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What’s causing a 67% reduction in Australian birth rates?

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Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show a shocking 67% reduction in the monthly birth rates from between July and December 2021. The Government claims I’ve got my facts wrong but the data is published on the ABS website for all to see. Guess what significant event lines up with roughly nine months prior to this data…

Time Period2012201320142015201620172018201920202021
Month of occurence          
Total308,518305,355307,753303,954308,987299,189296,447294,883285,047273,301
·  January25,74526,13525,34425,57525,39825,37325,52924,79624,61124,793
·  February24,63724,11124,82323,69225,39223,48023,38123,29322,79824,695
·  March26,39726,40526,43826,17227,36526,42625,76825,63224,79427,433
·  April25,06025,11725,60524,99425,92824,46124,13724,66623,72925,342
·  May26,39426,48625,96425,19926,29325,60825,38726,00424,42425,669
·  June25,24025,00725,00324,94226,01625,07024,50324,04123,77624,928
·  July25,94025,71926,32526,34725,78524,97324,91525,04924,49024,905
·  August26,40625,49525,53525,58926,00325,79525,19524,66623,92624,060
·  September25,46325,57526,38326,02726,24825,18524,38524,55723,76023,558
·  October26,91425,93126,79426,00925,66125,15625,34425,61623,80623,073
·  November25,39224,50724,35324,19424,38723,88824,12323,33222,23818,186
·  December24,93024,86725,18625,21424,51123,77423,78023,23122,6956,659

Data source: https://explore.data.abs.gov.au/vis?tm=births&pg=0&df[ds]=ABS_ABS_TOPICS&df[id]=BIRTHS_MONTH_OCCURRENCE&df[ag]=ABS&df[vs]=1.0.0&hc[Measure]=Births&pd=1975%2C&dq=1..AUS.A&ly[cl]=TIME_PERIOD&ly[rw]=MONTH_OCCUR&fbclid=IwAR2uu5iUXHGW_J5moMnQNfzKVAsTc_UZVsBG4QSvr_isOwRFveUCJ4ZbSXY&vw=tb

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:28): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator Gallagher. It has been four weeks since the Australian Bureau of Statistics published data showing a 67 per cent reduction in Australia’s monthly birthrate between July and December 2021 as compared to the long-term average—a startling decrease. I drew attention to this data during Senate estimates, hoping for some reassurance. None was forthcoming. Let me ask again: Minister, why has Australia’s birthrate declined from 30 June 2021 to 31 December 2021, revealing a 70 per cent reduction?

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:29): I thank Senator Roberts for the question and I recall the discussion that we had at estimates and the fact that we requested, from Senator Roberts, some time to go through the information that he tabled in that hearing. I haven’t got that information back, but I think the advice given by the chief medical officer—who I was sitting next to—and me was that the data you were using didn’t align with the information we had. We hadn’t seen a drop-off of that size, which would be quite noticeable. In fact, that financial year of reporting, which incorporated births, actually showed the strongest birth record achieved so far—we had seen more births during that period. I’ll have to come back to you, because you tabled some documents in that meeting and the Department of Health took them away. If there’s anything further way in which I can advise you, I will do so.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:30): Minister, that’s not as I remember it, but we’ll wait for your response. Is there any systematic information-sharing between the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Health to keep an eye on key indicators reflecting on our COVID measures, or does the Australian Bureau of Statistics just publish critical data like this in due course and hope that somebody notices at some time?

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:30): I thank Senator Roberts for the question. The ABS work very closely alongside other departments with the data that they are collecting, and they keep an eye on tracking any significant changes. If the ABS saw something in their data that would concern them—and I would imagine the numbers you’re citing about declines in birth numbers in one month would raise attention—it would be dealt with across government. In their cause of death publication the ABS reported that there had been 15 deaths due to the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. That was against vaccinations of 42.5 million vaccines administered in that year.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:32): Minister, what specifically is the government doing to get to the bottom of this staggering decline in births?

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:32): The first thing—and I remember this quite clearly from estimates—was that we undertook to look at the information you tabled in that hearing and align that with some of the data the ABS were collecting. They collect their births and deaths data as soon as it is available from the state and territory registries of births, deaths and marriages. The first thing we need to do is to get to the bottom of the numbers that you provided and make sure that the data that we got from the ABS, which I saw in that hearing, didn’t align with the numbers that you tabled.

