The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended the Moderna jab for children aged 6 months to 5 years.[1] The vaccine only holds provisional approval. Provisional approval is given to drugs where research is still being conducted, research that might uncover adverse effects not initially apparent.[2]

The risk of death to 5 year olds from the more fatal, early variants of COVID was as low as 0.0024% or roughly 1 in 40,000.[3] This does not reflect the risk of Omicron, the dominant strain across the world right now, which is estimated to be 78% less fatal.[4] This would imply a risk of around 1 in 180,000 to 5 year olds from Omicron. On the other hand, the risk of vaccine caused myocarditis is around 1 in every 10,000 for 12-17 year old boys.[5]

There is simply not enough information on the long-term effects to decide on the risk benefit calculation like ATAGI claims to have. ATAGI has abandoned the precautionary principle in provisionally approving Moderna for use in toddlers and children when it has no longitudinal, years long research.


[1] https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-recommendations-on-covid-19-vaccine-use-in-children-aged-6-months-to

[2] https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-vaccine-information-consumers-and-health-professionals#:~:text=Sponsors%20may%20apply%20for%20full%20registration%20when%20there%20is%20more%20clinical%20data%20to%20confirm%20the%20safety%20of%20the%20vaccine

[3] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02867-1/fulltext#:~:text=0018%E2%80%930%C2%B70043)-,5%20years,-0%C2%B70024%25%20(0

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971222002284#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20the%20high%20relative%20transmissibility%20of%20the%20Omicron%20variant%20was%20mainly%20due%20to%20its%20immune%20evasion%20ability%2C%20whereas%20its%20infection%20fatality%20rate%20substantially%20decreased%20by%20approximately%2078.7%25

[5] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/vaccine-myocarditis-risk-reaches-1-in-10-000-for-a

The Senate this morning has voted in favour of my motion requiring Senator Murray Watt, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to explain how he hasn’t misled the Senate in answers regarding foot and mouth disease.

The Minister must attend the Senate at 9:30am Thursday to explain.

In a hand delivered letter which he did not respond to, I asked the Minister to consider how his answers were not misleading the Senate. Official Government biosecurity measures state that vaccination of affected and proximate livestock should occur within 2 days of an outbreak.

Despite this, Minister Watt appears to maintain that holding 1 million non-mRNA cow vaccines in the United Kingdom, which would take 7 days to get here, is good enough. It isn’t.

It begs the question, why does it seem to be easier to get a human vaccinated in this country than a cow?

We also have to ask, why is the Government colluding with the Greens to keep a non-mRNA vaccine for Foot and Mouth disease out of the country? Why is Labor being so slow to act on keeping Foot and Mouth out of the country?

Do they want a Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in the country to destroy our livestock industry so we all have to eat the bugs?

Medically transitioning children is experimental. Long term benefits are not clear and detriments are mounting. Our children are not fodder for experimentation and advancing research outcomes for the medical profession.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m speaking to the answers Minister Gallagher provided—or, rather, failed to provide—to my questions on gender dysphoria treatment.

In avoiding the answer to my questions, the minister tried weakly to say, ‘Nothing to see here.’ Yet the world is waking up to the profoundly inhuman medical and psychological harms that children with gender dysphoria are experiencing when referred to gender clinics. The international trend is moving away from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children under 18 years. Britain’s infamous—and the world’s largest—gender clinic, Tavistock, is now closing, following a review that found it failed vulnerable under 18s: it failed vulnerable under 18s! It follows the clinics in Finland, Sweden and France suspending the availability of puberty blockers and sex hormones to children unless under strict clinical trials.

How did we get to this place, where the power of ideology and trans activism is greater than the rightful duty and obligations of parents, and of the medical and legal professions to provide whole-of-person care for children with gender dysphoria? This woke ideological movement is suffering binary dysphoria. Apparently, for some, a binary world is not sufficiently colourful. Some parents are now forced to abrogate their parental responsibility to the power of the medical state. Fundamental facts are being ignored about children and child development. Fact: contrary to some views, sex is assigned at conception—not birth. We all know that adolescence is a highly challenging time, marked with a preoccupation of the discovery of self. It’s okay that a percentage of both genders don’t conform to traditional stereotypes. This doesn’t need correcting through irreversible medical treatments.

