Minister Butler Remains a Puppet for WHO

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Last week (May 27 to June 1, 2024), the World Health Assembly (WHA77) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) debated two matters. The first was a new Pandemic Treaty designed to expand the powers of the WHO beyond pandemics, to include any health issue related to human, plant, or animal health, granting them the power to compel nations to comply with its directives. After two and a half years of negotiation, the Treaty was not brought to a vote and has been delayed for another year. This is a black eye to the nations, including Australia, that tried to subjugate Australian sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Geneva and who are owned by pharmaceutical companies.

The second matter that passed involved changes to WHO’s operating manual, known as the International Health Regulations. The proposed changes would have granted the WHO similar powers to the Pandemic Treaty. These changes were also opposed by member states. The outcome were minor changes that take on board lessons learned from COVID and contains no loss of sovereignty. These changes will reduce the chance of a nation infecting the world with a virus while pretending nothing was wrong, as happened with COVID.

There are legal objections to the amendments passing. For instance, the notice given of the changes breached the WHO constitution, which poses a significant problem.

Yesterday at Estimates, I asked the officials who attended WHA77 about the comments made by Health Minister Mark Butler, where he called for stronger binding powers. Instead of addressing Minister Butler’s comment, their response focused on the measures that were passed, thereby avoiding the topic of “binding”. Let me help the bureaucrats out: binding (adjective) that which must be obeyed.

This is what they were avoiding saying: Minister Butler is calling for Australian sovereignty to be ceded to unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats on the other side of the world, as if they know better than our own health workers, here on the ground, what is best for Australia.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My questions are in regard to Minister Butler’s comments at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly in Geneva last week and, following on from that, the World Health Organization’s attempts at pandemic treaties and international health regulation amendments. Minister Butler, at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly in Geneva last week, made the following comments: We are fully committed to concluding the World Health Organization pandemic agreement. Together, we have made considerable progress in our shared ambition towards a set of binding international commitments for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Could you please explain to me what he means by the word ‘binding’?  

Prof. Kelly: I was present in the room in Geneva when the minister made that statement that you’ve quoted. I must say it was one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had as an Australian to hear our own minister for health at such an assembly defending and encouraging the world to think about multilateralism to protect us from the next pandemic. That’s what the changes to the International Health Regulations that went through the assembly by the end of last week and the continued work on the pandemic agreement represent. If we think about a global pandemic, the only way to protect Australians in the best way is to be part of a global approach to preparing for the next pandemic, for putting in place things that can respond quickly and appropriately and for the whole world to have the same direction. I’ll pass on to my colleague Mr Ross Hawkins, who will be able to give more detail on the specifics of your question.  

Senator ROBERTS: Can someone answer that specific point about ‘binding’?  

Mr Hawkins: Within the formation of the IHR, there are elements that are binding on nation states, and we can go to the process that this would need to go through in terms of its adoption within Australia and what that looks like in terms of JSCOT processes. It’s important to note there are certain elements in there that we would look to commit to. These are things that Australia is already doing. But largely, this is around the kind of multinational approach that Professor Kelly took us through there and getting a sense of commitment across the globe on how we deal with global health issues. With the notion of the binding elements within the IHR, there’s elements regarding the establishment of an IHR authority, which Australia has in its interim CDC. It talks about the strengthening of frameworks—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me? Could you explain that, please—’which Australia has’?  

Mr Hawkins: Yes. Professor Kelly will take us through the interim CDC that we have, and that will be— 

Senator ROBERTS: CDC being the Australian CDC?  

Mr Hawkins: Centre for Disease Control, correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: But Australia’s?  

Mr Hawkins: Correct. I think it’s really important for us to establish that there is no change in the IHRs to the way that member states adopt within national legislation what this would look like. There is no power grab by the WHO. This is actually around how we will adopt this within Australia, or what we’re already doing in Australia to strengthen our surveillance and prevention and preparedness for a global pandemic.  

Senator ROBERTS: I understand there’s no power grab. It started off as an enormous power grab, but it got watered down because the African nations told them to go to hell, basically.  

Mr Hawkins: I would—  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, that’s not parliamentary and not appropriate for this committee.  

Senator ROBERTS: The African nations said they wouldn’t be supporting it.  

Mr Hawkins: I would not agree. We’ve seen the various iterations of this. Let’s be honest, the IHRs have existed since 1969. They had an iteration in 2005, and this is the latest iteration in 2024. They are there in place to protect us with respect to trade and travel across the globe. These are things that protect Australians. It’s not a power grab by the WHO. There is a genuine sense that from a multilateral perspective all nations take a similar approach to how we deal with surveillance and preparedness. 

Senator ROBERTS: So, what does ‘binding’ mean?  

Mr Hawkins: As I’ve described to you, there are various elements within the current form of the IHRs that Australia would look to comply with.  

Senator ROBERTS: So we would cede our sovereignty on those issues?  

Mr Hawkins: As I’ve reiterated, let me please read to you what sits in article 3, which is really clear, within the IHRs that ‘states have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law the sovereign right to legislate and to implement legislation in pursuance of their health policies’. It is enshrined in here that we are not ceding sovereignty.  

Senator ROBERTS: So ‘binding’ denotes penalties for noncompliance, I assume. What penalties should be applied to countries that refuse to do as the WHO tells us in the event we don’t agree the instruction is in our best interests? Where are you drawing the line on penalties?  

Mr Hawkins: There’s no penalty.  

Senator ROBERTS: So what makes them binding?  

Mr Hawkins: This is under international law and this is part of that broader international framework. But sitting within the current formation of the IHR there is no penalty.  

Senator ROBERTS: Within the current formation of the IHR?  

Mr Hawkins: Within the formation that’s just been agreed within the World Health Assembly.  

Senator ROBERTS: So we have an initial IHR that goes back to 2007. I note the earlier ones—  

Mr Hawkins: 2005  

Senator ROBERTS: but it goes back to 2007. Then they tried to bring in very strong amendments, and the Africans and other nations said no, and they’ve watered it back almost to the same as in 2007 is my understanding.  

Mr Hawkins: No, that’s not my understanding. We would go by what is an official document. The 2005 IHRs were accepted and agreed. There have been amendments historically to the IHR that have taken place over time. It’s just that with the nature of COVID and with the work that Helen Clark did in terms of broader preparedness—  

Senator ROBERTS: Helen Clark, the former New Zealand Prime Minister?  

Mr Hawkins: Correct, working for the WHO. This is all work that’s taken place in terms of the broader approach to the IHRs and to the pandemic agreement around what’s needed to strengthen the global response to COVID. This is the work that’s clearly taken place over that time, and the formation through this process two years ago. This is the kind of process that people have gone through over a significant amount of time in order to ensure that we’ve got robust global controls in place.  

Senator ROBERTS: If I have time at the end, perhaps we can come back to the World Health Organization’s process, because it’s not as you said it is; it’s not innocent. Health is constantly—  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I do need to allow the official a chance to respond to that, please. Mr Hawkins. 

Mr Hawkins: I’m sorry. I’m giving you the information that’s available to me. The majority of this is available on the World Health Organization website. I’m trying to respond to you. I’m not trying to hide from you anything that doesn’t or—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not accusing you of doing that.  

Mr Hawkins: Thank you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Not at all. I’m just saying we differ in our opinions. I’ve had other advice that’s very solid on the process. We’ve been monitoring the process for the last two-and-a-bit years.  

Prof. Kelly: Senator, if I could also correct the statement you made about the African nations? As my colleague has said, this process has been going for the last two years specifically around the IHRs. It is a negotiation. Many views have been placed on the table. On Saturday, 194 member states of the WHO—and it’s a member organisation—voted unanimously to adopt those changes by consensus, plus the Holy See and Liechtenstein. So there were 196, actually. There was a block of African nations who were concerned about some of the issues related to the proposed changes, but in the end it was adopted by consensus.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll come to that later, but my understanding is that some months ago, even a year ago, the Africans said, ‘No way.’ The UN World Health Organization requires consensus. As a result of the African bloc and some European countries and a lot of people around the world being upset, the World Health Organization trimmed its demands and now we’ve gone back to something that’s fairly simple. As I said, let’s get into that at the end.  

Senator Gallagher: It’s an agreement, and it’s not unusual in multilateral forums for negotiations to land in a particular way. In my experience, that is prevalent in every single international negotiation.  

Senator ROBERTS: Agreed, but what happened here was the Africans told them they would not agree to the previously very strong changes, and they’ve watered them back as a result of that. Health is constitutionally a state matter. External affairs powers allow the Commonwealth government to make certain treaties. Was there any attempt in the minister’s rush to sign away our sovereignty to get agreement from the rights holders from the states?  

Mr Comley: Can I just intervene for a moment here. Responsibility for dealing with the technicalities of international law and all constitutional advice is actually a matter for the Attorney-General’s Department.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I just said.  

Mr Comley: I’m respectfully suggesting that if you have a detailed question around that it should be put at the estimates for Attorney-General’s Department. We can help you with what we understand by the current state as we’ve advised. If I just go back a step, as to the point that I think Mr Hawkins was trying to make at the start—and it goes to language—’binding’ is often used in international conferences, but no international instrument or treaty can change Australia’s Constitution nor prevail over Australian laws without it being adopted into Australian law. When it gets adopted into—  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s the key point.  

Mr Comley: That is the key point, which I don’t think we are disputing. This comes to the point of sovereignty and comes to the point that, if we were going through a process of adopting an international law, the standard process goes through a consultation process, including through JSCOT and engaging with relevant stakeholders. On your observation about constitutional responsibility for health—there is a mixed responsibility in the Constitution because there are powers that allow Commonwealth health benefits for individuals. I don’t want to go much further into that because I think I’m straying into what is a constitutional interpretation of the roles. The fundamental point here is that international agreements have to be adopted into Australian law. They go through a process, including JSCOT. If they’re adopted through that JSCOT process they become binding in that country. When the minister says we want a binding agreement, he is urging the international community to follow through with the commitment they’ve made in the conference to adopt those into their domestic law. Some countries may ultimately choose not to, and then that will come back to that body. This is not unusual in international law. In my previous lives doing climate change, there were times when there’s been a change of administration in countries that have led them to decide whether they would stay as a ratified member of a treaty. The process is quite clear. At the point in time they were in the agreement that was the intention of all the parties, to make the binding commitment. My experience in international negotiations is that countries do not make a commitment lightly, even though there may be domestic processes to give effect to it.  

