Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 16 proposals were received. In accordance with standing order 75, the question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the letter from Senator Wong was chosen:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move 'That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for all Senators to share accurate information about the efficacy of COVID-19 based on official health advice; to combat disinformation campaigns that encourage vaccine hesitancy; to support government action based on health advice that seeks to reduce the risk of COVID-19, including the introduction of vaccine mandates by all State and Territory Governments; and to support the Prime Minister's comments on radio station 2GB in August 2021 that businesses have a "legitimate" right to refuse entry to someone who had refused to get vaccinated.'

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall now ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the following motion standing in the name of my colleague Senator Wong:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for all Senators to share accurate information about the efficacy of COVID-19 based on official health advice; to combat disinformation campaigns that encourage vaccine hesitancy; to support government action based on health advice that seeks to reduce the risk of COVID-19, including the introduction of vaccine mandates by all State and Territory Governments; and to support the Prime Minister's comments on radio station 2GB in August 2021 that businesses have a "legitimate" right to refuse entry to someone who had refused to get vaccinated.

I rise in support of the urgency motion, and urgent it is.

You don't put your hand up for public life unless you believe that, when you get to a place like this, when you take a seat in a chamber like this, your voice will matter; that your words will matter; that they will have influence, meaning and impact; and that you can use those words to help lead our nation, to help lead your communities, to be a leader, to influence and to engage. I truly believe that most people who put their hand up for a seat in this chamber or in the other place are trying to use their voice for good, that they believe in the impact of their words and in the impact that their words can have. But at the moment, in this place and in the other place, too many of our fellow senators aren't using their voice or their influence to lead but are undermining leadership and what it means to be a good leader.

We're at a point in time in our history when reliable information matters more than ever and when science matters more than ever. When you undermine science and you undermine good information, you undermine information which will keep people safe and healthy and could actually keep them alive. When you undermine that information and that science you put people at risk, and we must call that out. We must call it out in this chamber and we must call it out in public. We must use our voices to do that—to call out those who are seeking to undermine our response to this pandemic and who are seeking to frighten, to incite fear and to spread misinformation.

No-one wanted this pandemic. No-one was prepared for the devastation and destruction it has caused, not just in Australia but around our world. Around our world millions of lives have been lost and families devastated, communities devastated and nations devastated. Lives have been destroyed and livelihoods have been destroyed. For too long we were completely vulnerable to the devastation the pandemic was causing. But then science entered—the incredible men and women who worked tirelessly around the clock to deliver a vaccine. How lucky are we? How lucky are we to have science and how lucky are we to be the beneficiaries of their work?

Notwithstanding the government's sloppy delivery of the vaccine rollout, how lucky are we now to have more ready access to a vaccine which might just be the thing that saves our lives? It might just be the thing which protects our neighbours and keeps our children safe. To be able to do that—to keep the people we love safe—is a blessing and it's a miracle of science, and I'm so grateful for it. I am double vaccinated and I'm gratefully double vaccinated, as are the 77 per cent of my fellow South Australians aged over 16 who have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated and to keep our community safe.

I put my hand up for public life to use my voice to lead in my community—to serve my community. But there are people in this place who are using their voices to spread toxic fear and misinformation which put their fellow Australians at risk, encouraging misinformation that can turn into vaccine hesitancy, and we need to call that out. And it's not just those who are engaged in the explicit peddling of misinformation and disinformation, those who are explicitly doing this to their fellow Australians and explicitly undermining our response to this pandemic, but also those who are dog whistling and playing word semantics, seeking to undermine this rollout and to undermine our response.

The consequences of this misinformation are real and they're personal. When they encourage vaccine hesitancy and create fear they risk the health and wellbeing not just of individuals but of communities. The consequences are real for the small business owners in my community, who are already confused and stressed out about how to protect their staff, their customers and their clients. They think they know where their Prime Minister stands when he legitimises vaccine mandates on one hand but then quietly and softly undermines them on the other. And the consequences are real for those of us in this place for whom misinformation and disinformation are hitting close to home.

The consequences were real and personal for me when I found out that my vaccinated 102-year-old grandfather was having people not turn up to visit him because they thought the fact that he was vaccinated meant they could catch COVID. He's 102 and he missed out on those visits because of that fear. It's absurd, but it's happening. It's happening because people let the misinformation happen, and they peddle it, encourage it and stoke it. It's happening because misinformation has become a business model and an electoral model, and it's putting Australians at risk.