Ideologically-driven activists have intimidated the medical profession into silence and compliance with the affirmation model rather than making a stand for our children who are in distress during adolescence and who need holistic or whole-of-person care. When puberty blockers are administered we know, firstly, that a child cannot develop fertility—the latter stages of puberty do that—and, secondly, that they will not have full sexual function. Essentially, this child’s body becomes frozen in the early stages of puberty, with testosterone or oestrogen treatment adulterating the child and committing the child to a lifetime of hormones and drugs. It’s unknown what effect puberty blockers have on brain development, and only now is The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne conducting research in this area. Too bad for all those children who have already passed through, and those currently receiving treatment. Endocrinologists traditionally treated diseases, yet in gender clinics they take perfectly healthy children with no diseases and inject them with puberty blockers to suppress normal hormone levels to treat, not an endocrine disease but the mental distress the child is experiencing.

How has this gone unchecked for so long? Why are these medical professionals not subject to disciplinary action for deliberately harming our children? What are governments doing while this is going on? Endocrinologists know the importance of puberty to the full development of a healthy human being. Today gender clinics give medical professionals a licence to offer up puberty as an option to children. The transgender lens has compromised the full care of our children. Gender clinics in Australia need to close and follow the lead of the Tavistock clinic in anchoring whole-person-care back to localised clinics within the mental health system.

Our children are making decisions that they can’t possibly understand—decisions with lifelong consequences. They are being sterilised and denied full sexual function, and their brain development is likely compromised. They are being made sick when they’re not physically sick. They are being denied the therapeutic support they need to help them with their distress. Instead of asking why there has been an explosion of girls presenting with gender dysphoria in Western countries, the medical profession has bowed down to the trans activists and grabbed the opportunity to create profits and research outcomes at the expense of our children—inhuman!

Adults in Australia’s gender clinics must not be allowed to hide behind a statement of operating to the standards of care. There is no care when the medical profession does not fully deal with the mental health issues that children are experiencing. There is no care when the medical professional takes physically healthy children and sends them on a pathway of drugs, infertility and arrested physical, sexual and neurological development for the rest of their lives. There is no care when state government legislation denies parents their rightful place in support of their children in distress. Our children are not fodder for experimentation and advancing research outcomes for the medical profession. Our children are not profit centres for pharmaceutical companies.

We are one community, we are one nation and this child abuse must stop now.

Together we can achieve prosperity and peace. The globalists, the warmongers and the evil doers among us only seek to divide Australians. A united, caring country is their worst fear.

Transcript

I often end my speeches with the words, ‘We are one community, we are one nation,’ for a reason. Oneness is a fundamental teaching of Christianity. I quote I Corinthians 12:14:

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

Verse 26 says:

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

The Bible reminds us that a body of people working together can achieve that which people divided never will.

One Nation will continue to embrace all who share this beautiful land. One Nation embraces First Australians, and we embrace those who have come since. All are important. All make each of us greater than we could ever become by ourselves. Indeed, all have made us greater than we once were.

As a community, we do face evil. That battle is as old as time itself. That’s why humanity has evolved to consider community the basic building block of safety and prosperity. Those who seek to divide do so because they seek to destroy. Instead, together we can overcome the ravages of Mother Nature in a harsh but bountiful land. Together we can achieve abundance for all Australians. Surely, if our bounty is not being shared fairly, we must correct that. Together we can defeat predatory billionaires who believe they should own everything and we should own nothing. Together we can change the lives of First Australians in remote communities who deal with conditions that, today, no human being should ever have to. We can and must start on that today.

Evil is fought together, not apart. One Nation will continue to hold our hand out to those captured by intolerance and hate. I live in hope that one day our hand will be taken. In the end, love and courage will win. Most Australians feel the same way.

In the election campaign Anthony Albanese promised Australians he would cut power bills by $275 a year. Not only did he say he hoped to do that, he said he knew it would happen. Now he’s walking away from his election promise.

Feelings will not keep the lights on, supermarket freezers cold or hospitals open. Feelings will not warm Australians in winter or cool us in summer. Evidence based policy will. Energy deficits in several areas of Australia have already caused blackouts. The 43 per cent target will cause many more blackouts.

The average spot price of $264 per megawatt hour last quarter is more than triple the average spot price of $85 per megawatt hour this time last year. Prime Minister Albanese knew this when he made his promise, and clearly economics is not the Prime Minister’s strong suit. If the cost of an item is up 300 per cent, the chances of being able to make it cheaper without the government paying for it are zero.