Senator ROBERTS: What you’ve done just then, Mr Comley, is actually reinforce my comment that it is an external affairs power, but the states are involved in health. My question was very simple: have the states been consulted on these changes? Are the states involved in the process? That was my only question. Is there an answer?  

Mr Hawkins: There is. We’ve consulted the states and territories. I’ve personally been on two teleconferences with them to talk them through the broad approach, noting that obviously, as already outlined by Senator Gallagher and Mr Comley, these things often form part of a negotiation that took place at the WHA. But we’ve been talking with states and territory officials around this process.  

Senator ROBERTS: The minister also said: We have a strong basis on which to finalise important amendments to the international health regulations this week. I urge all member states to redouble their efforts to agree on critical reforms to our global health architecture, because we simply cannot afford to fail. Why can’t we afford to fail? Is he saying that our Australian health department is incapable of running a pandemic response in Australia all by itself without the big daddy World Health Organization telling us what to do?  

Senator Gallagher: Senator ROBERTS, I wasn’t there; perhaps Professor Kelly is better placed to answer. The way I understand those comments is to say that protection of the Australian people relies on a global response to pandemic management. We’re not immune from what happens in other parts of the world, as we have experienced in the last pandemic.  

Senator ROBERTS: And the World Health Organization—  

Senator Gallagher: So it’s around national security and national safety and protection of the Australian population.  

Senator ROBERTS: The World Health Organization, in the last outbreak with COVID, was telling us there was no human-to-human transmission and that there was nothing to see at first. That delayed the response in other countries. The World Health Organization is guilty of that. They’re a corrupt criminal organisation.  

CHAIR: You have your views on that, Senator ROBERTS, and I don’t seek to convince you otherwise, but we—  

Senator ROBERTS: You’d be going against the facts.  

Senator Gallagher: No, I don’t agree with you on that.  

Senator ROBERTS: They’re two factually correct statements.  

Senator Gallagher: No, I don’t agree with the comments you’ve made about the World Health Organization. I think the minister for health has represented Australia’s national interest at that international forum, and for good reasons. It’s about the protection of the Australian people.  

Prof. Kelly: What was agreed on Saturday morning—and Australia was one of 194 countries member states of the WHO, being a member state institution; it’s not a big daddy, as you suggested, it is guided by the member states—under the WHO and other UN arrangements we have a year to go through all of those processes we’ve talked about in terms of Australian legal requirements. We are not safe unless everyone is safe. An infectious disease has no borders. As we know from our experience in the COVID pandemic, we closed our border and it caused a lot of disruption in other ways. We had to reopen our border and, as soon as we did, the virus appeared. It can only be by working internationally with all other countries that we can deal with a pandemic like that, and we will have other ones in the future. These amendments that were made through long negotiations right up to and including last Friday night were successful in getting those things over the line. I’m very happy that’s the case. I’ll reiterate my statement that it was one of my proudest moments as an Australian witnessing that Australian leadership at ministerial level, at officials’ level, to get those negotiations completed.  

CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS, at this point I am due to rotate the call. If you wish to seek another call in this section, I will come back to you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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Turbo-Migration Turbocharges the Housing Crisis

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The government is in complete denial that migration has fuelled the housing crisis, keeping Australians out of affordable houses.

518,000 net overseas migrants arrived to Australia in the 2022-23 financial year. In October 2022, the government predicted net migrants would be 283,000 less than that. That means an additional 110,000 homes are needed just for the extra 283,000 arrivals that weren’t forecasted alone, plus all of the other arrivals.

There are 2.3 million visa holders likely to require housing in the country right now, yet the government won’t accept responsibility for causing the housing crisis.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Going back to my questions on immigration numbers—and I acknowledge the Treasury secretary admitted quite clearly that Treasury had made a mistake—specifically, do you realise that the number of people who arrived here above your forecast meant that 100,000 extra homes were needed? You basically got the immigration forecast wrong by 100,000 homes and now we’re in a housing crisis, Minister.  

Senator Gallagher: Sorry; I thought that was to Treasury. Please repeat it.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you realise that the amount of people who arrived here above the Treasury forecast error meant that an extra 100,000 extra homes were needed? You got the immigration forecast wrong by 100,000 homes, and now we’re in a housing crisis and working families are sleeping in their cars.  

Senator Gallagher: I think the housing crisis and the challenges in the housing market have been coming for some time. I don’t think it’s happened overnight, and so fixing it does not happen overnight.  

Senator ROBERTS: I accept that, but why did you get the immigration so wrong? You’re still getting record immigration when you’re adding 100,000 new houses to the demand.  

Senator Gallagher: I think Treasury has explained about forecasting, the fact that it wasn’t foreseen and that many other countries have experienced a similar phenomenon in terms of population and pressure on population coming from migration and from people remaining in country. I think that was explored earlier in the day. So we have to do two things One is to get the numbers back to a more sustainable level. That’s happening through a variety of interventions. The other thing is that we have to build more houses—and that is happening as well—to take the pressure off the housing situation in Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: The number was wrong. It means 100,000 more houses needed just in one year.  

Senator Gallagher: I don’t know that you can just say that that is the number. I accept there is absolutely not enough housing at the moment and that that is placing people under enormous pressure and we have to fix that. That’s why a big focus of the budget is on homes for Australia.  

CHAIR: Thanks, Senator ROBERTS. 

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Natural Cyclical Events Impact More Than Human Activity

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Recently, I spoke in the Senate regarding the impact of this summer’s flooding on the coral reef. Coral polyps are saltwater creatures. When floodwaters impact the reef, it introduces fresh water, cold temperatures and sediment, all of which cause coral bleaching. El Niño (ENSO cycles) causes a reduction in clouds, resulting in higher solar radiation, higher temperatures, and coral bleaching.

Both of these are cyclical and not caused by human activity. Yet the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) appear to be focusing solely on the “climate change is causing warming temperatures and coral bleaching” argument instead of presenting the broader picture.

I was reassured that the GBRMPA accepts that ENSO cycles play a role in coral bleaching. I look forward to more honesty and transparency on this issue from the BOM, CSIRO and the globalist controlled Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing tonight. Let me start with a simple question: can floodwaters entering the reef from the 28 river systems that discharge onto the reef in a rain event, such as a tropical cyclone, cause coral bleaching, either through fresh water itself, through very low floodwater temperature, or through high nutrient levels or turbidity or sediment?

Mr Thomas: There can certainly be initial freshwater bleaching from flood events.

Mr Quincey: And we did see some of that this year with the cyclones in the north.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s true that corals also bleach from water that is too cold, isn’t it? I can remember that in June 2008 that there were record cold temperatures in various parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, including southern Queensland, and the southern Great Barrier Reef bleached because of the cold weather.

Mr Thomas: I’m not sure of that particular example. But, yes, bleaching is certainly a stress response that can be triggered by a range of different things. Most recently, though, our biggest concerns have been about warmer waters, not colder waters.

Senator ROBERTS: Was any of the coral bleaching that was evident on the reef in the first quarter of 2024 caused by freshwater and salt intrusion?

Mr Thomas: Yes, as Mr Quincey said. Probably because of flood events prior to and post Christmas in in the north, there would have been some initial freshwater bleaching. I don’t have specific details of that in front of me, though.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Was any of the coral bleaching in the first quarter caused by pesticides or other chemical run-off from farming areas?

Mr Thomas: Direct attribution of those impacts would be difficult for me to provide here today, but we could take some of that question on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: Please. According to a paper from the University of Queensland, simplified: The most devastating mass coral bleaching has occurred during El Niño events … However, El Niño itself does not cause SSTs— sea surface temperatures— to rise in all regions that experience bleaching. Nor is the upper ocean warming trend of 0.11°C per decade since 1971 … sufficient alone to exceed the thermal tolerance of corals. This paper shows that a major contributing factor is El Nino reducing cloud cover, causing ‘higher than average air temperatures and higher than average atmospheric pressures’ and playing ‘a crucial role in determining the extent and location of coral bleaching’ on the reef. Is that a fair statement?

Mr Thomas: I’m not aware of that particular paper. Did you say it was the University of Queensland?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.

Mr Thomas: I’m not aware of it. I’m sorry. But we would be very interested to read more about it.

Senator ROBERTS: We can get it to you.

Mr Thomas: Yes, please.

Senator ROBERTS: Do you accept natural, cyclical ENSO events play a crucial role in coral bleaching?

Mr Thomas: We would have to defer to climate scientists around the particular localised impacts and how they’ve played out on the Great Barrier Reef.

Senator ROBERTS: Localised impacts, not global?

Mr Thomas: For how those significant meteorological phenomena impact the Great Barrier Reef in particular, I would need to consult with other relevant experts.

Senator ROBERTS: According to the Bureau of Meteorology document ‘124 years of Australian rainfall’, there’s no trend. There’s no pattern. It’s just cyclical. There’s no trend whatsoever, down or up. It’s just natural variation, influenced by cycles. In the last five years, we’ve had three La Ninas. Your website, under the heading ‘What causes coral bleaching?’, makes the comment: The biggest cause of coral bleaching in the past 20 years has been rising water temperatures. On notice if you wish, please provide how much water temperature has increased in the last 20 years, including average and range, showing any spikes that may have occurred.

Mr Thomas: Thank you. We will take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: Something like that, maybe?

Mr Thomas: I’m not sure I can reproduce that exactly, but we’ll certainly take that—

Senator ROBERTS: No, I wouldn’t expect you to reproduce it.

Mr Thomas: We will certainly try to take an—

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Have you tested those spike temperatures that may have led to bleaching against the ENSO cycle? Have you correlated them?

