Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the $100 million given to the World Health Organization by the Albanese Labor government to prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics. I find it quite amazing that the federal government thinks it can find $100 million to spend on bureaucrats over in Switzerland rather than addressing and trying to sort out the issues from the last pandemic. We know that the Albanese Labor government said that they were going to have a royal commission into COVID, and they've effectively backed down on that. They're going to have a bunch of bureaucrats—a professional experts team of three—look at this issue, and they won't allow a Senate inquiry to occur.

To put it in perspective, $10 million has been paid out so far to 155 people who have made vaccine injury claims. The budget from the year before last had $77 million for people suffering vaccine injuries. In last year's budget, it was reduced to $27 million. I think it's absolutely disgusting that we can spend so much money on bureaucrats living in other countries to prepare for the next pandemic but not address issues from the last pandemic. I speak to people injured by the vaccine every day. My office is inundated with people who have gone through the protocols and gotten specialists saying they've had an injury, and Services Australia won't address the issue. I think that it's about time they took it seriously. I've had ex-bureaucrats from the TGA themselves dispute what's going on with the way these people are treated. I think that the Albanese federal government needs to get its priorities straight. It needs to look after the people injured from the vaccine here in Australia before handing out any more money to overseas organisations.