Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate acknowledges that:

(a) the concerning number of excess deaths observed in Australia in 2021 and 2022 has continued into 2023 as evidenced by all-cause provisional mortality data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics; and

(b) there is a need for further inquiry as to the reasons for these excess deaths.

In March last year, I asked the Senate to investigate excess mortality in Australia because it was at an all-time high, unfortunately. That month the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that excess deaths were more than 15 per cent above the historical average. As I said at that time, it was equivalent to something like a giant passenger plane crashing every single week for a whole year. Yet, incredibly, and unfortunately, the Senate refused to investigate this unexplained increase in deaths. Since then, the tragedy has continued. In 2023, 12,377 excess deaths occurred by 30 September. That's 9.9 per cent more than the baseline average. So far, the ABS estimates there have been 29,601 excess deaths from March 2021 to August 2023. Every one of these deaths is a person who would not have died if it had been a normal year with a normal number of deaths.

Just yesterday, I moved a motion to refer this issue to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee. I gave all my colleagues in this place the opportunity to help us investigate the causes of our excess death rate. Sadly, my motion was defeated and 35 of my fellow senators in this place, in my opinion, stood in the way of truth and justice for many people in that community. This is a matter of life and death, but it seems that, unfortunately, many in this place would rather remain ignorant. The Australian Labor Party, the Greens, Senator Lambie, Senator Tyrrell and Senator Thorpe stood in the way of this inquiry and voted against it. It's shameful, in my opinion. I must ask: what have you got to hide? What are you scared of? I would like to, however, acknowledge my colleagues from the coalition and One Nation and Senator David Pocock for supporting my motion yesterday. Thank you for doing the right thing.

I'd also like to acknowledge the Australian Medical Professionals Society, AMPS, who have stepped up to the plate and completed the hard work that many of my colleagues in this place have shamefully refused to do. Last year, AMPS held their own inquiry in Parliament House. That was a fair inquiry. It was aimed at addressing the crisis of excess mortality in Australia. The information they presented was sobering to say the least. But, sadly, in their inquiry, the attendance by senators or their staff was appallingly low. They were unfortunately ignored by most in this place. AMPS have gone on to put their findings into a book which is bound to attract attention around the world, titled Too Many Dead: An Inquiry into Australia's Excess Mortality. All of my colleagues have been sent an electronic version of this. I urge them to read it and to be informed. These Australians have taken it upon themselves to do the work that we should be completing here. The government should be doing this work.

Yesterday, Minister Gallagher said that the government does not support my motion and reiterated that the ABS is the definitive authority on mortality statistics and data in Australia. I agree. Yes, Minister; they are. They have identified a significant issue, but we should explore that issue. The Australian people are screaming out for answers. The ABS does not speculate as to why more Australians are dying of certain illnesses. That is our job in this place. Minister Gallagher also stated that every death that makes up a total statistic is a personal tragedy and she acknowledged the tragic impact of these deaths on the families and friends of those who have unfortunately lost their lives. Minister, these families deserve closure. We must interrogate the causes to ensure that the trend of excess mortality comes to an end.

In 2020, our country, our states, were shut down to save lives. Every single COVID related death was documented in regular reports produced by state and territory health departments. They were announced by premiers in regular press briefings. TV news stations ran counts. COVID statistics became somewhat of a national obsession. Yet for thousands of Australians who have since died unexpectedly for unknown reasons the people in charge have shown little concern or motivation to investigate, and the media have been largely mute.

It is important to note that excess deaths didn't start in 2020 but in March 2021, the same time as the rollout of the mRNA COVID vaccines. Correlation obviously does not prove causation, but it indicates that the COVID vaccines may have caused or at least contributed to some of these excess deaths. We do know that these novel vaccines have injured and killed many people, but we won't know if there's a link to excess mortality unless we investigate. What we do know is that, if the COVID vaccines were truly safe and effective as we keep hearing, there should have been no severe COVID in Australia and no excess deaths except in the tiny fraction of the population who were not vaccinated, but this isn't what we have seen. For example, the data released by the New South Wales Ministry of Health in 2022 showed that vaccinated people made up the vast majority of people who were hospitalised, treated in the ICU and died. Unsurprisingly, New South Wales stopped publishing this data that didn't fit with the official mantra that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, and that's just not good enough.

What we saw was that, once the Australian people were highly vaccinated at the start of 2022, Australia opened its borders and COVID cases and deaths exploded. Not only that: for every single month in 2022 the age standardised rate of death was higher than in any of the preceding three years. Think about that. It's incredible. This was the omicron wave, which was not as lethal as earlier variants, yet highly vaccinated Australians, who expected to be protected by the COVID vaccines, suffered extremely high excess mortality. We know that the COVID-19 vaccines cause heart inflammation, myocarditis and pericarditis. We know that heart inflammation can pass undetected and can be fatal. So it's disturbing to see that, while deaths due to coronary heart disease have fallen, deaths due to other cardiac conditions, which includes deaths due to heart inflammation, increased by 13 per cent in 2022 and 12 per cent in 2023.

Other areas of concern are dementia and diabetes. Deaths from dementia increased by 17 per cent in 2022 and by 11 per cent in 2023. Diabetes deaths were up by 20 per cent in 2022 and up by 14 per cent in 2023. There has also been a disturbing increase in cancer, of 6 per cent in 2022 and of 7 per cent in 2023. Where has this spike come from? We need to find out.

We owe it to all Australians, especially the family and friends of the almost 30,000 Australians who died prematurely since the start of 2021, to find out what is causing Australia's tragic rise in all-cause mortality and to do everything we can to put an end to this dangerous trend.