In my state of South Australia we're about to open up. Whilst there is much to welcome in that, and I trust that those decisions have been taken on health advice—as we've trusted that the decisions throughout this pandemic were taken on health advice and, when they were, supported them—I have to say that I'm deeply concerned for the parts of my community which are at most risk and potentially have the most to lose when and if COVID returns to our state. Those are populations like our South Australian First Nations communities, for whom the double-vaccination rate is just 46.7 per cent. That's dramatically lower than in our whole eligible population. And you know we have seen the particularly dangerous, particularly toxic spread of misinformation amongst our First Nations populations. That, combined with a vacuum of appropriate public health messaging, has left people at risk.

I want to commend my fellow senators, Senators Dodson and McCarthy, and also Linda Burney and all those who have stepped up to call out this misinformation, to keep these communities safe in the context of this fearmongering. We have seen what happens when communities with significant First Nations populations become the site of a COVID-19 outbreak. We saw what happened in Wilcannia—nothing short of a public health crisis. But we have these low rates in other parts of our country as well; we have them in South Australia. And it's not the fault of local populations. There were significant issues in terms of the vaccine rollout, in terms of support provided to these communities and in terms of public information and messaging. But these communities need our support now, and I'm worried.

I'm also worried about the kids in our community who can't yet get a vaccination. I'm the mother of two children under the age of five. When this misinformation spreads through our community, when vaccine hesitancy spreads throughout our community, it puts kids at risk, too. It puts those who can't get a vaccine at risk. This is dangerous stuff. This is not coming to this place, to this building, and using your voice to do good. This is not coming here to lead in our communities, to support your fellow South Australians. This is not coming here to stand up and say, 'Thank God for the miracle of science; thank God for this blessing; thank God we're not on the front line of this war, this pandemic, alone now, without any armour; thank God for science and scientists, who have given us this vaccine, who have given us an opportunity to be safer.'

Millions of people have died worldwide, and I know there are countless people around the world who would love to have access to a vaccine but can't. And here we do have access; here we have this armour. So, let's listen to the scientists. Let's listen to science. Let's value and appreciate this miracle and call out the people here and the people around our country who are turning uncertainty and fear into a business model, turning it into an electoral model, saying, 'Here's my shot at re-election: I'll stoke this fear, I'll stoke this fire'—instead of leading their communities, instead of doing everything they can to uphold the health advice, to uphold science and scientists, to uphold the armour that we now have in this war, in this pandemic.

Call them out. It is grossly irresponsible. And it's not a game. It's not student politics. This is real: real lives, real communities—my community—our kids, our First Nations populations, our vulnerable populations, who deserve so much more, who deserve leaders, who deserve people worthy of the chairs they take up in this place. It's time to call them out.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I guess in 2021 we shouldn't be surprised that we're starting these final two sitting weeks this year in a challenging environment, as we've experienced for most of the past 20 months or so. We probably shouldn't be overly surprised. But I do think that this week we may be reaching a new level of the bizarre. After listening to question time today, I feel that Senator Wong may need to sit down with her own Senate team and ascertain where they actually are on vaccines. We had Senator O'Neill criticising 'no jab, no play' like the best of the antivaxxers, clearly wanting to open our children to a virus that we're more than capable of vaccinating against. She was followed by Senator McAllister, who was critical that the PM had suggested that people in Brisbane should be able to get a coffee at an 80 per cent vax rate, putting baristas at risk—smacking of demands for mandatory vaccination. And then of course we saw the bill this morning by Senator Hanson, attempting to fundamentally halt government legislation. Seriously? What sort of ejaculation of the pacifier is this?

I would hope that one thing we can all agree on is national security—the importance of keeping our nation safe. But yet, here we are faced with a revolt as we see a bill that will boost our national security. It will secure critical infrastructure to prevent cyberattacks, and this is the first piece of legislation that has come before us today. So I stand here in disappointment that our national security, all of our security, might be jeopardised due to this sort of behaviour.

When we began the COVID journey, national cabinet was established to ensure that the whole country was working in the same direction when it came to living in a post-pandemic world. The national plan was developed, working with expert advice from the Doherty Institute and Commonwealth Treasury. The Morrison government has always been, and continues to be, committed to the national plan and that plan is working where it is upheld. Thresholds were set and jurisdictions could open safely at both the 70 per cent and 80 per cent fully-vaccinated marks.

I appreciate that we've seen some states adhere to the plan and others go a little rogue. If we were looking a little cynically at the behaviour of Senator Hanson's home state Premier, along with WA's, we may think they could be working in cahoots to cause political problems for the Prime Minister in the lead-up to the federal election. This is important for everyone to remember: far too often it's the state premiers, along with unelected health officers, who determine these restrictions. To anyone who looks across the different states, for anyone who assumes that some of these restrictions are based in science, it's ludicrous. There are arbitrary numbers allowed in homes, random distances where people can travel, masks both inside and out—let alone by yourself in a car—and drinking sitting down versus standing up.

