Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Vaccine Indemnity) Bill 2023. In 2021, just two short years ago, the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out to the Australian population. Supposedly, this was done to protect us from coronavirus, which had a case fatality rate of 0.16 per cent and for which the average fatality age was 86, the same fatality age as the regular seasonal flu. Of course, by 'rolled out', I mean that the vaccines were mandated by government departments in the health sector, education sector and so on, as well as in private workplaces.

Major pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Moderna swiftly developed products to stop the spread. The COVID vaccines were developed far more quickly than the usual decade or so it takes to develop a vaccine; they did it in way less than two years. Their products were swiftly granted provisional approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and other regulators around the world. The manufacturers of these vaccines were granted indemnities from government, meaning that the companies themselves could effectively offload liability of their newly developed products to the taxpayer. Personally, I think the fact that these big pharma companies sought such indemnities in the first place suggests to us that those products may not have been as safe and effective as our health departments wanted us to believe. Indeed, this was a giant red flag for many Australians.

Many Australians were told that they had to take two doses of this quickly developed pharmaceutical product or lose their job. The manufacturers would face no legal or financial consequences should the vaccine prove defective. The recipient took all the risk, and this was justified by government departments and the media because we needed to 'Stop the spread'. I've always maintained that vaccine mandates were unjust. To me, that was just a matter of commonsense and principle. It seems obvious that the government doesn't have the right to determine what any one human being puts into their body, and getting vaccinated with any kind of vaccine is, of course, an irreversible treatment. If it turns out to be defective, you can't undo the decision. You must live with the consequences—pharmaceutical companies won't have to; you will.

Throughout that period, if one ignored the public health advice and the ludicrous media hysteria, the situation wasn't complicated. It was a matter of principle. And, as a result, many Australians opted not to receive a novel vaccine and waited to see what would happen. The indemnities granted to pharmaceutical companies were one of the many factors that rightly sparked suspicion. Had mandates not been in place, far fewer people would have received a dose at all, in my view. As time passed it became clear why big pharma wanted these indemnities in the first place: their products were not safe, and they were not effective. They did not prevent people from contracting COVID, meaning they didn't stop the spread as promised. They didn't prevent hospitalisation, and the notion that they reduced hospitalisation, a line often touted by those desperate to defend the decision in the first place, is absurd given the rates of adverse effects we are seeing now.

Anecdotally speaking, many people know at least one person who had an adverse event that wouldn't be considered minor, ranging from cardiac complications to neurological symptoms to dying suddenly, tragically. There's a lot of vaccine regret out there, I can assure you. Meanwhile, the unvaccinated in our midst seem to be doing fine. I'm not aware of one single unvaccinated person who's developed myocarditis or the so-called long COVID. I recently spoke with a young Adelaide woman by the name of Hannah, who developed a severe cardiac condition after her second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Her condition has permanently changed her life, whereas it's almost certain that, had she simply caught COVID, she would have been perfectly fine. In fact, she was lucky to even have her condition acknowledged as being the result of a vaccine; thankfully, it eventually was. No doubt there are countless others out there who are injured but their injury has not been acknowledged as such, given doctors face suspension for contradicting AHPRA and the TGA's position.

In a hearing before the European parliament nine months ago, a Pfizer representative admitted that Pfizer didn't know whether their product would stop viral transmission before it was rolled out around the world. Remember 'Stopping the spread'? That was the entire basis for the mandates in this country. People were told it was their moral obligation to roll up their sleeves and get the jab to save grandma. Shouldn't Pfizer have said something? They knew their product wouldn't stop transmission; I think we all know they should have.

A 2009 press release from the United States Department of Justice, titled 'Justice department announces largest healthcare fraud settlement in history', reads as follows:

American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.…have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced today.

[Pfizer] has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding Bextra with the intent to defraud or mislead… Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns. The company will pay a criminal fine of $1.195 billion, the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States for any matter.

It goes on, but you get the point. Pfizer paid what was, at the time, the largest fine in criminal history. That's a criminal fine; not a fine for simple negligence, but for deliberate fraud.

Pfizer promoted their drugs as having health outcomes they didn't have and had been made for conditions they were not approved for, putting users of their products at risk. However, nobody from Pfizer ever faced any real punishment for their actions. They can just factor those fines into the budget line of hundreds of billions of dollars, continue to donate to major media outlets and move on.

The COVID emergency was the perfect opportunity. In 2022, Pfizer enjoyed a record $100 billion in sales. These companies can afford the hit their reputation takes, and they still make a profit in the end. It's absurd and unjust that Australians were coerced and pressured into taking these products while the manufacturers were indemnified by the government, therefore, you and me. Some other members of parliament, along with myself, have sought to have the agreement between pharmaceutical companies and the government disclosed to the public, but that motion was voted down by Labor and the Greens, the great champions of transparency! They don't want transparency, after all.

Furthermore, as I and others have spoken about in this chamber before, there has been a massive increase in excess death rates, not only in Australia but across the world, after the vaccines were distributed. I think it's quite reasonable to suspect that the drastic increase in death rates—which was 15.3 per cent throughout 2022 in Australia—is being drive, at least in part, by the COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines are the obvious factor that was not present before 2021 when the increase in deaths began. Yet, the major pharmaceutical companies face absolutely no scrutiny on the issue. Given what we're hearing from the World Health Organization, there will be future pandemics to prepare for, so let's prevent those pharmaceutical companies from developing more products for use on the Australian population. Removing the option of indemnities means that they won't be able to get away with developing drugs, such as these poor performing drugs, with no financial consequences, or at least not as easily.

Big pharma must face some consequences and bear some responsibility if they end up causing harm to Australians in the event of a future emergency, lest they manipulate and exploit the situation to their own advantage, as, in my view, appears to have been done here. Ideally, I'd prefer that we simply never, ever have vaccine mandates again, but legislation that would have protected Australians from mandates has also been voted down multiple times in this place because, strangely enough, Labor and the Greens reject the principle of my body, my choice.

Throughout COVID, and indeed for many years now, big pharma has been generating scandal after scandal, injury after injury and paying fine after fine. Yet, they never face any meaningful consequences because they can simply factor in their inevitable payouts as a budget line item.

The Australian government and the health departments cannot be beholden to the whims of big pharmaceutical companies. There must be an understanding that, as wonderful and effective as some of their products are in treating illness, disease and relieving pain, they are for-profit corporations that have literally paid billions and billions of dollars in criminal fines over the years. These pharmaceutical companies, it seems, were able to strongarm some governments into buying ludicrous amounts of their products because it was apparently a major emergency. Governments wanting to get vaccines into the arms of their citizens as quickly as possible awarded indemnities to these companies and deferred any consequences of all of the hasty actions until a later date. That later date has arrived. We're now living in the fallout of what, from beginning to end, was a disaster. People were saying all of the things that are now coming to light about the vaccines and lockdowns from the very beginning. They were utterly vilified for defying the narrative. Don't forget that. We can't allow big pharma to exert this kind of leverage and pressure on governments again. We should not be beholden to these companies. They should have severe financial consequences, to say the least, for the products they've made should they turn out to be defective.

I support this bill. I commend Senator Babet for introducing it. I hope that others, and particularly others in this place that have a history of standing up, so-called, to the big pharma companies—I'm looking at the Australian Greens in particular—live up to what they're talking about and support this bill.