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Letter to the Health Minister: Jane Halton pharma conflicts of interest

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Hon. Mark Butler, MP

Minister for Health and Aged Care

Dear Minister

RE: YOUR REVIEW INTO ALL THE MORRISON GOVERNMENT’S COVID-19 VACCINE DEALS

While welcoming your review, regarding your appointment of Ms Jane Halton to conduct the review for you, I ask whether you are aware of the many reported serious conflicts of interest associated with Jane Halton on this topic, based on her reported statements, relationships, appointed positions and history?

If you are aware of these reported conflicts, how do you intend to manage her work for taxpayers and citizens so that we obtain, in your words, quote – “good independent advice to the government about our existing arrangements – the contracts that we have inherited from previous government both in relation to vaccine delivery … and treatments?”

Based on these conflicts and as a matter requiring transparency and integrity, I would seriously question whether any advice provided, or review conducted by Ms Halton, could be said to be unbiased and sufficiently independent concerning existing arrangements and contracts related to vaccine delivery and associated treatments.

Minister, how can a review be independent and credible without release to senators of the details of contracts between vaccine manufacturers, including intermediaries and suppliers, and the government?

Yours Sincerely

Senator Malcolm Roberts

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Where’s the death data for Aged Care Vaccinations?

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I would have thought COVID data on deaths in Aged Care would be on hand for the Government, especially at Senate Estimates. Instead they’ve taken the questions on notice. I was also surprised to find that there had been no improvement in breaches of the Aged Care Quality Standards.

Transcripts

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you all for attending today. I have three sets of questions. The first is pretty straightforward: it’s only one question. How many aged-care residents died of COVID-19 by state per month since March 2020; and how many died in aged care within four weeks of receiving a COVID-19 injection?

Dr Murphy : I don’t think we could provide that information other than on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m happy for that.

Dr Murphy : We can certainly provide that on notice. That sort of level of detail wouldn’t be available to officials today.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you provide data by state per month on the deaths due to COVID; and the deaths within four weeks of receiving a COVID-19 vaccination?

Mr Lye : Regarding the second part of that question about the relationship to vaccinations, I think that the work that Professor Kelly’s leading may shed some light on that question but it might be harder to get than the other. But I think that we can get the other data quite simply. The second one might take a bit longer.

Senator ROBERTS: I would have thought—

Senator HUGHES: Senator Roberts, can I ask a question maybe through you for the real COVID death rate. For example, what is the death rate for people who had cancer or were in palliative care but also had COVID; did they die of COVID or did they die of the cancer that they had? When you get those figures, can we actually have a look? I know a lot of COVID deaths were put down as the person dying of COVID—as opposed to with COVID—and that other factors were involved.

Dr Murphy : As we said at the last estimates, I think that the Victorian health department did some detailed analysis on their aged-care deaths and found that 44 per cent of people who died with COVID had died primarily from another cause such as cancer or severe dementia. We always report them as COVID deaths because we want to be absolutely inclusive; however, in many of these vaccinated people who’ve had another condition, the COVID is incidental to the cause of death.

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Lye, before I move to the next question, I would have thought it would be fairly simple, given the aged-care records, to know whether or not a person died within four weeks of getting a COVID injection.

Mr Lye : I’m outside of my area of competence but, to save other officials coming up, I think the complexity is working with states and territories around settled death data, which takes some time, and then the additional linkage to the system that covers immunisation.

Dr Murphy : Yes, we certainly can link to the immunisation record, and that data analysis can be done. As you know, Senator, the TGA also does get reports of deaths reasonably close to vaccination. Many of those are considered completely coincidental and not related to the vaccination. We can explore what we can do by data linkage to see if we can come up with an answer.

Senator ROBERTS: I’d be surprised if you couldn’t tell me if someone died within four weeks of getting their injection, but anyway we’ll see what happens.

Dr Murphy : With 1,000 people per week in aged care dying and a busy immunisation program, there will definitely be some who die within a month of their injection just as a matter of course.

Senator ROBERTS: I accept that, but we’ll see if there is any trend.

CHAIR : Senator Roberts, we have to break at 11 am, so you need to conclude by then. I am just giving you a heads-up.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. I move to the second set of questions. One in three nursing homes continue to spend less than $10 a day per resident on food, despite being given an extra $10 a day by the Morrison government. How are you checking whether the cash that the government gave providers is being used for its intended purposes?

Mr Lye : I might hand over to Ms Laffan and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner on this. The short answer is that we have required people to report to us on nutrition based on that uplift in funding. Those people who hadn’t given us assurance that they would report to us have had their additional funding stopped. Then we have a process by which people who haven’t met the standard are referred to the quality and safety commissioner. I’ll let Ms Laffan give you a complete answer and then the commissioner, who is here, can give you more detail again.