All I’m hearing so far is, ‘Build more wind and solar.’ Building more will simply add more capacity when we don’t need it, during the day, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Solar and wind will need to be paired with some form of battery technology to move that generated electricity from the day, when we don’t need it, to the evening, when we do.

Coal sitting in hoppers ready to generate power on demand is the battery we have used successfully for 120 years. Alternatives to coal are thin on the ground. Battery storage costs are staggering and unsustainable: $1.5 million per megawatt hour. We need around 60,000 megawatt hours of energy in storage to ensure any 24-hour period is not subject to blackouts, yet batteries need 20 per cent above rated capacity to achieve full charge due to heat loss, which is why they catch fire a lot.

This means we need 72,000 megawatt-hours of storage, at a cost of $108 billion every 12 years, the life of a big Tesla battery. That is $9 billion every year. The Snowy 2 big hydro battery currently under construction will provide 1,000 megawatt-hours daily for 365 a year at a cost of $5 billion.

This means that pumped hydro will cost $300 billion to carry enough power for just one day. Of course, adding electric vehicle charging to the mix means a whole lot more blackouts and a whole lot more electricity price increases.

Net zero is an unaffordable fairy tale that will destroy our standard of living and destroy our lifestyle.

While PM Albanese wants electricity-grid wrecking net-zero, he will never be able to deliver his promised $275 cheaper power bills. That’s why he has had to walk away from his first election promise already.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support Senator Payne’s matter of public importance. Prime Minister Albanese’s promise to reduce electricity bills by $275 and his promise to reduce carbon dioxide output by 43 per cent are mutually exclusive. High energy prices will reduce energy usage and assist Australia to reach the 43 per cent figure. Lower prices will increase energy consumption, and that will work against the Albanese government’s target. That’s why the Albanese government so quickly ran away from his promise. The Prime Minister never intended to honour the promise, making his action cynical political expediency.

One Nation believes any attempt to implement a 43 per cent carbon dioxide reduction is a policy based on lies and distortions which do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Prime Minister Albanese has already signalled, across several issues, his government will be a government based on virtue signalling, not a sensible policy. For senators with no data on their side, the only option is to sell a policy on feelings. Feelings will not keep the lights on, supermarket freezers cold or hospitals open. Feelings will not warm Australians in winter or cool us in summer. Evidence based policy will. Energy deficits in several areas of Australia have already caused blackouts. The 43 per cent target will cause many more blackouts.

Rapidly increasing electricity costs will reduce consumption of electricity and buy the government time, while it asks around for a permanent solution, which is why the government is allowing this to happen. Closing down and sabotaging baseload coal has led to the national electricity racket—sorry market—showing unprecedented wholesale power prices. The average spot price of $264 per megawatt hour last quarter is more than triple the average spot price of $85 per megawatt hour this time last year. Prime Minister Albanese knew this when he made his promise, and clearly economics is not the Prime Minister’s strong suit. If the cost of an item is up 300 per cent, the chances of being able to make it cheaper without the government paying for it are zero.

Perhaps the Prime Minister can extend his employment talkfest to more aspects of government business. Let’s see if anyone knows how to use wind and solar to replace baseload coal and save Australia from electricity and energy Armageddon, because all I’m hearing so far is, ‘Build more wind and solar.’ Building more will simply add more capacity when we don’t need it, during the day, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Solar and wind will need to be paired with some form of battery technology to move that generated electricity from the day, when we don’t need it, to the evening, when we do.

Coal sitting in hoppers ready to generate power on demand is the battery we have used successfully for 120 years. Alternatives to coal are thin on the ground. Battery storage costs are staggering and unsustainable: $1.5 million per megawatt hour. We need around 60,000 megawatt hours of energy in storage to ensure any 24-hour period is not subject to blackouts, yet batteries need 20 per cent above rated capacity to achieve full charge due to heat loss, which is why they catch fire a lot. This means we need 72,000 megawatt-hours of storage, at a cost of $108 billion every 12 years, the life of a big Tesla battery. That is $9 billion every year. The Snowy 2 big hydro battery currently under construction will provide 1,000 megawatt-hours daily for 365 a year at a cost of $5 billion. This means that pumped hydro will cost $300 billion to carry enough power for just one day. Of course, adding electric vehicle charging to the mix means a whole lot more blackouts and a whole lot more electricity price increases.