Mr Quincey: I couldn’t answer now, but we would most likely consult with our colleagues not only in the Bureau of Meteorology but in the CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, who do some of that work.

Mr Thomas: We’re not the authors of some of these reports. We work with those relevant institutions. We pull that information together. We try to synthesise it and make the best assessments we can on how we can hone our programs and better manage the Great Barrier Reef into the future. With some of the specificity and science you’re referring to, we really would need to speak to some of our experts.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. This is the last question. The bleaching impact statement on your website, which you describe as ‘a framework to describe and categorise coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef’, only includes one factor: heat stress, which you attribute to climate change, ignoring these other crucially important factors. Is this about blaming bleaching on climate change, which is well-funded, and ignoring the role of natural cycles, which carries no funding? We’ve heard the United Nations say that the planet is now boiling.

Mr Thomas: Is your question about whether our framework for understanding coral bleaching is limited to heat stress?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it seems that it’s only limited to heat stress.

Mr Quincey: It has it there as heat stress, but the exposure blocks the subtleties of exactly what you’re talking about—about light intensity and exposure and cloud cover. Also, on our website, we really try to convey that local and regional weather in particular places has a large bearing on the outcomes that we see each summer, and those factors play into that.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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The Gender Pay Gap is a Myth – Only Exists in DODGY Statistics

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I questioned the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) about their claims that almost every company in Australia is paying women less than men. Their data doesn’t compare how much a man and a woman working the same job at the same company gets paid. Its completely misleading and doesn’t account for choices, preferences, hours worked, overtime, danger, or the fact that paying women less than men has been illegal for decades, as the WGEA admitted to me.

With 78% of the workforce at the WGEA being female, it sounds like they shouldn’t be lecturing anyone in the country on gender equality while they completely fail to achieve it themselves.

Transcript

CHAIR: Yes. Senator ROBERTS.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. My questions are fairly simple. It is illegal to pay men and women differently because of their sex in Australia, isn’t it?  

Senator Gallagher: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: How long has that been the case?  

Senator Gallagher: It has been since the late sixties. 

Senator ROBERTS: Is the data you publish on comparing male pay versus female pay on a like-for-like job basis?  

Ms Wooldridge: No, it very clearly is not and it doesn’t intend to be.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you could, for example, publish airline employees. The majority of pilots are men at the moment—women are increasing—and the majority of hostesses are female, so it would show it skewed towards the men, because pilots are paid more than hostesses.  

Ms Wooldridge: That’s absolutely right; that is the gender pay gap.  

Senator Gallagher: That’s the point.  

Senator ROBERTS: How is that the point?  

Ms Wooldridge: That is what the gender pay gap calculates. It is not seeking to calculate a like-for-like comparison. The definition is—let’s say we are doing an average gender pay gap—the average salaries of all men and the average salaries of all women and a comparison between the two. That is the simple, clear definition of the gender pay gap.  

Senator ROBERTS: It’s not a like-for-like basis. It doesn’t accommodate hours. Men tend to work more hours and tend to be in more dangerous jobs, generally.  

Ms Wooldridge: Our calculation annualises part-time or part-year earnings to an annualised full-time equivalent basis so that it does account and allow for the differences and make a fair comparison for people who are working non-full-time versus full-time—that is very clear—but it is not a like-for-like comparison, and it doesn’t seek to make that comparison.  

Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t it then misleading?  

Ms Wooldridge: Not when the definition of what we are calculating is very clear. We are very clear on what the gender pay gap seeks to calculate. As I said earlier, it is not a perfect measure; it is a proxy for gender equality. With the clarity of what the definition is then people can understand what the percentage reflects.  

Senator ROBERTS: So if a male pilot and a female pilot had similar experience—number of years—similar qualifications, they would be paid the same; they would have to be.  

Ms Wooldridge: Well, certainly that is the law and our expectation. I’m sure the government’s expectation is that companies do fulfil that requirement of equal pay for equal work because it has been the law for more than 50 years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Right, so where is the gender pay gap?  

Ms Wooldridge: The gender pay gap is driven by a combination of the composition of the workforce and the relativities of the pay for that composition.  

Senator ROBERTS: But isn’t it erroneous to say that women are paid less than men if, in fact, for equivalent jobs on a like-for-like basis and hours worked, they are paid the same?  

Ms Wooldridge: We are very clear in our communications that we will say women are paid less on average than men by an employer, in an industry, in an occupation, when we describe the gender pay gap.  

Senator ROBERTS: I have been to some pretty advanced statistics classes, but you don’t have to do that to realise that averages can hide a lot. Averages can misinform and mislead.  

Ms Wooldridge: Absolutely, so, once again, the gender pay gap is a proxy that commences a conversation about what is driving those differences. We talked earlier with Senator Hume about how the employer statement gives employers a mechanism by which they can then say what is driving the differences in their composition or in their pay and remuneration rates, and what things they are undertaking to address those differences.  

Senator ROBERTS: So are you trying to drive more female pilots and more male hosts?  

Ms Wooldridge: I don’t usually comment on individual companies, but Qantas, after the publishing of its gender pay gaps, did announce a policy to attract more female pilots into its ranks as a reflection of those very high-paying roles being currently very male dominated.  

Senator ROBERTS: So the gender pay gap name-and-shame list that you publish doesn’t account for the amount of hours actually worked or overtime, does it?  

Ms Wooldridge: As I said, Senator, what we published was the median salary for women and the median salary for men or total remuneration and base salary—we did two calculations and the per cent differences between the two. That was the data that was published for each employer. 

Senator Gallagher: It is not a name-and-shame list; it’s the data that is available to WGEA. People choose to use it how they choose to use it, but it’s information that we believe is an important to support the work that’s being done to narrow the gender pay gap in the country.  

Senator ROBERTS: So it’s really a tool to use to push an agenda? That’s a-g-e-n-d-a not ‘a gender’.  

Ms Wooldridge: It’s an internationally used measure around the world. As I said, the UK government six years ago started publishing gender pay gaps of their employers using a similar methodology. It’s one that has been used in Australia for the last 15 or 20 years in terms of its calculation. It’s a reflection of the relationship between what men and women earn and their responsibilities in the workforce.  

Senator ROBERTS: Well, it will only be that—a reflection of what men and women earn and their responsibilities—if it were like for like, and it’s not like for like. It’s misleading.  

Ms Wooldridge: I suppose I don’t agree with that, Senator.  

Senator Gallagher: I don’t either.  

Ms Wooldridge: The calculation is very clear—the methodology used for the calculation—and we are very clear that it doesn’t seek to do a like-for-like. In fact, one thing that we’re very pleased about is that the conversation has moved from a like-for-like comparison—because that is the law, and it has been the law for 50 years, and companies should be complying with the law—to actually get to the differences about the structural inequalities that are driving the fact that we have a gender pay gap, as calculated and as described, across both the nation and in every industry across Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do we have a gender pay gap, which implies that we are paying women less than men for the same job, or do we have a gap in skills and preferences for work?  

Senator Gallagher: Well, women workers do earn less on average than men, the male workers.  

Senator ROBERTS: Not like for like in Australia.  

Senator Gallagher: Nobody other than you is suggesting that we are measuring like for like. Nobody is.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s the way—  

Senator Gallagher: Ms Wooldridge and I, when we do media on this, make it very clear what the gender pay gap consists of. Nobody is saying that equal pay is not being offered to women—although in some cases we’ve got rid of pay secrecy clauses and some of the other arrangements that did, I think, disadvantage women in that regard. This is about giving a snapshot in industries, in business, about what is actually happening with their workforce. The facts are the facts. And yes, we are pushing an agenda. The agenda is to make sure that women get the same opportunities as men through the work that they do, including dealing with the very gender segregated nature of our labour force.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are you concerned that if you actually published real comparable data about how much men and women working the same job at the same company get paid, it would show there is no gender pay gap, because it’s illegal and there would be no need for your agency, so you’d be wound down? I’m serious.  

Ms Wooldridge: No.  

Senator Gallagher: Nothing would give me more pleasure.  

Ms Wooldridge: I’m not the slightest bit concerned about that. In fact, what companies say to us is that they do work hard on the like-for-like pay, and they have to remain vigilant each and every year because discrepancies arise. It’s not a set and forget, and they do work hard on it. That’s absolutely fundamental. It’s a component of the gender pay gap, but it’s not the whole gender pay gap. We need to look beyond like-for-like pay to understand what else is driving the inequalities that mean men and women have a 21.7 per cent differential in their average total remuneration. 

Senator ROBERTS: Right, so give me a hand here. You would agree that men and women are not the same and that their differences are things to cherish. If you are a company that employs only men, you are missing out on the talents of women. So isn’t it better, rather than distort the figures, to somehow encourage companies to employ women for the same job?  

Senator Gallagher: Nobody is distorting the figures—  

Senator ROBERTS: But it’s not like for like.  

Senator Gallagher: The figures are the information that’s provided by the employer to WGEA, which WGEA then publish. Nobody is distorting figures. I think employers on the whole, including some I’ve spoken to since their data being published, are interested in this because they see the benefits that come from a more genderbalanced workforce, for sure. But we’re also dealing with a lot of history and choices made about what jobs suit what gender. There’s a whole range of things going on here that WGEA’s publication of this information supports further action on so that we are able to deal with the different components that lead to the gender pay gap in the country.  

Senator ROBERTS: What’s the gender breakdown of your agency’s workforce?  

Ms Wooldridge: At the moment, we’re 78 per cent women and 22 per cent men. We continue to seek to improve that balance in our recruitment processes.  

Senator ROBERTS: You are familiar with the gender pay gap. Why is it so difficult, Minister, for men’s groups and shelters—this is not to do with welfare payments or mental health and such—to get support for mental health for men? Men are stigmatised in that field.  

Senator Gallagher: In the area of mental health?  

Senator ROBERTS: Mental health support, shelters—it’s almost impossible to get the money for men.  