Ms Laffan : As Mr Lye said, first we require providers to provide an undertaking that they will use the money with a focus on food and nutrition and then we require quarterly reporting on matters of food and nutrition. We’ve recently released the data from the first two quarters. We found that 75 per cent of providers reported on-site only spending on food and ingredients, with an average spend of $12.25 in the July quarter and $12.44 per resident per day in the quarter starting in October. Those providers that spent less than $10 per day were referred to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Ms Anderson may be able to tell you what she has been doing with that information.

Ms Anderson : We received a list of 883 services—referred from the department—which had reported less than $10 expenditure per day on a calculated basis. We looked closely at that list and then we added some services to it on the basis of our analysis of risk. We added to it services who appeared to use only preprepared food and then added a further number who use a combination of fresh and preprepared food where they had relatively low expenditure on food and associated labour. We looked at a list of 955 services, so a larger list than came across from the department, and we made an assessment of their food and nutrition profiles.

We looked at that in the way that we assess risks generally, by looking at a number of different parameters. We looked at their relative ranking in relation to the quality indicator for unplanned weight loss and at the top percentile of concern there. We looked at the relative number of complaints that we had received about that service in relation to food and nutrition and rated those low, medium and high. We also looked at any findings of noncompliance that we had made about those services in relation to the standard in the Aged Care Quality Standards specifically relating to food, 4(3)(f), which says: ‘Where meals are provided, they are varied and of suitable quality and quantity.’

On the basis of that analysis of the 905, 4.5 per cent of those services were rated as high risk for noncompliance with the expectations in relation to food and nutrition, and another 41.3 per cent were rated at medium risk. The balance were rated at low risk, or they had not yet submitted their quality indicator data which meant that we weren’t able to do a full risk profile. We then looked at the high- and medium-rated risk services. Those services we rated as having a high-risk profile will be prioritised in our monitoring schedule in terms of their compliance specifically with that requirement in the quality standards. I won’t go into more detail about that because if we are to undertake a visit, our visits are unannounced. But I can say that there will be a greater intensity in the monitoring that we undertake of those services. Services which have been rated as high or medium risk will be required to participate in an education program that we’re currently putting together which will give them more information and be clearer about the expectations that the Australian community has of them in relation to food, nutrition and the dining experience. We’ll be expecting both staff and management to participate in those educational sessions.

Senator ROBERTS: Would it be fair to say that they know they’re being watched?

Ms Anderson : Yes, that would be accurate.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

Senator WATT: Do the high-risk facilities—I’m not going to ask you to name them individually—tend to be major providers or smaller independent providers? Is it a mixture? Is there any sort of trend there?

Ms Anderson : I’m sorry, I really don’t have access to that detail. It is an interesting question, I agree with you, but I really can’t answer it today, I’m sorry. I’ll have to take it on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: I understand you measure quality and safety standards—has the rate of breaches of quality and safety standards improved specifically? Can you quantify it?

Ms Anderson : No, there’s been no material improvement in assessed compliance with the Aged Care Quality Standards. However, it’s a complicated question to answer succinctly, because we have been improving our capability as a risk based regulator, which means that we are more able to identify the higher risk services because we are more proficient and skilful in understanding bits of intelligence that come to us. We put them together as information in a risk profile for individual services, and we understand how that profile relates to other profiles for peer organisations. In that risk profiling exercise, we pay greater attention to those who are rated as higher risk. Our detection rate for noncompliance has actually improved because we know where to look. We are finding high levels of noncompliance, but we’re also looking in the right places for noncompliance. That is why I can’t say categorically that we are seeing overall improvements in quality and safety, because as a regulator we are becoming more efficient and effective in identifying noncompliance.

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, would it be possible for one of my staff to go and have a talk with the agency?

Senator Reynolds: I’m sure that would be fine.

Senator ROBERTS: Senior Australians have different needs and health issues to younger people, yet they’re treated as part of a larger community segment. Why do we not have purpose-built seniors focused healthcare facilities, including seniors’ hospitals? Wouldn’t that be a way of not only improving the service but saving money?

Dr Murphy : The average age of the in-patient in our major state and territory public hospitals is about 70, so effectively we do have hospitals that are looking after the elderly, because—as you obviously realise—chronic disease and the disease burden mostly increase as we get older. But I think your point is valid. There are some specialist services that are very much directed toward dealing with the elderly, and we have a very strong focus in the department to enhance working with the states and territories to get geriatric services into aged-care facilities. There are now some very good models of in-reach where those aged-care services get those specialist geriatric services and specialist mental health services. But, essentially, our hospitals are largely for the treatment of people of more advanced years, given that’s the nature of disease.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s a useful point you raise, because I and many people find hospitals daunting, so for an elderly person it’s even more daunting. Some doctors say it’s better to stay out of hospital; they’re not being derogatory, they’re just saying—

Dr Murphy : You don’t want to be in a hospital unless you really need to be in a hospital—

Senator ROBERTS: Right, that’s what I’m getting at.

