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

Starting on the 27th of this month, member states of the World Health Organization, including Australia, will meet for the 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva, where they will consider amendments to the International Health Regulations and the WHO pandemic treaty. This week, I authored a letter to the Prime Minister, which was co-signed by 13 other parliamentarians—and I thank them for their support—demanding that this Labor government walk away from the amendments and the treaty.

These instruments pose a significant threat to Australia's autonomy and independence on the global stage. If implemented into Australian law, the World Health Organization would hold an unacceptable level of authority, power and influence over Australia's affairs, under the guise of declaring emergencies and the potential fast-tracking of pandemic related products, and that hasn't worked out too well in the past.

Thanks to COVID, there's a growing awareness of the rise of unelected global bureaucrats, and, like most Australians, I don't want a globalist entity coercing my country into getting on board with their pandemic program. The IHR amendments and the WHO pandemic treaty would transform the WHO from an advisory organisation into a supranational health authority, dictating how governments respond to emergencies which the WHO itself declares. The Prime Minister has the power to reject this power grab, and he must.