What we do know is that, despite what the COVID doomsayers predicted, when New South Wales opened up at its high level of vaccination, the cases have continued to decline. Perhaps more importantly, the numbers of hospitalisations and those requiring ventilators have also dropped consistently. This is important to remember because, despite the voodoo science and the sheep drench pushers, we're seeing vaccinations work. They're effective at ensuring the virus has minimal health impacts. They keep people safe—we see those who are vaccinated, even if they're COVID-positive, not really getting as sick and neither are they passing it on as widely, as their viral load is much lower. So with high vaccination rates combined with sensible public health strategies we're seeing a virus we can learn to live with, not one which is incredibly deadly for many Australians.

I do understand that everyone in the Australian population, across the board, is pretty much over it. They want government out of their lives and they want things to get back to normal. I actually think we would struggle to find too many people who would want us to continue living in the same way that we have been. We all want to see kids back in the classroom and our teenagers and young people experiencing what we did when we were young. We want families to be able to get together and businesses to be able to operate as they best see fit. In fact, as of yesterday, every single state has reached over 80 per cent first dose and all are over 70 per cent fully vaxxed. So it's time for restrictions to be rolled back.

This is something that every premier has agreed to in national cabinet—all of them unanimously agreed to this in national cabinet. The performance art that's being conducted by some state premiers, clinging to relevance, or, even more concerning, those with hospital systems already overwhelmed without a COVID case at all, is now working actively against the plan they agreed to. But we also need to remember that at no point has the Morrison government mandated vaccines. We've always said that it's up to the individual. And whilst we've never hidden our desire to see as many Australians as possible get vaccinated we've never demanded that they be vaccinated compulsorily across the board.

There are of course exceptions—those in certain aged-care and health settings—but this also is not anything new. This is something that has occurred previously around the flu vaccine. We want to protect, and we want to continue to protect, those vulnerable communities and to keep them and those who work with them safe. I think Senator Lambie put it together perfectly this morning: mandatory flu vaccines have been around since COVID was nothing but a sparkle in a bat's eye!

The ability to mandate is driven by states and whilst some states, such as my home state of New South Wales, have set a date for those who have decided against the vaccine to open up again, it's still only around four to five per cent of people over 16. That's a very small number of people who will not have received a first or second dose of vaccine. So, once we get there—to 15 December for us in New South Wales—we will be free to do as we wish. On top of that, those who have decided to remain unvaccinated will be able to access a health system funded by all taxpayers, should they require hospitalisation or a ventilator.

We need to learn to live with COVID. It should be something similar to living with the flu. And it's the vaccines that can allow this to occur. At that point, at 95 per cent fully vaccinated, I think we should also see the end of QR codes and mask mandates. We need to return to a pre-COVID life. Freedoms should be returned without any restrictions. But many of these restrictions are being put in place under state health orders. I note that some of the people who supported the bill this morning are also some of the strongest advocates in this place for states' rights and keen to show respect for the Constitution. Yet, seemingly, some are happy for states to overrule, override and, quite frankly, overreach. So it's important to remember, for those in WA and Queensland in particular: elections have consequences. The overwhelming support given to the premiers in those two states at recent elections has emboldened them to maintain unacceptable levels of restrictions that are not based on science, effective health advice or even common sense. But the rest of the country should not be put at risk by this unacceptable behaviour and these threats because a small percentage of the population can't get a coffee.

As we've all come to know far too well, under the Australian Constitution, states and territories have a large degree of autonomy to conduct their own affairs, including the ability to implement public orders. There has been significant overreach by premiers, and I'm not denying that at all. I think the restriction of movement throughout this country has been extended beyond belief. I think it's a little crazy, in fact, that we're all sitting here in split seats with a mask mandate in Canberra—the most highly vaccinated jurisdiction in the country; in fact, almost in the world.

I think businesses should have the right to refuse entry or service to those who decide to remain unvaccinated—not to those who have legitimate medical grounds, but to those who oppose the vaccine as they don't support vaccines. I have zero tolerance for antivaxxers and I've been dealing with them, and a lot of those people, for a lot longer than many others in this place. There's nothing like being the mother of a son newly diagnosed with autism and being told that I caused it—that I gave it to him, because I'd had him vaccinated. It's wrong, deceitful and incredibly upsetting. But these people have permeated autism groups for years, written articles and diverted more money away from autism research than anyone else. We can also debunk, time and again, the work of a struck-off and disgraced physician. I've spoken up against these people since coming to this place and have received the most vile abuse, including threats to me and my family. These people are abhorrent. Their views are ridiculous and no weight should be given to them at all.