Dr Murphy : That’s absolutely right.

Mr Lye : The multidisciplinary outreach measure in the budget is precisely about bringing gerontologists and some of those health experts into residential aged care to give that access in the home setting. When people have a more complex set of health circumstances, what we don’t want is the residential aged-care facility just quickly admitting them to hospital all the time, and them having that experience, when it could be delivered in the residential facility.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Who do we contact, Secretary, for the previous question?

Dr Murphy : I think we can seek a briefing from Minister Colbeck’s office.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

CHAIR: So, on that note, we’ll take our break and then continue with outcome 3.

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Pilots and COVID Vaccines

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Pilots are restricted from flight 24 hours after any vaccine. I want to know if there has been any occasions where an air safety incident has been reported connected to a vaccine adverse event.

Transcript

Terrific, thank you. Senator Roberts has some questions.

[Roberts] Thank you, Chair. Thank you for appearing here tonight. For the period, 1st of July, 2020, to the current date, could you please provide on notice a report detailing all aviation safety incidents, where COVID and or a COVID vaccination is mentioned as a contributing factor?

We would have to take that on notice, senator.

[Roberts] Of course. Yeah. Secondly, are there practises in place to ensure that air crew do not fly immediately after a COVID vaccination or booster? And if so, what are they, and why were they determined to be necessary?

Senator, I’m not aware of any restrictions.

[Man] Senator Andrea is much the acting executive. Take that off. Lot easier. Andrea’s, much the acting executive manager for the stakeholder engagement division and aviation medicine sits within that portfolio. The way we treat vaccination for COVID is the same as any other vaccination. So it’s got a 24 hour exclusion period after you vaccinated.

[Roberts] Thank you. Thirdly, we’re informed that there was an incident where the crew were informed by flight crew, where there was an incident where the crew of a commercial aircraft turned off fuel to both engines during flight. We’re informed that a potential factor in this incident was COVID vaccination. You know, brain fog that sometimes comes. Please provide, can you please provide full details of any incident resembling this description and provide full details of the investigation report and recommendations on notice.

And that one might actually be better directed at the Australian transport safety bureau as well, but we’ll see what we can find at our end as well.

[Roberts] Have there been any similar incidents where the reported cause was a TIA, or a transient ischemic attack, a minor stroke?

Senator, we haven’t had any incidents reported to us of that nature at all, in relation to COVID vaccination. We’ll check on notice but to my knowledge, we’ve had no incidents reported to us.

[Roberts] How long after having had a COVID 19 or a COVID 19 vaccine are air crew allowed to pilot a commercial aircraft? I’d take it 24 hours after vaccine, what about after COVID?

So after COVID, it’s treated in the same way as any illnesses. So it’s up to the pilot to assess whether they’re impaired or not. And if the impairment goes for more than seven days then they’re required to see a medical examiner to clear them back to line and that’s that’s standard for any kind of illness.

[Roberts] Thank you, I appreciate your direct answers. That’s it, Chair.

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Censorship and crunch time for mandated vaccinations – MARCUS PAUL – 2SM

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Today I chatted with Marcus about the removal of Senator Pauline Hanson’s podcast interview with Jessica Rowe and the looming fate for many workers who have chosen not to have their vaccination by today’s deadline.
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PM Scott Morrison Calls For Freedom at 2021 U.N. General Assembly

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Copied from Twitter

Cry and mourn for our beloved Australia. Freedoms, dignity and the Australian dream have been crushed.

This is what we have become.

How does it make you feel?

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Vaccination study shows similar mortality rates to COVID

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Senator Roberts asks what keeping Australians safe means, when on the eve of more restrictions in south-east Queensland and Australia and a renewed call to get vaccinated, a large scale clinical research study shows the COVID vaccines can harm and kill people too.

The study of approximately 1 million vaccinated Israeli citizens, published on 24 June 2021 by European researchers, has revealed that the three leading COVID-19 vaccines can all kill.

Senator Roberts said, “This new study shows that if you are unvaccinated your chances of dying from COVID-19 is around 3 in 100,000.

“If you receive a COVID-19 vaccine, then the vaccine itself has a mortality rate of around 2 in 100,000.