Senator Gallagher: I think that’s probably a question that we can deal with in health when we get there, because they would be the providers. I absolutely agree that responses and support for mental health need to be targeted to particular demographics. Men certainly experience mental health concerns at very high levels. I think there are targeted supports and interventions tailored to men, but health would be the obvious area for that.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll be asking Health and other places. It’s just that I know men’s groups find it very, very difficult to get support, whereas women’s groups find it very easy to get support.  

Senator Gallagher: I think both women’s and men’s groups would argue that they are after more support. We’ve been going through that with Senator Waters this morning. 

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$2.5 Million EV Chargers Installed at Parliament House, Serving Just 2.8% of Vehicles

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The woke and under-fire boss of Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) has installed 58 electric vehicle chargers at Parliament House, using $2.5 million of your money. This is despite only 2.8% of the vehicles in Canberra (the wokest city in Australia) being able to use the chargers.

I find it concerning that I needed to remind DPS Secretary, Rob Stefanic, that the money he’s using for these chargers belong to Australian taxpayers, not a pot of money that replenishes magically. His “out of touch” attitude regarding the chargers he’s installing and the origin of the funds is troubling.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to electric vehicle chargers. I’d like to return to the 58 electric vehicle chargers—that’s 58—that you’ve installed, Mr Stefanic, at Parliament House. Can I confirm you haven’t installed any petrol or diesel pumps? 

Mr Stefanic: No, we have not. 

Senator Roberts: So 2.8 per cent of the vehicles registered in Canberra are electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids. It seems to be a weird policy priority to spend $2.5 million on installation of EV chargers. Do you think your policy is out of touch with the reality of the types of vehicles that are in use in the ACT and Canberra? 

Mr Stefanic: Sometimes planning for a future state is important, and, given the take-up of electric vehicles within the country and particularly the rate of take-up within the ACT, I would have thought it to be prudent planning. 

Senator Roberts: What is the mix of seven-kilowatt and 22-kilowatt chargers? How many of each are installed? 

Mr Stefanic: I’d have to take that on notice. I’m not across the technical aspects of it. 

Senator Roberts: Thank you. As to question on notice 114, your cashflow statement is anticipating $160,000 in employee expenses and nearly $170,000 in the following year. Why do Australian taxpayers need to pay $330,000 in employee wages over the next two years for these EV chargers? 

Mr Stefanic: The business case for the chargers is a cost-recover over the long term. So, while it is an initial investment of Commonwealth funds, there is a recovery anticipated as part of that. 

Senator Roberts: So Commonwealth funds come from taxpayers, or loans. 

Mr Stefanic: They come from consolidated revenue, yes. 

Senator Roberts: Which comes from taxpayers. It’s a bit of a concern that it seems to be awkward to actually admit that it comes from taxpayers. Charging lithium batteries is a fire safety risk. Who did the assessment of the fire safety risk and mitigation for these chargers? Can you please provide those details on notice. 

Mr Stefanic: I know that all the appropriate engineering approvals were obtained, but I can get that detail for you on notice. 

Senator Roberts: I’d like to know who did the assessment in particular of the fire safety risk and mitigation. What is the plan if a charging station charging vehicles catches fire? Firefighters are telling us, all over the world, that they are nearly impossible to extinguish. 

Mr Stefanic: I believe all relevant risks were considered during the engineering assessment of the charging facility, but otherwise I’d have to take the detail of that question on notice. 

Senator Roberts: Yes, please. Are you introducing a fire risk by installing 58 of these chargers into Parliament House, given the difficulties of putting out lithium fires? Perhaps take it on notice. 

Mr Stefanic: Yes, I will take that on notice. 

Senator Roberts: Given that only 2.8 per cent of the vehicles in Canberra can use these chargers, I think it is completely out of touch to spend $2½ million of taxpayers’ money on 58 of them at Parliament House. There are far more important things to be spending money on. 

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CASA Accountability Continues to Crash Land

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For years, I’ve been trying to get the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to admit responsibility for allowing vaccine mandates on pilots, and the risk of injury that comes with that. I’ve been shocked at how evasive, argumentative and secretive CASA has been over this simple issue, that there is a risk of injury from vaccines, therefore making them mandatory introduces a level of risk into the cockpit.

CASA has lied, refused to answer questions they could have answered, and hidden witnesses from inquiry. As you can see from this session, there is a protection racket in place for this failure of an agency and Australian pilots are suffering hugely as a result.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. Could I have Dr Manderson to the desk, please. Dr Manderson, I asked you previously about the risk of myocarditis because you claimed to pilots that there was a higher chance of getting myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. I provided you with a systematic review that refutes that. It’s entitled, ‘COVID-19—associated cardiac pathology at the postmortem evaluation: a collaborative systematic review’. It was published in the Clinical Microbiology and Infection journal on 23 March 2022. I asked you to provide me with the evidence you had to base your previous statement about myocarditis on. That was in SQ23-004809. You undertook to provide the evidence that you had, but in the answer you simply referred to the TGA, not to evidence you had assessed to make the comment you made. I’d like to ask: did you write the answer to SQ23-004809 or did CASA officials?  

Ms Spence: I think we provided a follow-up answer to that and we advised that the response was provided consistent with the requirements of the standing orders around responding to Senate estimates questions.  

Senator ROBERTS: Who did you provide that to?  

Ms Spence: That was the answer to 00268 from committee question No. 254.  

Senator ROBERTS: Who wrote the first response?  

Ms Spence: The question was directed to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority provided that response. That’s consistent with the guidelines for officials.  

Senator ROBERTS: So who wrote the response?  

Ms Spence: I approved the response.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is that the guideline to responses that the government has just put out?  

Ms Spence: No. These date back to February 2015. I can table that response if that would be helpful for you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, please. In the interests of time, we won’t go through it now. One of the studies provided by the TGA in what you reference was from Anders Husby et al. It’s entitled ‘Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study’. Do you still stand behind that evidence to say that the incidence of myocarditis is lower?  

Dr Manderson: Yes, I do.  

Senator ROBERTS: When you actually read that study, it says nine of the 109 patients were readmitted to hospital with myocarditis after COVID, while 62 of 530 were readmitted with myocarditis after receiving the vaccination. That’s eight per cent for COVID myocarditis and 12 per cent for the COVID vaccine myocarditis. Fifty per cent more people were readmitted to the hospital with myocarditis after getting the jab than after getting COVID. The evidence you cited doesn’t appear to support your statement that there’s a higher chance of myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. Can you explain your contradiction?  

Mr Marcelja: I’d like to make an important point before Dr Manderson answers that question. We have tried to explain to the committee on a number of occasions that CASA’s role, when it comes to vaccinations, is purely related to aviation safety. I can tell you again today that there is no link to aviation safety from the matters that you’re talking about. So, while Dr Manderson can express her medical view about the questions you’ve asked, they actually have no bearing on CASA’s role and CASA’s remit when it comes to vaccinating the population.  

Senator ROBERTS: They have enormous bearing on Dr Manderson’s integrity.  

Ms Spence: I find that commentary quite disappointing coming from a Senator, but we’ll allow—  

Senator Carol Brown: The questions do appear to be out of order. Senator ROBERTS’s questions do not seem to be for CASA. They’re not part of CASA’s core duties. So they really need to be asked in another committee. He’s asking about— Senator McKENZIE interjecting—  

ACTING CHAIR: Let the minister finish.  

Senator Carol Brown: I’m asking the chair to rule whether Senator ROBERTS’s questions are in order for CASA.  

Senator ROBERTS: Chair, I would point out that we have received hundreds of calls from pilots. We’ve received emails and letters. We’ve had person-to-person conversations. Pilots from both Qantas and Virgin are absolutely terrified by what the injections are doing to some of their pilots. This is a fundamental thing, and it goes back to Mr Marcelja some time ago and also to Dr Manderson.  

ACTING CHAIR: Do you want to make a quick comment, Senator McKENZIE?  

Senator McKENZIE: Yes, I do. Nothing the minister has mentioned goes to the standing orders and whether anything that Senator ROBERTS has asked is in breach of the standing orders. Therefore he has the right in this committee to ask public officials, who earn a lot of money—more than most of the people around this table—to answer the questions on behalf of the constituency that he represents in this place. I would expect that the officials are very experienced and are very patient and will be able to respond to Senator ROBERTS’s questions.  

ACTING CHAIR: We will keep going with the line of questioning. I was also going to say that, if there are any particular areas that you, as experienced officials, feel are better answered by another agency or another department, please flag that with us here. I don’t think it’s our role to tell senators what they can and can’t ask, but we’re going to leave it to your judgement too. I think the minister’s concern is that maybe some of these questions may be more appropriate in another committee throughout this fortnight of estimates. Anyway, let’s continue. Senator ROBERTS, you have the call.  

Senator ROBERTS: Regardless of what’s in that study, is it your academic opinion, Dr Manderson, that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study?  

Dr Manderson: A single population based cohort study is one piece of evidence within many thousands of pieces of evidence that have been published around COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis related to that. It would be scientifically and academically incorrect to rely on a single study or even a single piece of information within a single study to be selectively reported and base an entire policy decision or clinical opinion on that cherry-picked small piece of information. It’s a really fundamental part of research and critical analysis that you understand the breadth and the depth of clinical information that’s reported in the literature, how the reporting is done and even the fundamentals of analysis of individual articles relating to things like sources of bias and sources of statistical significance and relevance in that sort of thing. So a single study should never be relied on and a single piece of data within a single study should never be relied on. It is the breadth of information from a range of clinical literature as well as its interpretation and application—it’s called the concept of generalisability and applicability—to a population, as it applies to a group, when you’re forming an opinion, using that information, as to how it applies to your cohort.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I understand all the terms you use, believe it or not. You didn’t answer my question. You went around it with a lot of terms. Is it your academic opinion that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study? Which would you put more credence in?  

Dr Manderson: A collaborative systematic review—sometimes we call those meta-analyses—is given more weight in terms of evidentiary power, I suppose, than a single study. The more data points you get from the more studies that are published and analysed, the more reliable the evidence will be.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you don’t think a systematic review, which I provided, trumps a cohort study in the hierarchy of research?  

