But now I plead with my colleagues and those in the House to also act in good faith. Do you think it's okay for Dazzle to be refused lifesaving surgery because she hasn't been jabbed? She and her parents aren't anti-vaxxers, far from it. After her bone marrow transplant, Dazzle had to be revaccinated with all her childhood vaccinations.

I know I was fortunate not to be mandated to keep my job. Right from the start, like Dazzle, I was cautious and hesitant about a vaccine that had been developed so quickly. I felt strongly, and I still do, that it's 'my body, my choice'. That's what Dazzle is asking for, too. With the TGA database now showing more than 140,000 notifications of adverse events and excess deaths in Australia being 12 per cent above the baseline average, it's well past time we had an open discussion about the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. Personally, I find it abhorrent that these provisionally approved vaccines were mandated on pregnant women and that parents were encouraged to jab their kids. At the very least, it's time to end the mandates and investigate what's going on. I say to our medical practitioners: it's time to speak up; do it for Dazzle! I know these past three years have been tough for so many medical and health practitioners. And I know many feel conflicted and wrestle with the issue of informed consent. Who can blame them with Aphra threatening to deregulate them if they deviate from the COVID script?

So I implore my colleagues in the House that enough is enough! Please listen to your constituents. People are suffering unimaginable distress. I have said before that, as their elected representatives, the job of fixing this mess rests with us. It's time we remove the shackles of apathy and disconnectedness. We must end the mandates, stop the jabs and keep our kids from harm. I am personally concerned that there are so many out there crying in the wilderness that only want to be heard. And, yes, there are those whose lives have been torn to pieces by these vaccine mandates and injuries. I try to bring them the attention of the government of this day and those ministers that are responsible in these areas. I can only ask that you hear their call. These people are not a minority in our community anymore. They're real people. They have real blood just like ours. They bleed like we bleed, and they are really suffering. And there are thousands of them, as has been confirmed quite often by many of my colleagues. Thank you for the opportunity to address the House, Mr Speaker. I do appreciate it.