“Our governments cannot say they are keeping us safe when mortality rates can be so similar,” he said.

The researchers also identified that around 16 in every 100,000 suffer from serious side effects from a COVID-19 vaccination and they suggest the data must be analysed to better identify and protect those at risk of serious side effects.

Senator Roberts added, “Australia needs a proper plan based on solid data and safe proven alternatives.

“How can we have confidence in a Government that tells us to have a vaccine that can bring about similar mortality rates as the illness itself?

“On top of that, what is the point of being vaccinated when you will still be locked in and forced to wear masks,” he added.

Full study: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/693/htm?fbclid=IwAR1QCOso_fy5IqDzTOOdguZeFNpA9MHv6VEAVpc7EILioLY4zVuSAUvQT78

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Make Ivermectin available

Ivermectin has been proven as a safe treatment over 3.7 Billion doses across the world. Why it isn’t at allowed as one option to treat COVID is perplexing. Have the vaccines available sure, but also have the proven safe anti-viral treatments available as well.

It’s no silver bullet, but we should have everything we can get in our arsenal to help save lives.

Transcript

[Gary Hardgrave] And he went different ways. I mean, Malcolm Roberts, that’s the point that it’s like, Oh I sort of joke, You know, we’re not all in this together. Part 53, the latest example, the frequent flyers the people that are able to jet overseas and many times over the last 12 months. Well, good luck to them, I guess because there’s plenty of countries in the world a lot worse off than we are, but they’re landlocked.

They’re connected to other countries, we’ve got that part of it pretty right, there’s no doubt about that. But somewhere along the line this fear factor has gotta be stared down. We’ve got to muscle up and say, well if the celebrities and the highly paid and the really rich and their private planes can jet here and jet there and in their tens of thousands then the rest of us should be able to do it too.

[Malcolm Roberts] What we need, Gary is a plan. On Monday the 23rd of March last year, we assembled for the first for the first simple first single day sitting of the Senate on this COVID supposed crisis. And I stood up and spoke and said, look we’re going to wave everything through. This is, we’ve seen people falling like flies overseas, so we don’t know the scope, the size of this but we’re just going to put, the government giving them everything they need, job seeker, job keeper but I said, we expect you to collect the data.

We will hold you accountable. And we expect you to build a plan. I have not seen a plan. What I’ve seen is lots of fear as everyone has talked about on this show and always behind fear there’s control. And that’s what we see Bronwyn nailed it again, as she always does. We’ve also seen a lack of a plan. In Senate estimates in late March this year I had checked with the chief health officer and the deputy chief health officer for this country.

And I said let me just check that we’ve got the understanding of what’s needed to manage a virus. So the first thing is lockdowns and border lockdowns in particular. And I said, but even the UN world health organisation which I see as corrupt incompetent and dishonest and it’s been proven, such, even they say a lockdown is only used initially to get control. So that means Anastasia Palaszcuk, Mark McGowan and Dan Andrews in Victoria.

And I leave out Gladys Berejiklian because she’s done the best job so far. It’s not a good job, but she’s done the best job so far. That means they’re using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and what they’re doing is they’re admitting they have not got control of this virus. The second thing, and I checked this with the, with the chief health officer. The second thing is testing, tracing and quarantining of the sick and the vulnerable. Testing and tracing to track the virus and nail it quickly. Third thing, individual restrictions things like masks and so on. Yes.

They agreed with me so far. And I said the fourth thing is to have an antiviral treatment a prophylactic, a cure. And they said, yes. Then the fifth thing is a vaccine, if it’s tested and if it’s found to be safe. And they said, yes, and then they added one more. And they said, individual behaviours, things like social distancing. And I said, okay. So I rattled off the six that we agreed on. Anything missing? No. Anything that shouldn’t be there? No.

So my point is what happened to number four, the antiviral treatment? I’ve taken Ivermectin when I came back from India to get rid of a condition that I caught over there. Ivermectin has been given to 3.7 billion people around the world, no health problems.

It’s proven safe over six decades, six decades. And on top of that, it’s cheap. And on top of that it’s now being used successfully with the virus in South America and various European countries and in Asia, why aren’t we discussing it here? I mean, the chief health officer and the deputy chief health officer have said it’s part of the plan and we can open up borders. We can relax a lot of things if we provide what is now a proven, safe cure, in addition to the vaccine, let those who want a vaccine have it. I will take the Ivermectin, I’ve already taken it once for something else. And it worked. And I’m still here mate, I’m not going anywhere.