Dr Manderson: A systematic review is as good as the review process and the way in which it’s done. So there are important academic guidelines on the way systematic reviews should be done. That goes to the inclusion criteria for the articles that they refer to, the way they analyse the data within the articles that they’ve referenced and that they’ve selected to include, and the way that they have controlled for selection bias in choosing those articles. So there are systematic reviews that are—  

Senator ROBERTS: Single article-to-article comparison: which is more valid and carries more weight?  

Dr Manderson: Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. A poorly conducted systematic review is not as good as a well conducted cohort study.  

Senator ROBERTS: Given equal quality, which one carries more weight?  

Dr Manderson: If they’re both conducted with great quality and equivalent quality, then a meta-analysis and systematic review of multiple data points is better than a single analysis—if they are done with the same level of quality.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ll move to my next question. None of the studies you referenced from the TGA were actually published at the time you made your statement to pilots about the risk of myocarditis. Did you actually have any evidence at the time you made the statement to pilots in February 2022? That’s what I asked. What evidence did you have? Nothing in your question on notice was available at that time—nothing. So what did you rely on?  

Dr Manderson: By 2022, there had been tens of thousands of research articles published into COVID vaccines and the relationship between those and any adverse cardiac events. In particular, there were very large studies coming out of the countries that adopted COVID vaccination quite early. In particular, Hong Kong and Israel published a lot of data. That research was published in globally—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, Dr Manderson—  

ACTING CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS, sorry, but we should allow the witness to conclude her answer.  

Senator ROBERTS: She’s not answering the question.  

ACTING CHAIR: It doesn’t matter.  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Keep going.  

ACTING CHAIR: Just hear her out, and then you’ll have an opportunity to ask her another question.  

Dr Manderson: That evidence was published in globally highly regarded journals: the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal cardiology edition, the Lancet and the publications from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the CDC. Those source articles formed the basis of the advice that was provided to medical practitioners in Australia by the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the advice from the chief health officer of Australia and the public health authorities of each state. In 2022, all of that information was available, and all of that information leading up to when I did that webinar was what I based that on.  

Senator ROBERTS: Your diversion is classically known as an appeal to authority. You put so many appeals to authority, and that’s very, very clever, but I asked you a question—’at the time you made the statement to pilots’. That’s what I asked. You gave me a reference that was not available at the time you made that statement. I asked you just now: what evidence did you have, specifically, when you made that statement to pilots? Secondly, nothing in your question on notice was available at that time. Why?  

ACTING CHAIR: I think Ms Spence wanted to add something before too. Ms Spence?  

Ms Spence: Again, it goes to the direction that we’re going in with the conversation. I totally respect the importance of you being able to ask the questions, but I would like to put it on the record that every other country, every other national aviation authority, took the same approach that Australia did. We did not work in isolation in this space. I hear you’re talking about the information and discussion that Dr Manderson had with the pilots, but I’m struggling to understand what specific issue there is around the actions that CASA took during COVID, which, to me, would seem to be a far more important issue to get to the heart of. If you thought we’d done something wrong, something different or something unacceptable, I’d like to have that conversation, rather than a very detailed academic conversation around which of the thousand articles that were available at the time Dr Manderson relied on.  

Senator CANAVAN: Chair, I would like to stress Senator McKENZIE’s point here. The witness is fine to raise a point of order, but any claim not to have to answer a question has to be grounded in the standing orders, precedents and practices of this Senate. Nothing you spoke about then, Ms Spence, did that. Otherwise, we’re just giving opportunities for people to cover themselves to avoid answering questions. I think Senator ROBERTS questions are perfectly fine. They’re about public statements made by witnesses, and that is definitely able to be asked about at Senate estimates inquiries.  

ACTING CHAIR: Not to summarise, but I’m mindful of time, and I don’t want to spend too much time on this. I think the point Ms Spence was trying to make was that they’re happy to keep answering questions from Senator ROBERTS. I don’t think that’s in dispute. I think she was just trying to see if there was more available time, with the time we have, to help Senator ROBERTS answer his other questions. Can we just keep continuing? I don’t know where we left to. Senator ROBERTS, do you have another question for the witnesses before us?  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I do. I have lots of questions. Ms Spence, you, Mr Marcelja and, I think, Dr Manderson have all said that the ultimate responsibility for aircraft safety in this country is with you three. With the COVID injections—that’s where this all started—it’s with you too. Specifically, Mr Marcelja, you told me in one of the Senate estimates responses that Dr Manderson is the chief medical expert. That’s where I’m going. Is that clear?  

Ms Spence: Is there a question there, Senator?  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m responding to your comment. Was I clear?  

Ms Spence: I’m sorry. I still really don’t understand the direction that you’re going in. I’m happy to keep answering questions.  

Senator ROBERTS: You don’t understand safety? Alright. Well, let’s continue. Ms Spence, I asked CASA in November 2023 to do a search of the medical record system in question SQ23-004943 for key conditions, and you told me that was not possible. That’s not true. CASA can do a free tech search of your medical records system for key terms, and report the amount of times a word appears. In fact you did exactly that in a February 2023 question on notice SQ23-003267, where you told me: During 2022 … there were 27 instances where pericarditis or myocarditis was mentioned in the clinical notes for a medical certificate assessment. Have you misled the committee on whether CASA can do a search for the terms I’ve asked for in the November question, given that you actually did that in February?  

Mr Marcelja: If I recall, I answered that question. And what I told you, and I stand by today, is that our medical record system is not designed to capture those specific conditions and diseases in a way that reporting would be meaningful. While we could search the free text comments of our medical record system for those terms, those terms can appear in free text because a patient mentions them in a consultation because they believe they might have it, because of an actual diagnosis. We stand by the evidence we gave, which is that our medical record system doesn’t capture information on those specific diseases in a way that can be reported meaningfully. If you’d like to give me the reference of your question, I can reiterate the answer that we gave.  

Senator ROBERTS: It is possible to do a search in your database for the words I’ve asked for in SQ23- 004943, like you did in SQ23-003267? I understand your comments. And you can provide an answer for how many times they are mentioned in the clinical notes from medical certificate assessments in 2022 and 2023. I’d like you to take it on notice and to provide it.  

Ms Spence: If we do that it won’t be meaningful. Again, we’ll take it on notice, but what Mr Marcelja was saying was that any reference would be picked up, but it doesn’t mean that it’s actually related to that particular condition.  

Mr Marcelja: I’ve got 4943 in front of me, and at the end of that question we say: Providing the information requested would require a … collation of free-text information from tens of thousands of records and would be an unreasonable diversion of resources. 

Senator ROBERTS: Has CASA been provided with the guidebook circulated by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet giving advice on how to answer questions on notice?  

Ms Spence: Not that I’m aware of. It’s certainly not been drawn to my attention. I did hear the questioning yesterday, but I haven’t seen the circular that was referred to.  

Senator ROBERTS: If we go back to my first question of Mr Marcelja, I asked on what authority did Qantas and Virgin inject their pilots with an untested gene therapy based treatment that had not been approved by the TGA and that had not had testing done by the TGA or by the FDA in America. You said you relied upon experts. I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ And when I said, ‘Which experts?’ for the fourth time, I think it was, you said, ‘International experts.’ Dr Manderson, which experts’ advice did CASA rely upon for turning an eye away from the mandated injections of healthy pilots with the COVID injections?  

Mr Marcelja: I’d like to correct the statement you’ve made, because what I recall—and if you tell me the date I’ve the Hansard in front of me—telling you we had no role in intervening in the Australian government’s public health response to COVID. We did not intervene to prevent the vaccination of pilots, just like we do not intervene in the prevention of any other administration of any medicine or any vaccination. So if a pilot was to have an adverse reaction to a vaccination, the aviation safety response to that is that that pilot excludes themselves from flying. So that’s what our procedures are based on. We have no role in intervening in public health responses, mandating or not mandating the administration of vaccinations or any medicine, for that matter.  

Senator ROBERTS: The Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, said every night for about a fortnight, ‘There are no vaccine mandates in this country.’ That was a lie. But what I’m asking you is not whether or not you’re going to interfere in a vaccine mandate. What I’m asking you is: what were your reassurances that these vaccines—these injections—would not be unsafe to pilots? Did you do any high-altitude testing? What are the results of that?  

Ms Spence: Senator—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking Mr Marcelja.  

Ms Spence: Being responsible for the organisation, we treated the COVID vaccinations the same way that we treat all vaccinations. We do not do our own independent testing. What we do ensure is that the system works such that if there was an adverse reaction the pilot would not fly. I’ll be very clear here: as we’ve said at, I think, the last five hearings, there has not been, internationally, any evidence of any pilot being incapacitated as a result of a COVID vaccination while on duty.  

Senator ROBERTS: There are 1,000. I was told by a lawyer working with Southwest Airlines in America that 1,000 pilots have not been able to pass their medical since getting their COVID shots.  

Ms Spence: That’s not what I said.  

Senator ROBERTS: There are lots of them.  

Ms Spence: What I said was that there has not been a single example of a pilot being incapacitated on duty as a result of a COVID vaccination.  

ACTING CHAIR: Senator, do you have more questions? I need to move the call around.  

Senator ROBERTS: I do have some more questions, but if you move it round and come back to me that’s fine. 

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Labour Hire Scams and Union Corruption

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During my questioning of the Fair Work Commission, I highlighted the fact that when Coal LSL included casual coal miners, it opened the door to labour hire scams and in collusion with the corrupt CFMEU, cost individual miners up to $40,000 per year. 

Labor is now attempting to stifle competition to remove miners’ choice regarding union membership as the RED Union gains traction by supporting thousands whose union fees have historically funded the Labor Party. 

I also detailed a series of breaches by the labour hire company and BHP, leading to a compensation claim by Mr. Simon Turner, which the Minister dismissed.