Net zero is an unaffordable fairy tale that will destroy our standard of living and destroy our lifestyle. We are one community, we are one nation and we know what the hell is needed to get back to affordable, reliable, stable electricity.

I once said that this parliament is a crime scene and our new government doesn’t look any better. Both major parties are rife with undeclared conflicts of interest and cronyism. A Federal ICAC must be able to investigate all of the lobbying and cronyism happening in Australia’s Parliament.

Transcript

I’m meeting this week with Attorney-General Dreyfus to review the planned national anticorruption commission. I’ll be taking One Nation’s position to the Attorney-General—that checks and balances must be in place to preclude witch-hunts. The terms of reference must allow for all outside influence on our decision-making to be identified and removed. Outside influences are driving lucrative subsidies for unreliable solar and wind energy. These subsidies are lining the pockets of donors and sponsors of members of parliament in both chambers—cronyism worth tens of billions of dollars.

In my speech entitled ‘This parliament is a crime scene‘, I detailed the cronyism that infected the previous Liberal-National government. Crikey (Queensland ALP has a conflict of interest) has now detailed similar cronyism and conflicts of interest in the Labor Party and their affiliated fundraising entities. Running government for the benefit of oneself or one’s party’s finances is a betrayal of the trust the Australian people have placed in us. It is corruption and it destroys confidence in government and governance. A government without the confidence of the people must rely on authoritarian measures to maintain control.

This is the path the state and federal governments chose to take during COVID, and those powers have now become permanent. Freedoms stolen are never willingly surrendered. A federal ICAC must investigate the many conflicts of interest and tainted decision-making in governments’ COVID responses—questions of complicity, cover-ups and cronyism. A royal commission, though, is the only way to deal with the wider illegal issues that arose during COVID. Constitutional questions about federal and state roles, the legal standing of the National Cabinet, vaccine mandates in the public and private sectors, the use of troops against law-abiding citizens, criminal harm from medical procedures conducted under duress and police use of excessive force must all be reviewed before we can move on, or we will be there again.

We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation founded on freedom and personal responsibility.

Last night the major parties teamed up to vote down my amendment to the Royal Commission Response Bill which would have ensured at least one registered nurse is on duty at an aged care facility 24/7 by February instead of July.

The entire crossbench voted for my amendment including the Greens, the Jacquie Lambie network and David Pocock. Why the major parties would team up to vote down good legislation, caring for our aged should be a concern for Australians. My amendment is available here and the record of who voted for and against is available here.

Australian gender clinics are under fresh scrutiny and face calls for an independent review of their prescription of puberty blockers to teenagers after British clinic Tavistock was closed down over safety concerns. Further coverage in The Australian: ‘Calls to review transgender treatment for kids after British Tavistock Clinic is closed’ (paywall).

The Labor Government is either ignorant or negligent in not intervening in these practices in Australia.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:32): My question is to Senator Gallagher, representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care. The Tavistock gender clinic in the UK, a leading provider of gender dysphoria services, will close in 2023. Britain’s National Health Service asked Dr Hilary Cass, past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to review the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. The Cass review found that Tavistock gender clinic has failed vulnerable children, and it recommended closing Tavistock. Finland, France and Sweden have taken the same decision for their gender clinics. Here in Australia, Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has many links with Tavistock. Minister, will you review Australia’s gender clinics to ensure that these clinics are not causing the same harm to vulnerable children that the Cass review found at Tavistock?

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) (14:33): As the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, if there is further information I can provide after question time, I will do so. I would say that the Royal Children’s Hospital has an excellent reputation in paediatric care in Australia. It is staffed by world-renowned medical professionals providing first-rate care to younger citizens in the state and also around the country. I don’t have close knowledge of the services they would provide to children with gender dysphoria, but I have no doubt that they have the professional standards and the professional skills that are required to provide those young people and their families with first-level advice and health care. We have no information available to the government, to my knowledge, that we should see it any differently to that—that is, that where there are children who require health services they access them through a children’s hospital; that those services are accredited, there are professional standards in place and there are appropriate ethics and various advisory bodies that inform the delivery of those services; and that if there are concerns around them they are dealt with through the appropriate channels—not necessarily by politicians, who have particular views about certain things, but actually through the delivery of health services—as we do in a whole range of other areas of paediatric care.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:35): So you can’t say whether you will review? Evidence shows that the use of puberty blockers sterilises children, and the impact on brain development is unknown. The Royal Children’s Hospital is currently studying the impact of puberty blockers on children. We are literally offering a treatment we do not know is safe. Minister, when will the Australian government intervene and demand the closure of all gender clinics in Australia until gender treatment in children is proven to be safe, if ever?

