Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services (Senator Colbeck) and the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Wong, Keneally, Gallagher and Watt.

Doesn't this Craig Kelly problem just become worse and worse for the government? Mr Kelly, over the last few months, has engaged in a deliberate campaign of misinformation to the Australian public about the most serious health challenge our country has faced in decades. For months now, Mr Kelly has used his own social media channels to communicate misinformation and falsehoods about vaccines and about what he refers to as 'treatments' which have no basis in reality whatsoever. Mr Kelly, backed up by Mr Christensen and a number of other government members, has completely undermined the government's vaccine strategy by encouraging the Australian public to ignore real health advice from real experts and instead rely on conspiracy theorists and nutjobs circulating in cyberspace.

I hear Senator Abetz laughing along as we debate this very important issue. In doing so, Senator Abetz betrays his support for the actions of Mr Hughes and all of the other right-wing nutjobs in this government who continue to propagate conspiracy theories and undermine public confidence in the health response of their own government.

We've seen for months that, as Mr Kelly and others have done this, the Prime Minister has let them off the leash. He's happy to let them get out there and communicate their falsehoods and misinformation to the Australian public because Mr Morrison knows that he draws the political gain from allowing them off the leash. You won't hear Mr Morrison or Senator Birmingham or any other leader of this government say the same things as Mr Kelly and Mr Christensen, but they're very happy for it to go on because they know that there is a constituency for these kinds of views out there, and they're happy for Mr Christensen, Mr Hughes and others to get those votes to help this government stay in power. What a dishonest approach, so lacking in integrity, for this Prime Minister and this government to adopt: to allow members of their own government to get out and spread conspiracy theories and frankly dangerous messages to the Australian population at the very time that we need the Australian population accepting proper health advice and taking proper precautions here.

So the Prime Minister and his colleagues are playing a double game here. On the one hand, the leaders of this government get out there and surround themselves with public health experts and encourage people to do the right thing and listen to real experts. At the same time, they're playing footsie with the far Right of the Australian community and the conspiracy theorists who follow Pete Evans and other people in order to show that they are actually supporting them as well. You'll never get Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, supporting what Craig Kelly is doing, but he's been more than happy to let it go on for months. It was only after weeks of pressure from the opposition that he was finally dragged, kicking and screaming, into some meeting with Mr Kelly yesterday.

Mr Kelly of course issued a backdown of sorts only a couple of hours ago. He said that from now on he'd be a good boy, listen to what the Prime Minister was saying and get behind the government's approach. I was sitting there and thinking, 'How long is it going to be before Craig Kelly is back out there on Facebook, reverting to type and spreading more conspiracy theories?'

But Senator Canavan has actually beaten Mr Kelly to the punch. Senator Canavan couldn't even wait until question time was over before he had his own tweet out there, circulating in the right-wing nutjob cyberspace, supporting these conspiracy theories and backing in Craig Kelly. This has now become a test of the Prime Minister's authority over his government. He finally was able to exert some level of control over Craig Kelly in spreading misinformation, but now it's the Nationals. Now the Nationals are off and racing, because the Prime Minister can't control the Nationals in the same way that he can control his own backbench. So, what we're going to see now, in coming days, is Mr Christensen, Senator Canavan and other members of the National Party engaging in exactly the same conspiracy theories and misinformation that we've seen from Mr Kelly over recent weeks. And now the question for Mr Morrison is, will he exert the same control over the National Party and rein them in from spreading misinformation, as he has attempted to do with his own party?