We have such a high voluntary rate of vaccination that we should maintain the national plan to reopen. Restrictions should be eased. We should have no mask mandates and no QR codes. We should have unrestricted, quarantine-free travel across our country, and businesses should be able to operate in the way that they feel they are best able to. Like so many other Australians, I want to see the end of COVID. I want to be able to visit friends I grew up with in Adelaide and Perth, I want my son to see his godmother in Queensland and I want my daughter to see her godparents in Adelaide. We need to let the national plan continue to roll out. (Time expired)

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Senator Wong's motion. Vaccines and vaccinations save lives. They are one of the most powerful tools in our public health toolkit to fight this virus and to protect our community, and we as community leaders should be encouraging people to get vaccinated. We should be sharing information about the opportunities to do so, and we should be focused on holding the authorities to account—governments both state and federal—for creating those opportunities and incentives for people to get vaccinated. The story of Australia's COVID times is a story dominated by the success of the community in coming together to act in community-minded ways to limit death and harm, juxtaposed against the failure of the Morrison government. It is now conclusively known that our government—the Liberals—had the opportunity to order more vaccines earlier, and they didn't.

The three key elements of a successful vaccine rollout, whether it be for COVID-19 or for any other disease, are communication, coordination and supply. In each of these areas, the national government is the most important actor. They have the most levers to pull, to get the work done, yet the Liberal government failed. They failed disabled people—particularly, actively deprioritising us when the extent of their mismanagement became known. They have failed time and time again to take the simple steps being modelled all around the world to get vaccines to people proactively and get them that protection.

What we saw last week was a continuation of the Liberal failure in this space. Not content with failing to get the vaccines when we needed them, not content with taking away the supports that people needed to follow the health advice and keep the case numbers down, the Morrison government last week failed its final test: the test of moral character, the test of how you respond when terrifying violence begins to spread in your community, when lies and deceit are spread by those in positions of power. The Prime Minister was given the opportunity to condemn the violent, hateful rhetoric, to call it out, and he failed to do it. He gave it safe harbour for the simple reason that he sees votes in it. He sees that—

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Steele-John, I remind you that the imputation of improper motives is contrary to standing orders. I ask you to recall that in your remarks. You have the call.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was quite clear that the Morrison government's political agenda, in relation to reacting to that violence in our community, was motivated solely by a belief that there are votes in it for them should they doublespeak to these people, to these movements. It is one of the most profound displays of political cowardice in the nearly 10 years of a government that has been dominated by moments of failure, when it comes to moral questions, failure of leadership. In fact, should the biography of Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, ever be written, it would be rightly titled 'Failing Upwards: The Scott Morrison Story'. At this moment, what is needed is honesty from community representatives, not a callous attempt to win votes on the eve of an election, which is what we are seeing from this government in its final, desperate days.

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

[by video link] You would think that this urgency motion that the Senate is debating today is pretty simple. We are not asking much of senators today with this motion. All this motion seeks to do is to call on all senators, regardless of their party, regardless of their state, to share accurate information about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines based on health advice—not based on 'Dr Google', 'Dr Facebook', 'Dr Clive Palmer' or 'Dr Conspiracy Theorist' but based on health advice from recognised experts in the field, many of whom are employed by this federal government.

This motion calls on all senators to combat the disinformation campaigns that we are seeing from far too many quarters in our society—and, sadly, from senators who supposedly were elected to represent the best interests of all Australians but who seem to be more preoccupied with spreading fear and disinformation about vaccines that stand as our best chance of keeping our communities safe, keeping our economies working and keeping people in jobs.

This motion calls on all senators to support government action—regardless of which level of government and which party—that seeks to keep communities safe, and that government action includes vaccination mandates, which are imposed on the basis of health advice. These mandates, just like other actions that have been taken by governments—state, federal and local—are based on health advice. They are not being done on a whim; they are not being done as part of some power grab, as is being alleged; they are being done on basis of health advice, with the express purpose of keeping our communities safe, keeping people alive, keeping our economies going and keeping people in work.

It is important to note that these mandates have been imposed by all state and territory governments. We only hear from the Prime Minister and his colleagues about mandates that have been imposed in Labor states. They are completely silent about the fact that these mandates have also been imposed by their Liberal and National party colleagues in state and territory governments. It's as if a mandate imposed by a Labor state is a terrible thing and a mandate imposed by a Liberal or National state is a wonderful thing. That goes to the dishonesty that we are seeing from this Prime Minister and, unfortunately, from so many of his colleagues as we all should be combining to combat COVID, to combat disinformation and to keep our communities safe.