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) (14:36): The government has no intention to intervene and ban particular services, health services, that are supporting families and supporting children to access the type of care that they need for their individual situation. If there is further information I can provide—and I would say, as a former health minister, that health services in this country, and we are very fortunate, are heavily regulated. The professionals who provide health services are heavily regulated. There are professional bodies in place, there are complaints mechanisms, and there are a whole range of avenues, if there are concerns about any health service, that those would go through and be dealt with. They are not normally dealt with on the floor of a parliamentary chamber.

There are many families that need services. The Australian government is about providing health services, not taking them away. (Time expired)

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:37): Minister, One Nation listens to people and this is what we’re hearing, so we speak up for constituents. Minister, a child who has not even reached puberty is incapable of knowing their own mind. Doctors, and sometimes parents, are taking these decisions on the child’s behalf. Has the government considered the legal liability it is incurring for the government’s part in this medical malpractice?

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) (14:43): Well, I don’t agree that it’s medical malpractice; nor do I agree with the proposition being put forward in the question, which is that there are professionals and parents making decisions that are harmful to young people. Perhaps, Senator Roberts, it might be good for you to go and ask the health professionals who are providing these services how they provide them and how they support young people, rather than just taking a particular view. I’ve always found that going in and asking questions and being open-minded—not necessarily just taking one individual’s view about it but actually learning from the health professionals—is useful.

I also think saying it’s medical malpractice goes too far. When we’re looking at the vulnerability of the young people and children who are needing this kind of support through the health system, we should be very sensitive in how we deal with it, and as a government we’re keen on making sure that we are able to provide health services to anyone who needs them, regardless of their circumstances.

Treating Australians differently on the basis of race is racist. Australian’s should have equality of opportunity no matter what their skin colour is. This is my statement on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Bill 2022.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I wish to indicate some concerns I have about this Bill which is both divisive and mostly unnecessary.

Our country is Australia. Our country consists of people from many nations, cultures and religions and from many racial groups providing a rich tapestry of positive contributions to our Australian nation.

What we do not want or need is legislation that picks out a particular cultural group and make laws aimed at that particular cultural group, driving a potentially divisive wedge between aboriginal Australians and other Australians.

It does not matter where a person comes from or what that person’s cultural or racial background is. “I am, you are, we are Australian”, are the words of a well- known theme song.

It’s true. We know that and we do not need legislation that is geared to a “them and us” mentality.

This Bill is intended to affirm into Australian domestic law the contents and intention of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

This is a requirement necessary before the UN Declaration provisions become enforceable In Australian law.

Aboriginal Australians, as Australians, already have the same rights as any other Australian right now.

If there are gaps in services available to Indigenous Australians these gaps are due to poverty and remoteness, issues that affect many isolated people across Australia.

It is the failings of successive governments to adequately address health, housing, education and infrastructure that have led to many persons, aboriginal and otherwise, to fall into the poverty gap.

I call on the government to address these issues with priority before considering this Bill which is unnecessary and does nothing more than acknowledging what already is in place for all Australians.

This Bill perpetuates the victimhood of aboriginal people. It places blame on past cultural divides for the current lack of support for aboriginal minorities.

There are many aboriginal people in Australia who have accessed free education, worked hard and prospered as Australians in the broader community. They do not need this Bill.

There are many indigenous Australians who would be offended by the content of this Bill which virtually enshrines a “them and us” mentality.

The most divisive clause in this Bill is clause 7 which throws blame on colonisation for all the ills that prevent their right to develop in accord with their own needs and interests.

All this in the face of facts that include:

 Determined indigenous Native Title claims now cover approximately half of the Australian land mass.

Aboriginal Australians represent approximately 3.5% of Australia’s population

All aboriginal children are entitled to scholarships to continue education through high school and beyond.

Assistance to aboriginal families has now become an enviable but divisive issue within small remote communities where other minorities in similar living conditions are not able to access assistance at the same level.

This is where the true problem lies.

Treating Australians differently on the basis of race is racist, scientifically false, legally questionable, morally condemnable and socially unjust. Simply wrong.

I do not support this Bill.