Transcript | Session 1

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr Furlong and your team, for being here again. My first set of questions relates to my recent Senate second reading amendment to a recent Fair Work Act amendment bill. The Senate amendment required the government to conduct an investigation into massive wage theft in the coal mining industry. I’ll read the relevant portions: ‘Clause B—the Senate requires the government to investigate claims that casual miners working under enterprise agreements in the black coal mining industry are and have been underpaid. Clause C—if underpayments are found to have occurred, facilitate the reimbursement of the underpayments’. In regard to this, which is Australia’s largest wage theft case, totalling possibly over $1 billion and involving thefts of up to $40,000 per year per miner for many years and stealing from more than 5,000 miners, we believe, are you aware of the Senate’s second reading amendment requiring the minister to investigate the wage theft?  

Mr Furlong: Senator, I can’t speak to the veracity of the claims that you’ve just made there.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s not my question.  

Mr Furlong: What I can say is that I am broadly aware of what you’re referring to.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Has there been any discussion between the minister and the Fair Work Commission or any Fair Work Commission officials?  

Mr Furlong: No, nor would it be appropriate.  

Senator ROBERTS: Between the department and the Fair Work Commission or any Fair Work Commission officials?  

Mr Furlong: Not that I’m aware of, Senator.  

Senator ROBERTS: Has the department received from the Fair Work Commission or made to the Fair Work Commission any instructions on this matter?  

Mr Furlong: No, nor would it be appropriate for us to instruct the department on anything.  

Senator ROBERTS: Has Minister Burke or the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations discussed with you or Fair Work Commission officials the nature of the investigation the Senate required him to make into the wage theft case involving central Queensland and Hunter Valley miners?  

Mr Furlong: No, Senator.  

Senator ROBERTS: Have any of his staff raised it with you?  

Mr Furlong: I might have to take that on notice. There may have been conversations at the officer level, but I’m certainly not aware of any. I haven’t participated in any.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Do you expect any role in the investigation?  

Mr Furlong: As we’ve traversed at estimates previously, the role of the general manager, my role, is to assist the president in sharing the functions that the Fair Work Commission perform in an efficient way, essentially. Will there be a role—I can’t envision that there would be a role there for the commission, no.  

Senator ROBERTS: Not for anyone from the Fair Work Commission?  

Mr Furlong: Well, it’s hard to talk in the abstract on this. In terms of the context, the letter that I sent to you from 11 January contained a significant amount of information about the operations and the functions of the Fair Work Commission that relate to the making and the approval of the enterprise agreements, including the application of the better off overall test, the approval of agreements, the process and the legislative checklist that we’ve discussed a number of times. The letter was four pages, but there were 28 pages of attachments that I provided to you to hopefully assist with your understanding of the legislative regime and the role of the Fair Work Commission in relation to this issue.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister, yesterday evening you seemed uninterested in the investigation of workers’ wage theft—the biggest in Australia.  

Senator Watt: That is a completely unfair characterisation of what I said. I’ve actually got—part of my career has been spent assisting workers to recoup underpayments. I invite you to have a look at my record on those issues. What I was pointing out was that you have raised pretty much the same issues over and over again at estimates hearings over a number of years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, and we’ll see why. It’s sad that you have not understood why I’ve continued to raise that. Obviously, my communication needs to improve with you, Minister Watt. Here’s a second chance. What would you expect for a fair and independent investigation? What would the process look like?  

Senator Watt: You asked me the same question yesterday, and I said a fair and independent investigation is obviously one that is fair and independent. I’m not trying to be a smart alec in saying that, but we respect the independence of the Fair Work Commission. We’re trying to redress the imbalance in the Fair Work Commission that existed under the former government when they only appointed employer representatives. We’re trying to make it a more even-handed organisation that does have both employer and employee representatives on it. It’s established as an independent organisation and it should be able to operate independently.  

Senator ROBERTS: Having said that the Fair Work Commission should operate independently and given Mr Furlong’s responses, what would you think a fair and independent investigation would look like?  

Senator Watt: I can’t add anything to what I said today and yesterday.  

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Furlong, are you aware that the CFMEU, or MEU or whatever it’s called today, has applied, apparently, under the Fair Work Act same job, same pay provisions for a new enterprise agreement covering a few hundred miners at just two mines?  

Mr Furlong: Yes, I’m aware.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. CFMEU/MEU notices in central Queensland and Hunter Valley mines have even used my figures for the amount of underpay per miner per year—up to $40,000. This vindicates my work over the last five years—work that the CFMEU/MEU had, in fact, denied and continues to deny, doesn’t it? Their notices are saying that miners are being short-changed $40,000. They’re making that submission.  

Senator Watt: I’m happy to—  

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to Mr Furlong initially.  

Mr Furlong: My initial response to that is that it’s challenging for me to conflate different circumstances in very different cases.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, perhaps you could answer that.  

Senator Watt: What I was going to say is that the Mining and Energy Union has a long and proud history of fighting for mining workers’ underpayments. They were absolutely pivotal to the changes to the law that this government made that you voted against that were about closing loopholes in the labour hire sector which were particularly being abused against mining workers. That has resulted already in at least one case that I’m aware of where those workers have now had their pay rates raised by tens of thousands of dollars. So, yes, the Mining and Energy Union does have a long history of raising these issues. I’ve campaigned with them on it myself, and I think other Labor senators have as well. We’ve now changed the law, and that’s addressing the issue.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. I remind you that I used to be a coalface miner for several years in the Hunter Valley, central Queensland and North Queensland. I also was a very proud member the Miners Federation, because it looked after mine workers extremely well. Minister, do you know that the CFMEU, now the MEU, in its application for improving two enterprise agreements, does not seek back pay? Can you explain why they don’t seek back pay?  

Senator Watt: I’m not a representative of that union, so I can’t explain why they included some things and not others in their claim. You’d have to ask the union.  

Senator ROBERTS: Would it be possible that the CFMEU/MEU is aware of its support for the previous wage theft and that’s why it’s afraid to raise back pay?  

Senator Watt: Well, I’ve already—we had a bit of a chat yesterday about conspiracy theories, Senator ROBERTS. Again, I can’t tell you why a union makes a particular claim and not others. What I do know is that the application that the MEU made involving the Mount Pleasant mine in the Hunter Valley through the Fair Work Commission has resulted in significant wage rises for those workers.  

Senator ROBERTS: But they’re not seeking back pay. Minister, your use of labels is a refuge that’s commonly used by the ignorant, the dishonest, the incompetent or the fearful. When you use a label, it shows everyone that you haven’t got the data or the logic or the argument to refute me. So thank you very much for using a label. I’m very happy for you to use a label.  

Senator Watt: You’re entitled to have full confidence in your argument, Senator ROBERTS.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister and Mr Furlong, are you aware that the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia has lodged three claims for back pay with the Fair Work Ombudsman?  

Mr Furlong: I’m not aware of that, but you have—  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister?  

Senator Watt: Fair Work Ombudsman or commission?  

Senator ROBERTS: Fair Work Ombudsman.  

Senator Watt: I’m not aware of that, but they’re entitled to do whatever they want.  

Senator ROBERTS: Many miners have joined with the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia in the process of lodging claims with the Fair Work Ombudsman. Are you aware that’s happening?  

Senator Watt: No, but people have got a right to join whatever organisation they want. I might just clarify. My understanding actually is that the Mount Pleasant case in the Hunter Valley is ongoing, but agreements have been reached between mining contractors and workers to lift pay on the basis of the laws that were introduced.  

Senator ROBERTS: It’s only taken me five years. That’s great to see.  

Senator Watt: Well, if you want to take credit for a Labor government law that you voted against, you’re welcome to do so.  

Senator ROBERTS: You were so embarrassed, Minister—  

Senator Watt: But the record shows that you voted against those laws.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, speaking of conflicts, are you unavoidably conflicted on this matter because of the many millions of dollars from the CFMEU paid to your Labor party?  

Senator Watt: No.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, does the $48 million from Abelshore, a 100 per cent owned Glencore subsidiary that went from—does the $48 million from Abelshore to the CFMEU in two recent years further conflict you and your party?  

Senator Watt: No. I told you I wasn’t even aware of that yesterday.  

Senator ROBERTS: Does it still conflict you, even though you’re not personally aware of it?  

Senator Watt: I have no idea what you’re talking about—it’s a bit hard to be conflicted when it’s something that you don’t even know about.  

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s continue then. On whom can workers rely, Minister?  

Senator Watt: A Labor government which has fixed the laws and delivered secure jobs and better pay.  

Senator ROBERTS: Well, they can’t rely on large, entrenched unions in monopoly positions, meaning their union bosses have no accountability to members. We’ve seen the CFMEU, MEU, SDA in recent years, HSU and Craig Thomson—they did deals stealing workers’ wages and cutting workers’ wages. This is the unions themselves—the powerful unions.  

Senator Watt: I think it’s well understood that you’re not a big fan of unions and that you’ve voted against every piece of legislation we’ve ever tried to introduce to lift workers’ wages and provide unions with the ability to negotiate on behalf of their members. It’s okay in a democracy to be anti-union. You’re antiunion. I’m not. The Labor government supports the role of unions in negotiating workers’ pay, but you don’t have to agree with us.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, it’s poor form to mischaracterise someone and misrepresent someone. I have strongly supported unions—  

Senator Watt: You just rattled off—  

Senator ROBERTS: or honest unions, because I think it’s the worker’s right to be involved—  

Senator Watt: Well, everyone can have a look at your voting record, Senator ROBERTS, and see how supportive you’ve been of the unions.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll proceed with that. Can workers rely upon employers such as some of the labour hire firms?  

Senator Watt: I don’t think you can generalise, but I think there have been many examples where labour hire firms have exploited their workforce and have been assisted in that by host employers. That’s why we changed the laws to overcome the loophole that labour hire firms and host employers were using to cut people’s pay. Again, Senator ROBERTS, you voted against us.  

Senator ROBERTS: And we’ve discussed why. Can they rely upon Chandler Macleod, which is a subsidiary of Recruit Holdings and has contracts for supplying casual workers to your government?  

Senator Watt: I’m not going to comment on individual companies, Senator ROBERTS. I don’t know enough about the individual company’s record to comment on them.  

Senator ROBERTS: Can workers rely upon the Fair Work Commission that approved the illegal enterprise agreements?  