This motion also supports comments that this Prime Minister has made before. There are not many times that you will see opposition senators giving this Prime Minister a pat on the back for doing the right thing around COVID, but from time to time he has done the right thing, especially when he was speaking to Sydney radio in August and commending the New South Wales government for bringing in vaccination mandates and for noting that businesses have a legitimate right to refuse patrons who are unvaccinated. In August it was okay for the Prime Minister to back the New South Wales government and to back New South Wales businesses that exclude patrons on the basis of their vaccination status, but, when it comes to Queensland, or any Labor state, it's a different matter.

This goes to the core of how this Prime Minister has approached this issue and every issue. He is constantly looking to pick fights with Labor states, and with the residents of those states, while giving a free pass for exactly the same kind of behaviour that we see from Liberal state governments. What we need at the moment, as we seek to recover from COVID-19, is a prime minister and a government who will actually bring the country together and not seek to divide the country on the basis of the colour of their state government. That's what we need, and it's not what we're getting from this Prime Minister.

I'll be interested to see how the vote goes on this motion, because we've heard a lot from a couple of senators, particularly Senators Hanson and Rennick, who, along with their colleagues, over recent weeks have been promising Australians who support their position on mandates that they won't support government legislation and that they won't vote with the government during this fortnight. Here is another test for Senator Hanson and Senator Rennick, to see whether their word actually means anything: if their word means anything, they will continue to vote against the government as they promised to do. (Time expired)

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion from the party that used to be known as the Labor Party, shows that the Labor Party have completely deserted protecting workers' rights. They no longer give two hoots about the rights of workers to work or the rights of labourers to work. It is no longer a labour party. They should get it over with, change their name to the 'woke party' and get it done, because they are not representing labourers, they are not representing workers and they're not even representing unions.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions, the ACTU, just a few months ago put out a joint statement with the Business Council of Australia opposing mandatory vaccinations. This a direct quote from the Business Council and the Australian Council of Trade Unions:

We believe that for the overwhelming majority of Australians your work or workplace should not fundamentally alter the voluntary nature of vaccination.

I concur with that wholeheartedly. People in this country should have the right to work and provide for their families—not according to the Labor Party. Just so I'm clear—and it reflects my view—the statement goes on to say:

Employers and unions recognise that for a small number of high-risk workplaces there may be a need for all workers in a workplace to be vaccinated to protect community health and safety.

I believe that too. That's why this morning I recognised that in my contribution. Imposing mandates across almost our whole economy, which is occurring in many states, and for all time or potentially in perpetuity, which is also apparent in some states, is a breach of a person's fundamental right to be able to work so that they can provide food on the table for their children. It is outrageous that state governments are doing this.

This motion, though, is also totally incoherent. On the one hand it says that businesses should have the right to refuse entry to people who are unvaccinated and on the other it says, 'We should mandate that anyway.' What? Businesses don't have that right to choose, then? They don't have a right to choose if it's mandated for them by governments. The Labor Party are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're holding out the hope that somehow businesses would have a choice—they respect choice—but, at the same time, in this motion they are taking away that choice by supporting mandates.

I notice that Senator Watt was saying that vaccine mandates should apply when the health advice says so. By the way, where is this health advice? We never seem to get to see it. It seems to be hidden from all of us mere mortals. What Senator Watt does not explain is how we deal with a situation where health experts disagree and some of them do disagree. Dr Nick Coatsworth who was, until not that long ago, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth government and a highly respected expert in this field, only late last week on 18 November, said:

One of the best decisions ever made by a jurisdiction was @ABarrMLA's determination to avoid differential treatment of unvaccinated Canberrans. No vaccine passports. Just convincing the community and facilitating vaccination. That's the way it's done.

That's pretty clear health advice.

The ACT—Andrew Barr is Canberra's first minister—is an example where there are no vaccination passports and I believe they have the highest vaccination rate in the country. They've done that without any mandating and without people being forced to lose their jobs, at least in a widespread way, again, keeping in mind that, yes, in high-risk health environments that might be required. But they haven't required people to show their medical papers to go to a cafe and they haven't required a retail worker or someone working in a supermarket to get a vaccination just to keep their job, yet they've achieved the result we all want, which is a high vaccination rate.

Where is the evidence that this works? This is a fundamental restriction on people's human rights; surely we can agree with that. Surely someone does have a right to work. We recognise it in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We hear a lot from the Labor and Greens parties about these international treaties that we should comply with. Well, that's in there; it's in the heart of the document that people have a right to work. We're breaching that right. We are restricting that right. If you are going to do so, you'd want to have pretty good evidence that this stuff works, but we have almost zero evidence that it works. Vaccine passport policies are certainly not working overseas. I challenge any other speaker in this debate to provide an example of just one country where vaccine passports have worked.