[Gary Hardgraves] No, I can tell you’re very much so still here. Look before we go to the break,

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Christine Holgate and Vaccination Bungle – 2SM with Marcus Paul

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From last week on 2SM with Marcus Paul: why Christine Holgate was unfairly treated, how the government has bungled the vaccine rollout, the untapped potential of Queensland agriculture and more.

Transcript

[Marcus] G’day, Malcolm, how are you mate?

[Malcolm] I’m very well, thanks Marcus. How are you?

[Marcus] Well, I don’t have a $5,000 Cartier watch, do you?

[Malcolm] No, I don’t. And I’ll never buy one, but you know, that’s not the issue really at Australia Post. That’s what you’re talking about?

[Marcus] What is the issue, Malcolm? I mean, the whole thing in my mind, is really become a gender thing, which is a concern to me. Christine Holgate by all accounts, seems to be a pretty good operator, has she been unfairly punished here, do you think?

[Malcolm] Definitely there’s no doubt about that, Marcus. She did a remarkable job. She turned that, Australia Post around, from a big loss into, quite a substantial profit. And what surprised us, we were about to start holding the Government accountable about these Cartier watches.

[Marcus] Yeah.

[Malcolm] But we noticed that Angela Cramp, she’s the head of the licensed post office operators. You know, not all Australia Post, post offices are owned by the post office. They’re licensed out, to the licensed post office representatives. And Angela Cramp-

[Marcus] Franchisee’s, franchised.

[Malcolm] That’s it, thank you, thank you. So Angela Cramp jumped in strongly to support that and we thought, hang on, what’s going on here? Because we’ve worked very closely with the licensed post office operators and they’ve been really hard hit by, by Australia Post. What we found out, was that Christine Holgate, when I held her accountable in Senate estimates, when she first came on board, she actually took note of what I said.

And she followed up with Australia Post licenced post office operators and she helped them and started sorting out their problems. First time, in a long, long time, these guys have had any support. So they jumped in and supported Holgate, that alerted us, because we knew that that the LPOs weren’t in favour of the Australia Post executives normally.

And so then Pauline and I, both spoke with Holgate separately and then Pauline got the inquiry up, into what’s going on now after negotiating successfully with Labor, Greens and all the cross benchers. You just cannot treat people this way. I believe the Prime Minister is not telling the truth. Holgate is telling the truth. Holgate’s very competent, there are other issues here driving this.

The Prime Minister should apologise at the very least. And some of the statements from Australia Post, the Chairman of Australia Post and the ministers, just don’t add up. And I think the Prime Minister, if this keeps going the way it is, should resign, and you know at the very least Marcus, he must apologise. He must apologise.

[Marcus] Well, he doesn’t know how to say the word, sorry, Malcolm. We know that. He doesn’t take any responsibility for his actions. He likes to obfuscate. He likes to lay the blame elsewhere. He got fairly close yesterday by saying that he regrets any hurt, that Miss Holgate may well have felt, but he’s certainly not apologising.

[Malcolm] Yeah, exactly. And look, what does this say about the taxpayer funded empathy training? It’s gonna be a complete waste of time. The empathy training that the Liberal Nats have going on and what a lot of rubbish.

[Marcus] All right. Now, the vaccination rollout. Boy oh boy, you say it’s falling apart, mate?

[Malcolm] It is. There’s a critical thing here, that the Government has forgotten. It’s called informed consent. Before someone puts anything in my body, they need to get my consent. Now, the vaccine, there are two vaccines out there at the moment, the Astrazeneca and the Pfizer one.

We were told by the Chief Health Officer, that no one would know what vaccine was being distributed at which outlet, because they didn’t want people to come up and have a choice about the vaccine. I want this vaccine. I want that vaccine. That is completely unethical in my view. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is that they have rushed these vaccines. Both of them, they both have serious questions about them. Both, have bypassed some of the details in the testing procedures. The testing procedures have been accelerated, and now we’ve got problems. So, It’s the process here. The problem is the way the vaccine has been introduced, before proper trials.

[Marcus] All right.

[Malcolm] It’s a lack of data and there’s a lack of clear aims. And even the Minister for Health now, Greg hunt, has admitted that even with the vaccine, it won’t stop the restrictions. So what’s the point?

[Marcus] Fair enough. All right. Now, you’ve been out and about you’ve been in western Queensland, well, north and western Queensland. You’ve been to Townsville, Charters Towers, Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek, Cloncurry, You’re in Mt Isa as well. You’ve been looking at water infrastructure and potential for agriculture up there.

