Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in defence of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, not just for my colleagues but for every single person in this place and, indeed, all of Australia. Western civilisation has been founded on the freedom to speak out, but Labor does not believe in free speech. Labor doesn't care about people, only ideologies that deny freedom for every parent, business owner, religious person and farmer. Surely the ability for every Australian to be fully engaged in this pandemic and its response is not only a good idea but a necessary idea for our mental health and our recovery from this situation.

This is the most left-wing Labor opposition we have seen in decades. After the last election it's lurched, if possible, even more to the left. They're quick to condemn conservative politicians for speaking out, but they're silent when those on the left support Invasion Day, anti-Christian rhetoric, shaming of conservative women and calls for quotas. How many Labor and Greens MPs support socialism, communism or violent left-wing groups such as Black Lives Matter and antifa? Do these groups get to express their views while others can't? Labor's double standards are a joke.

I don't agree with the stance taken by Mr Christensen and Senators Rennick and Antic, but I will fight every day for their right to represent those Australians who share their views, because parliament should be the one place where we can have an open and vigorous debate—where we can contest ideas. This idea that these people are calling for harm to police and politicians is truly outrageous. Those are certainly not the actions and words of these named members and senators.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of Australians have raised these issues and have marched against mandates without incident. These are everyday men, women and children, from CEOs to pensioners, pilots, nurses and teachers. They are not enemies of the state. My office has taken scores of calls from doctors, nurses, tradies, truckies, lawyers, cleaners, parents, grandparents, dairy farmers and others against mandates. I and others in this place have publicly supported that view, while Senators Rennick and Antic and Mr Christensen are showing their support in different ways.

Vaccination rates in Australia are amongst the highest in the world. Close to 90 per cent of people are getting their health advice from doctors, not from politicians. However, it was not that long ago that, in Queensland, the Chief Health Officer suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine was going to kill young people. That was the beginning of serious concern in our community over the AstraZeneca vaccine.

It is Labor who are playing politics with public health. In January 2021, the Labor candidate for Higgins, Dr Ananda-Rajah, tweeted multiple times undermining the effectiveness of—yes—the AstraZeneca vaccine. The doctor has also criticised Doherty institute director Sharon Lewin and former Victorian deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng for lacking 'any real expertise in pandemic planning or response'. As two of Australia's foremost public health experts, who have worked tirelessly to assist both the Commonwealth and state governments to respond to the pandemic and to save lives, Professor Lewin and Dr Cheng should be praised for their efforts. Indeed, this federal Labor opposition is preferencing an Independent COVID antivaxxer ahead of the Nationals in the upcoming state by-election in Monaro. The double standards are extraordinary.

To use a now-common phrase: how dare you? How dare you in Labor look down on those people who have different views to you—Australians who hold different views? How dare you smear those with genuinely held concerns and beliefs as would-be thugs and murderers? You want to deny a person's lawful right to speak and protest, because Labor is now the epitome of the new, sneering elite. The unvaccinated are a minority, but they're not the correct type of minority for Labor, so their views and concerns don't matter.

Instead of crusading against freedom, how about you get into regional Queensland and ask what's important to them? In Queensland, my great state, it has been the sort of misinformation that has been spread on social media after comments like those I've already quoted—the vaccine hesitancy about AstraZeneca—which has allowed a whole lot of views to grow up. As a federal government, our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been nothing short of world-leading. We were able to stem the tide of COVID in this nation to allow time for people to become vaccinated, to save jobs and save lives, and to ensure that our unemployment rate is now down to 4.2 per cent so that Australians are able to get off social security, to have a job and to engage in the world and the life that they want. That is because the government's priority is the safety and wellbeing of all Australians. To that end, the government has spent significant money and effort in combating this misinformation. There is a COVID-19 misinformation portal for COVID-19 mythbusting on the australia.gov.au website that corrects myths and misinformation. The Department of Home Affairs reviews and refers online misinformation about COVID-19 to social media platforms to request that it be taken down, and $116.1 million has been committed to the National COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign. We know that has been successful—look at our vaccination rates in this country. As I said at the beginning, Australians generally take their medical advice from a health professional and not from politicians, and that is a wise decision.

This misinformation that has been allowed to spread has created genuine concern in people right across this nation, and it is our responsibility to talk to them, to hold out our hand, to listen and to understand those genuine concerns and try and assist them to understand what is the best medical assistance and the best medical advice for them, for their families and for their children. That is our role. It is not in any way our role to look down on these people as somehow being wrong or stupid, and it certainly is not our role to suggest that they can't hold these views at all. That's not the sort of country we are.

As for those members and senators who have listened to those people and are trying to represent their views and ensure that they are heard in order to allow for better government planning and better government responses, that is only the right thing to do, instead of this elitist, sneering response from Labor—this 'holier than thou, smarter than you, inner city' kind of response that we in regional Australia are sick of. We're sick of feeling disconnected from Labor and we're sick of them having no understanding of our industries and infrastructure and the genuine concerns that we hold. We are the part of the nation that does the mining, grows the agriculture and has the terrific communities that we're so very proud of.

I will continue to defend the rights of Mr Christensen and Senators Antic and Rennick to support Australians right across this country who have genuine concerns and genuine misgivings. It's our responsibility to assist them—not sneer at them. (Time expired)