To be clear: even if the health advice were all in one direction for health passports, which it's not, we cannot give up our responsibility to make decisions on these fundamental issues to people who are expert in one narrow field. These issues are about much more than the coronavirus or health issues alone. They go to fundamental human rights, and therefore it is incumbent on us not to outsource our decision-making and our responsibility to weigh up evidence and advice for the best interests of the Australian people, to protect their rights and to make sure we remain a free country.

I want to read a quote from CS Lewis, who said this many years ago. It was in 1958, but it was quite prescient:

Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. … But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.

That is a succinct summary of what we used to consider freedom, in this country and right around Western civilisation. Each individual was sovereign to decide what was important in their lives. It was not for a centralised government to dictate what they should do with their life, their lifestyle or their diet and certainly not with medical procedures, but that is what we're doing here, and the Australian people have worked this out. That's why you see hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, and they're not all unvaccinated people. There are plenty of people, like myself, who are vaccinated but who will fight to protect the right of other Australians to make a different decision. There are thousands of people like that. We've never seen protests like this in this country. They've been almost overwhelmingly peaceful, probably the most peaceful protests we've ever seen in this country.

And now we have people wanting to silence fellow Australians. We have the Labor member for Keppel, near where I live, wanting to refer our local mayor to the CCC in Queensland because he had the temerity to vote against the Queensland government's draconian vaccine mandate laws. This behaviour is reprehensible. To try and silence an elected official through threats of referral to corruption-investigating bodies is a low point for the member for Keppel, up there in Central Queensland, and that's quite an achievement for her, based on her previous conduct.

There were over 2,000 people in Yeppoon on the weekend, campaigning against these mandates. I know many of them. I can vouch for the fact that they're not far-Right extremists. They're not radical extremists. They're not 'fringe elements', as the Queensland Deputy Premier tagged them last week. They are upstanding men and women in our community—many of them business owners and many of them involved in voluntary organisations—who are just trying to defend the right of people to earn a living and not be forced to undertake a medical procedure. They do not deserve seeing their own member of parliament in Queensland seeking to bully and silence their mayor from standing up for them. I applaud the work of the Livingston Shire Council, on the Capricorn Coast, last week. They stood up as one and voted unanimously against these vaccine passports.

It's about time that the Queensland Labor government actually listened to the people of Queensland. It's about time they discussed these matters before running off dictates in Brisbane that tell us how we should live up there in Central Queensland. I tell you what: people up there do not want their freedoms taken away. They will not back down on this fight. They will continue to support all of our fellow Central Queenslanders to make their own decisions to work to provide for their family and ensure that we do not lose the free country we were all born in.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Senator Wong's motion clarifies the voting choices on offer to the electorate at the next election. Senator Wong has made it clear that, under an Albanese-Bandt government, there will be no place for democracy, there will be no place for freedom of speech and there will be no place for independent thought. There will be no democracy under a government that the Labor Party leads. There will only be mindless conformity.

The very nature of the Senate is to bring together representatives with different opinions based on different life experiences, education and origin. Such a debate will necessarily leverage opposing facts and opposing interpretations of facts and through this process is more likely to arrive at the truth. Data and truth lead to sound, sustainable policy decisions. With this motion, Senator Wong is demonstrating why a Labor-Greens government so seldom makes good policy decisions, as we saw with the last Labor-Greens government. Echo chambers do not make for good government. One Nation will defend our democracy and our right to free speech. We will continue to advocate debate on the issues of the day, including COVID injections, and we will continue to call out unelected bureaucrats with massive financial conflicts of interest.

Australia is not a corporate dictatorship, no matter how hard Senator Wong and this parliament try to make it one. On the weekend half a million Australians demonstrated what they think of Senator Wong's motion. Despite media censorship and suppression, half a million Australians came out to defend freedom of speech and freedom of choice. In a beautiful expression of unity across political, religious, professional and cultural backgrounds everyday Australians around the country demonstrated a love for one flag, one community and one nation. I've attended marches and rallies at Brisbane and the Gold Coast and will be doing so again this coming Saturday, in support of the people and in support of freedom. I felt people's anger, their determination, their resentment, their sadness, their grief and their disdain for MPs and senators who ignore the people, who try to control the people.

With this motion Senator Wong is saying to the millions who demonstrated and to people who cheered them on from home: shut up and comply. What a clear picture of life under a Labor-Greens government Labor has painted today. One Nation will never shut up and comply. We will support people who have the freedom to speak up and the courage and integrity to speak up. We compliment and appreciate the Livingston council in Central Queensland, the Capricorn Coast. What a wonderful example of courage; integrity; listening to, supporting, working for and serving the people, in their latest declaration motion that was passed unanimously last week. We applaud you. Thank you very much, Mayor and all councillors.