[Malcolm] Yes, and Marcus, what an amazing place this is. It’s untapped really. Big skies, big horizons, rich soil, plenty of sunlight, regular rain. And that’s what’s surprised us. The regular rain up here, at Richmond. And what’s really stunning up here, is that the local councils, the shire councils, have got off their backsides and started to stimulate thinking about irrigation projects, because they can turn this black soil and sunlight into bountiful production.

Richmond has now got, the Shire of Richmond, led by John Wharton, has got a project, that’ll cost a total of $210 million. Tiny amount, tiny amount of money. 8,000 hectares of irrigated land will come out of it. No dam, no dam whatsoever, just a diversion channel. Off flood seasons. ‘Cause the surprising thing is the rainfall is huge, but it comes at very short intervals and it’s very regular.

So they can basically get a diversion channel, take the flood water, harvest across the floodplains. So you’ve got no environmental impact of a dam and this whole area is buzzing. But what it needs is, is the government will, to actually get off their backsides and do it. The State Government is holding things back at the moment and the Federal Government is a bit lost. There seems to be a lack of vision in this country.

[Marcus] Well, I mean, look at the Murray-Darling basin. I mean, that’s been a complete and utter schmozzle. You would’ve thought lessons have been learned, mate?

[Malcolm] Well, you know, that’s really interesting. We’ve got the Murray-Darling basin has been decimated, by the Turnbull-Howard Water Act of 2007, which brought in the Murray-Darling basin authority. And it’s interesting. They changed from a highly successful, Murray-Darling basin commission in 2007, to the Murray-Darling basin authority.

That tells you what it’s about. The primary aims of the Murray-Darling basin of sorry of the Water Act in 2007, included the compliance with international agreements. What the hell are we doing that for, in our country? So they’ve made a mess of the Murray-Darling basin and it’s helped the corporates, destroyed farming communities, destroyed family farms.

And we’ve actually got people up here now, with a tonne of energy, from the northern New South Wales area of the Murray-Darling basin, and they’re making a go of things up here and just getting in and rolling up their sleeves and tearing into it. They’re doing a wonderful job.

[Marcus] Good to hear, Malcolm and great to have you on the programme as always. We’ll talk again next week.

[Malcolm] Thank you very much, Marcus. Have a good week mate.

[Marcus] My pleasure, you too mate. There he is, One nation Senator, Malcolm Roberts. Somebody sent me a note yesterday. Marcus, “Why just, why oh why,” “do you speak to people like Malcolm and Pauline” “and also Mark Latham?” Well Malcolm Robert’s, just explained it perfectly this morning.

I mean he and Pauline Hanson, spoke to Christine Holgate initially, when she took on the job at Australia Post and she took their advice, turned things around. You know, these people, do hold the balance of power. Quite often, they are voting and the government depends on their votes, to get important legislation across the line.

So I would argue they’re actually, some of the most important politicians to speak to on the programme, because ultimately they have to weigh everything up. They have to listen to all sides of politics and then decide which way they want to go. That’s why we talk to people like Malcolm Roberts.

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Is the Government considering mandatory vaccination? Questioning the Department of Health Senate Estimates

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Even though the government says they don’t want to mandate vaccination, they haven’t ruled out attaching it to everyday activities. That means they won’t rule out that you might have to be vaccinated to go to the pub which sounds as good as mandating it to me.

I believe in the vaccine being available to anyone who wants to take it, but it should be every individual’s choice whether they take it or not. I do not believe they should be government mandated. Where do you stand?

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you chair. And thank you all for attending. What percentage of the population, that will, will receive a COVID 19 vaccine? Do you expect or plan?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well, we were, our target at present Senator, is to vaccinate all the adult population, the over eighteens off by the end of October, give them a first dose. So that’s I think approximately 20 million, I think?

About, about 20 million going on.

Yeah. Now we may then go on and vaccinate children. If we have vaccines that are registered and approved for children. And if they prevent transmission and that helps us with herd immunity, but there are no vaccine. There’s no trial data on children at the moment. So the vaccines are only registered for adults.

Or 16 to 18 in the case of one. But no nobody under 16 has a registered product at this point.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Will that include the elderly, the frail?

[Brendan Murphy]

Absolutely. Unless there is a medical contraindication which is very rare. So if someone is very close to end of life it may be decided that it’s not appropriate. But in general, absolutely. That’s what we’re doing in residential aged care. Vaccinating a lot of very elderly and very frail people.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Do you have the constitutional or legislative power in your opinion, to impose mandatory vaccination?