Senator Watt: I think workers can rely on the Fair Work Commission to be an independent organisation, now that we are restoring some balance to it, and that it will operate within the law.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

Transcript | Session 2

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, I’ve been going through the list of entities or groups of entities that workers can possibly turn to. So far we haven’t found one that they can turn to. What about government? Can workers rely on government?  

Senator Watt: Is that a general proposition?  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m looking for people who can support workers.  

Senator Watt: Senator ROBERTS, you’d have a lot more credibility on this if you had ever voted with the government for any of the changes we’ve made to protect workers. We passed some legislation recently. It was in the name of the bill: it was called the secure jobs, better pay bill. Have a guess what it was about: secure jobs and better pay. Have a guess how you voted: you voted no. We give you opportunities to vote for workers. We are protecting workers and you keep voting against it. You keep voting with the coalition.  

Senator ROBERTS: Did you know, Minister, that miners tell me that, in their research on the Hunter Valley and central Queensland wage theft, that, when Mr Bill Shorten was workplace relations minister in Julia Gillard’s government, he made the key step that unlocked and enabled the abuse of casual workers? Did you know that?  

Senator Watt: I did not know that some mining workers somewhere said that about Bill Shorten when he was a minister more than 10 years ago. No, I did not know that.  

Senator ROBERTS: Despite the Black Coal Mining Industry Award not allowing casual coal mine workers on production, Mr Shorten apparently changed the coal long service leave regulations to allow casual coal miners to receive long service leave accruals. Were you aware of that?  

Senator Watt: No, I wasn’t in the parliament.  

Senator ROBERTS: That opened the door for the CFMEU and labour hire companies to fabricate the permanent casual rort. That’s why, five years ago, I started holding Coal LSL, the Fair Work Commission and Fair Work Ombudsman accountable. Do you understand now why I started with the Coal LSL agency?  

Senator Watt: I’m sure there would be different views on that. That’s obviously your view. It’s a view you’ve pursued relentlessly in estimates committees over many years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for the compliment.  

Senator Watt: The government has done a lot of work in the meantime to assist coal mining workers, all of which you voted against, unfortunately.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, as a result of my work, mine workers watched as the LNP, in my opinion, avoided the core of the issue, but it did do a review of the coal long service leave provisions that may one day lead to improved governance within the Coal LSL. Are you aware of what the LNP did there?  

Senator Watt: No.  

Senator ROBERTS: Mine workers continued watching in recent years as your government—in the last two years—under Minister Burke, did its best to cover up the permanent casual rort with amendments to the Fair Work Act. Some workers think that was done to protect the CFMEU and its role in the permanent casual rort. Your government has done its best to hide this issue despite support I’ve received from senators, such as Senator Sheldon and Senator Sterle. Why should workers rely on governments—on Labor governments in particular?  

Senator Watt: Because we pass legislation called things like secure jobs and better pay that result in—  

Senator ROBERTS: Called things like?  

Senator Watt: Secure jobs and better pay.  

Senator ROBERTS: What about state governments?  

Senator Watt: We’re not going to get into state governments in a federal estimates hearing, are we— seriously.  

Senator ROBERTS: The Palaszczuk Miles state government—this is very important for accountability of unions, Minister, because I’m a very strong supporter of accountable unions. Indeed, the Palaszczuk Miles government is banning competitors to the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union, such as the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland. It’s banning competitors such as the Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland which competes with the Queensland Teachers’ Union. They’re banning or trying to ban the Red Union, apparently, in attempts to protect the Queensland nurses union and Queensland Teachers’ Union donations to the Labor Party. Are you aware that’s what’s going on in Queensland? We have legitimate unions being banned by a state Labor government.  

Senator Watt: I’m aware of the issue in broad terms, but you’ve got a—the last I heard was that you had a One Nation member of the state parliament. It sounds like a very good issue for him to raise in State estimates, and we can deal with federal estimates and federal issues here.  

Senator ROBERTS: We are dealing with this issue. The Red Unions and the new Independent Workers Union of Australia charge around half. In fact, for the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia that’s vying for members with the Mining and Energy Union in the Hunter and central Queensland, 43 per cent of the Labor affiliated union fees—because these unions—the Red Union and the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia— refuse to hand members’ money to political parties. Are you aware of that, Minister? Their fees are less than half.  

Senator Watt: I’m certainly aware that there are a number of LNP-backed groups that masquerade as unions and that have been created with a view to undermining the legitimate unions that have been fighting for workers in Queensland for a long time. I know there’s a very strong link between—  

Senator ROBERTS: Where were they when the mandates came in and teachers and nurses lost their jobs?  

Senator Watt: If we’re going to get into COVID mandates, there’s a whole other committee that you’ve been dealing with that issue in for years.  

Senator ROBERTS: And we’ll continue to. Despite the Queensland legislation, are you aware that the Red Unions continue to grow rapidly among nursing and teaching professionals, with a membership now of over 20,000 strong, expanding into New Zealand and into small business, and now it’s expanding into coal mining? Are you aware of that?  

Senator Watt: No.  

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s turn to another group that’s supposed to—the Enlighten group—and some of its members may be enlightened—that’s supposed to protect workers. That’s the business owner. Mr Simon Turner, who’s a mine worker, has informed me of the following. The company that owned and operated the mine he was employed at directed him to not report a serious safety incident in which he was critically injured. That’s a statutory breach. They failed to report the accident. That’s a statutory breach. They made him come to work while injured. They sacked him while injured. They falsely changed his onsite digital record. They failed to provide correct workers compensation—a statutory breach of state law. They failed to take the correct coal miners insurance policy—a statutory breach. They failed to provide accident pay—a statutory breach. And so on it goes. They failed to comply with the New South Wales mines health and safety act and New South Wales health and safety act. That company is BHP—the world’s largest mining company. Workers cannot rely on globalist corporations, Minister, especially corporations from globalist labour hire companies that do deals with the CFMEU and the Mining and Energy Union. Where can workers turn?  

Senator Watt: I think we’ve all known for a number of years now, Senator ROBERTS, that you’ve got a close relationship with Mr Turner. He’s obviously taken his complaint to you. He’s obviously very unhappy with the union that he is or was a member of. I don’t know the circumstances of that. It’s pretty pointless for me to speculate.  

Senator ROBERTS: That leaves one avenue left to protect workers: comprehensive industrial relations reform to simplify industrial relations law so that workers and small businesses can see their entitlements, protections, rights and responsibilities—not buried in 1,800 pages of complex law. Why won’t Labor give workers choice?  

Senator Watt: About what?  

Senator ROBERTS: You’re protecting entrenched unions that are abusing the industrial relations system because they’re members of the IR club. You’re protecting corporate employers. You’re protecting labour hire companies. Why won’t you give workers the choice to become members of the union that they choose?  

Senator Watt: I don’t agree with any of the propositions you just put.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you 

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Rampant NDIS Fraud Leaves Vulnerable Recipients in Need

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My questions to the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commissioner was primarily about the quality and safety issues that render the system inefficient and hazardous. 

It became evident that fraud was rampant, leading to significant financial waste and leaving many recipients’ needs unmet. 

While some recipients received excessively extravagant packages with overvalued components, such as massages, fishing trips and cruises, others remained in dire need of basic assistance for eating, washing, toileting and dressing. 

Initially, the system functioned fairly well, but it has now expanded excessively, resulting in waste, unmet needs, and dangerous conditions for vulnerable recipients.

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Government Guaranteed Mortgages Not Under Stress!

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Since 2020, the government has guaranteed mortgages with only a 5% deposit. 

Given 150,000 Australians were unable to afford a 20% deposit, I was concerned many of them may have been hit especially hard by the RBA’s interest rate rises.  Based on the figures provided here, it looks like most of these households are coping well so far. 

The full data put on notice should clarify this further, but if what I’ve been told here is true, it’s good news for those homeowners.

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Public Hearing into Excess Mortality

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The public hearing on Excess Mortality was profoundly poignant and unsettling in equal measure.

It has sparked further concerns and raised questions that require answering about excess deaths since the rollout of the COVID vaccination and why there is such a concerted effort to deflect closer scrutiny.

COVERSE and the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS)

It was good to speak with a group of professionals that are prepared to dig into COVID ‘vaccine’ mortality. My questions were about suppressed or disguised data. It’s been well established that the modelling during COVID was not done well – potentially to support the government program regardless what the data was actually showing. 

There are numerous methods through which excess mortality can be hidden. We simply cannot trust the government data when it stands in such stark contrast to the widespread experiences of everyday Australians.

A study of excess mortality in Queensland in 2021 offered warning signals. There was a huge spike in deaths immediately after the COVID injection rollout began, even before the virus itself arrived in Queensland. Similar patterns was seen in Western Australia and other parts of Australia. This spike then came back to near normal levels once the “vaccine” rollout slowed down. 

It is not acceptable that instead of seeking to understand the reasons behind these findings, our health authorities are attempting to discredit this data.

Australian Health Department

I asked the Department of Health to explain peaks of excess mortality in 2022.

Significant peaks observed were higher than expected, with the explanation being that it can be contributed to COVID itself, although there was still a peak outside the average.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed it’s possible to match COVID jabs with mortality, however Australia’s Health Department appear to be quite reluctant to do this.   They commissioned a report from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance to conduct an analysis comparing ‘similar populations with each other’ to give a “better sense of mortality”. Predictably, the outcome of this “critical research” is that COVID vaccines provided significant protection against mortality from COVID and extended this to all-cause mortality.

National Rural Health Alliance

The points raised by Susanne Tegen, Chief Executive of the National Rural Health Alliance, went to the heart of the struggles faced by rural and remote communities during the federal and state governments’ COVID response.

National Rural Health Alliance commented on limitations in mortality data. It strongly advocates for the creation of datasets demonstrating excess mortality in relation to remoteness.

The Alliance wrote in their submission that the absence of geographical data makes it impossible to fully understand the impacts of excess mortality on rural and remote consumers, and that “Tailored datasets and rural specific models of care are imperative to addressing ongoing healthcare inequities.”