In One Nation we listen, we stand up and we speak up. We are representatives of the people. We work for the people. We serve the people. We will always support freedom and basic human rights. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one people and we are one nation.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] As parliamentarians the people of Australia, the voters, put their trust in us. We hold positions of huge responsibility. We are community leaders with a voice, a platform and an audience, and as leaders what we say in public carries a great deal of weight. In the COVID pandemic compliance with public health restrictions is vital to making those restrictions work. Acceptance of the safety and efficacy of vaccines is vital to making the vaccine rollout work, but sadly there are some in this place, and in the house of reps, who have chosen to undermine the public health effort instead, to fearmonger and spread misinformation.

Parliamentarians have a hugely important role to play in reinforcing public health messages. The most powerful antidote we could have against the conspiracy theories and disinformation being peddled by some members and senators is for the holder of Australia's highest office to reject their crazy ideas and suggestions. Mr Kelly promotes unproven COVID treatment like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. It's not good enough for Mr Morrison simply to say, 'He's not my doctor,' or that Mr Kelly's pronouncements don't align with his views. Senator Rennick goes around spreading vaccine conspiracy theories. It's not good enough for the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mr Hunt, simply to make a pathetic plea for him to stick with the facts. The dangerous ideas being promoted by these parliamentarians should be met with swift and clear condemnation by the Prime Minister, not some sort of timid disagreement. For some Australians, the spread of dangerous ideas which undermine our public health measures could literally be a matter of life and death. The spreading of these ideas must be condemned in the strongest possible terms, and the Prime Minister must send a clear message to Liberal members and senators engaging in this dangerous behaviour that it will not be tolerated in his party.

As if the disinformation wasn't dangerous enough, we saw some senators in this place vote this morning for a bill which would have undermined public health measures. The message that Senator Hanson, Senator Roberts and five coalition senators are sending to Australians is that they reject the tools that are needed to keep the public safe. They're telling vulnerable Australians, such as aged-care residents and hospital patients, that it's okay for them to bear the risk of being exposed to unvaccinated workers. While health experts and health professionals are working hard to lift vaccination rates so Australians can get back to enjoying their freedoms, we've got government senators undermining that effort without any consequence. If Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce won't discipline their rogue senators, they should at the very least publicly rebuke them, but it's of little surprise that Mr Morrison appears to lack the courage to confront his backbenchers when he himself is not fully committed to the public health measures necessary to get us safely through the pandemic.

Regardless of whether you agreed with them or not, every Australian Prime Minister up until now has had clear convictions and a clear vision for the nation. I've never seen a national leader so lacking in conviction or vision as Mr Morrison is, and the COVID pandemic has shown us all his true colours. This is a prime minister who has talked up the measures that have kept Australia safe from COVID but keeps giving a nod and a wink to the radical fringe that rails against these measures. He made a statement condemning expressions of violence by protesters, then said he sympathised with their frustrations. That's doublespeak. It's rubbish. He needs to be strong. He took credit for the actions of states and territories in stopping the spread of COVID, but he fought them every step of the way and then pressured them, especially the Labor states, to lift restrictions. His government even joined a High Court challenge by mining magnate Clive Palmer against Western Australia's border restrictions, before public pressure forced them to withdraw.

The Prime Minister talks up the importance of getting vaccinated but refuses to reprimand those in his own party who undermine vaccination messages. This is a prime minister who is quite happy to appeal to mainstream Australia, all the while quietly courting the preferences of One Nation and— (Time expired)

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the calls for all of us to share accurate information about the efficacy of COVID vaccines. I would also say that it is incumbent on all of us to share accurate information about jurisdictional reach and to share accurate information about what we as a federal government can do unilaterally and what we can't do—about who is responsible for what. Let's also consider and be accurate about what people are currently protesting against because, yes, facts matter.

Those who are currently protesting are protesting against restrictions. They are not protesting against vaccine mandates, because there are no vaccine mandates. They are protesting against restrictions based on vaccination status and the different treatment of those who are fully vaccinated and those who are not. Those restrictions have been put in place by the state and territory governments. These are state and territory decisions under state and territory laws. They are following their public health orders. It is not the Commonwealth government's place to usurp those. The bill that we saw this morning, and that many people have referred to in this afternoon's debate, was designed to try to usurp state rights. That's a very slippery slope to start going down. Where do we stop? That bill from this morning—which was supposedly to stop government overreach—was government overreach writ large.

