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

Speaking as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the RMIT fact checkers jumped to the government's rescue last week when I asked questions about the reported decline in birthrates following the national COVID vaccine rollout. My questions were based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data that I posted on my website. My questions were about the validity of the ABS data I'd previously cited in Senate estimates hearings. Senator Gallagher replied that it would be investigated, and I would be advised of the outcome. I never heard anything more. Then I asked about it in question time and was give a similar response, including that the department had different data. Where from? Then the ABS clarified the data on their website, and the RMIT FactLab used that and information from unknown sources to fact-check my question. The minister has once again failed to address the data issue with my office. Was the RMIT FactLab used instead as a mouthpiece for the bureaucrats?

Everyday Australians must be able to approach the next health challenge united as one community, not in a state of civil war, due in part to incomplete and competing data that is fuelling fierce opinions around the emotional issues of pregnancy, infant deaths and child deaths. We must fix this, or the next challenge will end just as badly.

These birth figures appear to be incomplete on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, going back to July 2021—out-of-date data going back 18 months. Note that the data I was presenting in this graph here was monthly data. RMIT fact-checked annual data—absurd. There was a surge in births in the first half of 2021, with lockdown babies coming through. I mentioned that. Then there was a drop-off in the second half of the year. RMIT used annualised data to hide the marked midyear change. RMIT's fact checkers had to concede that the data I quoted supports my question. They said:

The ABS data cited by Senator Roberts indeed shows that, after an uneventful first 10 months, registrations of births (by date of occurrence) were lower in the last two months of 2021.

I checked and easily busted the fact checkers. The decline in long-term average birthrates started in July 2021—six months of decline, not two months. The ABS data cautioned that 'these numbers are incomplete due to the lag in registration' of births. This warning was attached after I raised this data with Senator Gallagher, not before. Birth data is collected weekly at the state level, and at 30 days is 95 per cent accurate. That's enough to publish provisional birth data, just as the ABS publishes provisional death data. To force policymakers to wait so long for the data that is needed to make good decisions is totally unacceptable, and so is the manner in which this government is accessing ABS data and guidance.

My first supplementary question to Minister Gallagher on Monday asked how diligent the government was in obtaining critically important data in a conscientious manner. Her answer was off something like Yes Minister, using phrases like 'working closely with', and, if they saw something, they would say something. If I was the minister responsible for an emergency health response that included mandated vaccination and I knew these vaccinations were comprehensively challenged through peer reviewed science worldwide, indicating serious and fatal outcomes, I'd be glued to my bloody computer, waiting for the latest data on harm, births and deaths to check our response had been safe and effective. Two federal governments have clearly not done that.

Perhaps Australians would trust the science more if that science was subjected to a little more scrutiny. To that end, I joined with Senators Hanson, Antic, Canavan and Rennick to sponsor a motion to force the government to publish its Pfizer contracts. It was the Greens—the 'My Body, My Choice' Greens—who joined with Labor to block the motion, ensuring that, when it comes to health, Big Brother knows best and there will be no dissent—no, not even questioning. I'm pursuing this line of questioning for a reason. It's been conclusively shown that the COVID vaccination can harm or interfere with a woman's reproductive system. In August 2022 a Lancet study confirmed a firm link between the COVID vaccination and menstrual irregularities. It found almost 64,000 respondents reported menstrual irregularities or vaginal bleeding. We know the vaccine builds up in a woman's reproductive system. We know it interferes with the normal functioning of the female reproductive system. We know that birth rates declined, coinciding with the vaccine rollout.

No matter what Australian bureaucrats do, the research and science now underway worldwide will decide the truth and impacts of our COVID response. To exclude politics, this must be reviewed in a royal commission to get the truth. I look forward to the Senate's support for that. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation. I wish everyone around this beautiful planet, especially Queenslanders, a happy and safe Christmas.