[Brendan Murphy]

The government policy is very clear that we’re not. We’ve never imposed mandatory vaccination in Australia. We take the approach that we want to encourage, promote and provide the evidence for vaccination. There have been situations where, for example, with flu vaccination last year in aged care where there was a public health order that the States and territories made. That decided that you couldn’t enter a facility unless you had proof of flu vaccination. But that was that’s very different from, from making, from mandating a vaccine. It just means that you have to make a choice about whether you go into an aged care facility. And obviously for childhood immunisation similar rules have applied. With again, mostly enforced by the States and territories, with no jab no play and government policy with no jab, no pay. But none of those have said that you are by law required to be vaccinated.

[Malcolm Roberts]

In the States?

[Brendan Murphy]

Yeah, In the States. Nobody can force a medical intervention on another citizen. We can do a lot of things to encourage, promote. And in some cases to restrict situations of risk if you’re not vaccinated. But we have never taken the view that we can force a citizen to have a medical intervention.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And you won’t be taking that view.

[Brendan Murphy]

I, I can’t imagine. That’s not, we wouldn’t recommend it.

[Witness]

There is absolutely no proposal from the government to make any COVID vaccine compulsory for anybody.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So are there any policies or plans or ideas or has it been discussed to make something unavailable without the vaccine? Effectively making it compulsory?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well, again, there has been discussion at HBPC. About whether, and Professor Kelly can comment on that, whether, at some stage we might use the same approach that we used for flu last year. To say that if the COVID vaccine is really effective at preventing transmission, that to say that to work in aged care or to enter a facility you need to have a vaccination. But HBPC has decided that; A, there isn’t enough evidence on prevention of transmission at the moment. And, B it would be silly for such a public health order to be introduced until such time as all of those workers and community members who might visit aged care have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. So that is, that’s a live matter for consideration that will be reviewed as the evidence evolves.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay.

[Witness]

No, I’ll just be very clear here though, that the current position of the government is that this vaccine is voluntary and not withstanding that the HPCs work and the, and the health departments work. But the government’s position is very clear, that the vaccine is voluntary.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Murphy. I’ll just jump outside of vaccines for a minute. To understand the overall context, and then come back to vaccines. What are the main factors in managing a pandemic? I’ll just test my own knowledge with you first. Is isolate and arrest the vaccine, which is called a lockdown, I understand. Then there’s number two is, identify the location and the spread to get on top of the quickly. What’s that? testing, tracing and quarantine. Then there are attempts to reduce the transmissibility through restrictions like masks, gatherings, criticism, movement of people, sorry, not criticism, movement of people. Then the fourth one would be cure and prophylactic areas to try and prevent, to try and cure people of the virus. For example, antivirals. Number five would be vaccine. Have I, have any, have I included any that are wrong? Have I missed any?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well you’ve missed international borders, which is probably…

[Malcolm Roberts]

Isolate and arrest.

[Brendan Murphy]

Yeah, well, certainly that has been one of our most successful interventions. Was to prevent the importation of a virus from, despite all the impact that it’s had on our citizens overseas. It has been one of the most singularly important parts of our success in controlling COVID.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So there’s just isolate and arrest, which I include international borders. Identify the location and spread through testing, tracing, quarantine. Reduce the transmissibility through restrictions. Cure and prophylactic approach and vaccine.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That seems pretty complete Professor Kelly?

[Professor Kelly]

individual behaviours.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sorry?

[Professor Kelly]

Individual behaviours. So the hand hygiene, cough into your elbow, that sort of stuff.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay. Thank you.

The following line of questioning occured after the end of the attached video clip (see HANSARD)

[Chair]

The last question.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sure. Can I get, on notice, an assessment of the characteristics of the virus? We were told initially it was a respiratory disease and we shoved ventilators at people. Some people were telling us that it hinders the blood absorbing oxygen or uptaking oxygen. We were told about various treatments. Perhaps you could tell me, on notice, what are the characteristics you measure to assess the virus’s mortality and
transmissibility, and any other characteristics of the virus, and perhaps rank it relative to, for example, the decreasing order of impact. We’ve had the Black Death, the Plague of Justinian, smallpox, the Antonine Plague, the Spanish flu, the third plague, HIV/AIDS and now COVID-19, which is a fraction of the population affected. Is it possible to get that summary?

[Brendan Murphy]

We can certainly provide it. This virus is now well studied. Essentially, as we’ve said on many occasions, for most fit, young people it’s a relatively mild disease, but 126,000 people have died in the UK, a very similar country to us. We have avoided a very large death rate by controlling this virus, and we’re very proud of that achievement, Senator. Whilst it may be a mild disease, that means it transmits wildly. Older people and people with underlying conditions are at risk of getting severe respiratory disease and dying, as they have done in their millions around the world.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

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