Our government's position has been, and always will be, that COVID-19 vaccination should be voluntary except in highly exceptional circumstances such as people who work in health and aged care. Senator Lambie said it very well this morning, and for anyone who didn't listen I encourage you to go and read the Hansard. She explained that vaccination is a choice, and in certain industries the choice is: you get a vaccination or find another calling. That is not new. Certain employment arrangements have had vaccination requirements for decades. In New South Wales, you haven't been able to be a nurse without being vaccinated against whooping cough. In many aged-care facilities it has been mandatory to get a flu shot not just once but annually. The issue we are currently seeing is not really about those accepted norms for vaccine requirements in exceptional circumstances—it is being driven by fear.

When I looked deeper into Senator Hanson's bill this morning, it caused me fear because that bill didn't just prohibit governments mandating vaccines for their own workers but it also prevented Commonwealth, state and territory governments from entering into an agreement with, providing funding to, or granting a licence or a permit to, an entity—be it government or private, a charity or an NGO—that is reasonably likely to discriminate on the basis of COVID vaccination. And that 'reasonably likely' test is, 'Have they put in restrictions in the past?' Are you serious? That bill would have seen organisations such as St John's Ambulance, which is a fantastic organisation that provides excellent first-aid support and community programs, restricted and prevented from receiving funding from, or contracting to, a state government. Our charities would have been impacted. Sorry, Red Cross, next time there are Black Summer bushfires, you can't have any money because you might require your first-aid instructors, who teach things like resuscitation, to be vaccinated against something like the COVID-19 virus! The Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul, who work with the homeless and vulnerable, would have been prohibited from receiving grants or funding if they asked their volunteers who work with the most vulnerable people in society to vaccinate to protect them. And what about private hospitals? Sorry, St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, part of St Vincent Health Australia, who provide a full-service public teaching hospital—not anymore under Senator Hanson's bill! Facts matter, and the fact of the matter is that our government believes in voluntary vaccination, but the states are applying restrictions— (Time expired)

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this urgency motion because I simply cannot fathom that members of the Morrison-Joyce government are seemingly green-lit to parade around the country undermining public health advice in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Last Sunday, which was just two days before South Australians are due, in a nervous fashion, to throw open our doors to the nation, we had a member of this chamber addressing the Adelaide anti-vax rally. What parallel universe are we in when someone elected to represent the people of South Australia—with all the inherent responsibilities that that entails and which have been borne out through this debate today—is addressing a rally conceived to undermine a public health message and a public health response to a deadly disease that has killed five million people worldwide? Should Senator Antic and other coalition members spreading this misinformation about the virus be reined in? Of course they should! But will they be? I can't see it. I can't see the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister doing anything about this. They are allowing senators from this chamber to spread misinformation, to support anti-science, anti-vax rallies like the one we saw in Adelaide on the weekend.

It suits the government to have a bob each way—partly supporting people who believe in science, partly supporting people who don't. The conspiracy theorists, the right-wing nutjobs and the social media medics are out there pushing this line, and it's being supported by members of this chamber. It suits the Prime Minister to have those on the far Right of his party out there talking to the fringe while keeping his own hands clean so he can gather their preferences whenever the next election is held. We see this sort of doublespeak quite a lot with the Prime Minister and his government. In normal circumstances, it's annoying and it's pathetic, and it's always disappointing. But when we're dealing with a deadly pandemic that threatens the lives of vulnerable people and those who are immunodeficient, it is reckless beyond belief and it lacks the leadership that we should demand in this country. On the very same day that we had coalition MPs and senators addressing anti-vax rallies around this country, we learnt that a young Victorian child under the age of 10 was killed by this disease. To protect our community, we all have to do our part.

The nation, including my home state of South Australia, is screaming out for leadership, and what do they get? From Senator Antic, they get a tacit nod to misinformation and to anti-science, reactionary, right-wing politics. As I said earlier, it suits the Prime Minister's interest to have a bob each way on the serious issue of public health. From the get-go, the government's response to the pandemic has been marked by mixed messages, indecision and blatant misinformation. Instead of unequivocally calling out the disgusting threats to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews made at anti-vax rallies in Melbourne in recent times, the Prime Minister has said he understands protesters' concerns. Instead of urging those who are holding out on getting vaccinated to not be influenced by the hateful campaigns from the anti-vaxxers, he says he understands their concerns. Well, their concerns have no basis in scientific fact, and their concerns are being driven through our communities and are discouraging people from getting vaccinated, which then places the community at risk.

Time and time again, this government have failed to call out the misinformation and extreme elements from within our community because doing so might lose them a few of Pauline Hanson's or Clive Palmer's preferences. Australians are not stupid. They are awake to the doublespeak, to the dog whistling and to the government that cares little for anything but its own sorry political survival. We must ensure that we provide accurate health advice, fight against disinformation campaigns and protect our communities. This is a deadly disease. Herd immunity is a useful tool in fighting these diseases. It helps us protect those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons and helps us keep our communities safe.

Question agreed to.