Research should be prioritised to examine how pandemics and other disasters impact health systems in rural Australia.

Transcripts

COVERSE and the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society

Senator ROBERTS: Mrs Potter, I feel very ashamed of our country. As a result of lies, you’ve had your life altered completely and what we’ve given you instead of care is gaslighting. Thank you so much for your courage in being here. I also want to put on the record my appreciation to Senator Rennick for his previous two questions that Dr Neil answered and answered so capably. They were fine questions and excellent responses. Mr Faletic, you came before us at the terms of reference inquiry. I want to thank everyone for being here in person. Thank you for your commitment. You said in your opening statement, Mr Faletic, ‘newly disabled and chronically injured’, and there are thousands of them. You also mentioned in the terms of reference inquiry that doctors were coerced, so I don’t need to put questions to you. I would love to, but I’ve got some other questions. Dr Kunadhasan, you mentioned ‘peer reviewed paper unaffiliated by trial sponsors Pfizer’. Could we get that paper on notice, please?

Dr Kunadhasan: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: You also told us that more than 50 per cent of Australians took Pfizer. I’d like to learn more separately on notice. I’ll think of some questions for you with regard to your correspondence with Dr Lawler, because I read it in your submission and I’m stunned. I want to also acknowledge the courage of your stance. Dr Neil, on pharmacovigilance, if I could have a one-word answer at the moment because I want to get on to Dr Madry. Pharmacovigilance is not independent, is it, in this country?

Dr Neil: A one-word answer? I don’t believe it is sufficiently independent and the access is very difficult for the average doctor.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you send us the peer reviewed paper that you’ve published on notice, please?

Dr Neil: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Dr Madry, can you comment on the use of models used for predicting excess mortality, please?

Dr Madry: I want to thank Mrs Potter. You moved me. That’s part of the reason we do some of this work. There’s been an epidemic of bad modelling during this pandemic. Stanford Professor John Ioannidis published a paper about how bad the modelling was. When we do modelling we need to apply a range of models to look at best case and worst case scenarios. Models rely on assumptions. Those assumptions can be wrong. I know time is short, but a quick comment on the models that the government is relying on at the moment for predicting the numbers of excess. That model changed last year and predicted lower numbers. There are a number of fundamental issues with that model. It uses a time series modelling that one wouldn’t use in a modern analysis, fitting a sine wave, which doesn’t actually fit the sort of seasonal trends. A strange thing happened. The standard years were 2015 to 2019, and then there was a decision to reach back to 2013 and it turned out 2013 is a low year for mortality; 2019 is a high year. So, if you wanted to tip up the baseline and make the excess less, that’s what one would do. In our submission, we’ve provided a range for what it should be. The estimates at the moment are very much at the low end of the estimates. We need to look at the low end, the high end, and the real result should be somewhere in between. There’s another issue about subtracting all COVID deaths from and with. We know the convention shouldn’t be to count the deaths that are with someone who dies from cancer, for example, who tests positive with a PCR test. They shouldn’t be subtracted. We know influenza was down during those years. So, should we be subtracting all of those deaths? Because clearly some of the COVID deaths were deaths of frail elderly people who, sadly, would have died anyway. So, if we’re trying to come to what’s the clear non-COVID excess there are more professional ways to look at that. Modelling has been done poorly. That’s well established. I think independent groups like ours that can talk to what’s really happening have a better understanding and can try to fit ranges to those models. Especially when it’s a high-risk situation where people are dying and getting injured, we need to understand the best case and worst case scenarios.

Senator ROBERTS: What other data is needed to clarify what could be causing the non-COVID excess mortality?

Dr Madry: If you wanted to rule out COVID vaccinations as a possible cause of this excess, with these datasets that Senator Pratt was talking about where there’s a linkage between immunisation registers and mortality registers we understand that a linking of tables has been done by the Institute of Health and Welfare and the ABS. Basically the data that’s needed is the date of last vaccination and date of death on an individual record basis. We can go through that and find out if there trends that shouldn’t be there. They should be independent, but there could be trends. If we can get access to that, we can provide some insight.

Senator ROBERTS: Do you intend to apply for access to that data?

Dr Madry: Yes. Since we’ve heard more about this we do intend to apply for it.

Senator ROBERTS: You said you did an analysis of mortality in Queensland. What did you find?

Dr Madry: Queensland kept out COVID until right up to the end of 2021. So, with Queensland we had a 10- month window where we could look at mortality without the effects of COVID. Any deaths from COVID in Queensland were from cruise ships or out of the state. We purchased data from the ABS with narrow age ranges. What became clear was that in the older ranges, which is where we saw in the database of adverse event notifications a lot of the deaths occurring—ages above 60—we saw the trend of mortality start going up in the second quarter of 2021. That went up right until the end of the year. That was clearly a warning signal.

Senator CANAVAN: Have you looked at Western Australia, which had a similar experience? When I look at the ABS data, again, the deaths seem to start ticking up in late 2021, even before the WA border was open.

Dr Madry: Western Australia has a few more months, because they opened up in March, I understand. We’d have a full one-year window with Western Australia. The reason I picked Queensland was partly financial, because you have the largest state with the longest time. South Australia and Western Australia would be other ones that would be worth looking at.

Senator ROBERTS: Dr Neil, there are many ways excess mortality can be hidden. Classification of causes of death—can you answer yes or no to each one as to whether or not it’s possible to hide a death?

Dr Neil: Excess mortality typically just considers all-cause mortality. Then there’s a secondary sort of inquiry as to what the subcauses might be.

Senator ROBERTS: So with doctors placed under coercion, we could hide a death due to a COVID injection by classifying it as ‘not due to an injection’?

Dr Neil: There are two avenues to highlight a death as a doctor where as a doctor you might have the opinion that it’s a vaccine death. One would be by registering the death on the pharmacovigilance database, and 75 per cent of the deaths were registered by doctors. The other would be to write a death certificate—I believe that’s rarely done—in a way which would note a vaccine injury as a cause of death, but it is possible.

Senator ROBERTS: They can be statistically hidden or misclassified, correct.

Dr Madry: Correct. Misclassification is one of the biggest problems we have as analysts.

Senator ROBERTS: A barrister I talked to said you can hide evidence, and the best place to hide it is in plain sight.

Dr Madry: That’s a very wise statement.

Senator ROBERTS: Are these things being done?

Dr Madry: Is it being hidden? There are certainly strange things happening where the ICD cases with categorisation going into vague categorisations; it might have been very specific cardiac, respiratory. There are strange things going on. We can detect those things happening. As you said, from a forensic point of view, being able to see those sorts of things is insightful in itself. Even though it may make it harder to find the actual result we’re looking for, that’s important.

Senator ROBERTS: So, keeping on theme of hiding data, we can also have alternative narratives, such as long COVID instead of vaccine injuries? We can also have the use of labels to denigrate people, shut them up, condition an audience that it could be something else, propaganda to dissuade people’s perceptions? Do any of these things tie in with you?

Dr Neil: As a society, we’ve been concerned about the culture in medicine that tends towards censoring doctors from speaking about some of the key issues of pandemic management, including the vaccine. We believe that’s real, we believe we can document it, and it could well have had an effect on the information that’s able to come to light.

Australian Health Department

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. On that last question that Senator Rennick asked, Dr Gould, are you familiar with the Australian Bureau of Statistics submission?

Dr Gould: Yes. If you just give me a moment, I will fumble on my iPad to have that. What page, Senator?

Senator ROBERTS: It is on page 7 of their 14-page submission—top of the page, graph 1. Have you done any work on trying to understand and explain the first peak in March 2021 and the next peak in August 2022? Can you tell me the causes of those peaks? Take it on notice if you want.

Dr Gould: I’m not actually seeing a peak in March 2021.

Senator ROBERTS: You are not seeing the actual deaths?

Dr Gould: Yes, I’m looking at the same graph as you, I believe, with expected, actual and—

Senator ROBERTS: There is a peak well outside the upper range.

Dr Gould: Oh, yes, there is a small period—

Senator ROBERTS: It’s quite marked.

Dr Gould: The graph that you see, the expected mortality, is a modelled number. We have talked about this before. And, as with any modelled number, it has strengths and weaknesses, so that is acknowledged. There are a number of different ways—

Senator ROBERTS: This is a startling peak.

Dr Gould: Yes, so—

Senator ROBERTS: Is that all due to the model?

Dr Gould: The peak you are referring to is a peak because it goes above the confidence intervals of the model, so it is a function of the model and it is also a function of mortality.

Senator ROBERTS: It is way, way, way above.

Dr Gould: I’m concerned that we are looking at different graphs. I’m not seeing a large peak in 2021—

Senator ROBERTS: Graph No. 1. End of February, early March 20—sorry, 2022.

Dr Gould: Oh, 2022.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m sorry, you’re right. What is the explanation for the big peak there?

Dr Gould: You see a very significant peak with the actual number, so that is the dark red number, and that represents total mortality over that period. And it is higher than expected. Importantly, this graph also shows what it looks like without COVID, so that is the—dare I say, salmon coloured or pink coloured line—which is a much less dramatic peak, so that indicates how much COVID itself contributed to that large peak. That said, I would acknowledge that, without COVID, the light pink line is still outside of normal expectations. So that would be considered a period of excess mortality.

Senator ROBERTS: Have you done any work on explaining why that is the case? It is above the mean of the range and it’s above the upper limit.

Dr Gould: Again, the ABS reports look at different causes of death, and complementary analysis of the Actuaries Institute also looks at potential causes there. That includes ischaemic heart disease.

Senator ROBERTS: So we go to the ABS?

Dr Gould: The ABS is—

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, thank you. I want to follow up on a question from Senator Rennick that I did not hear that you answered, and that turned on something I asked earlier in the second session. The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed in estimates last week that it is possible to match ABS deaths data against COVID status to see what the respective death rates for vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians are. Have you done that analysis? I did not hear you respond to Senator Rennick.

Dr Gould: Again, it is the same concept where I was talking about the time series analysis. We need to be really careful about producing—

Senator ROBERTS: Have you done it?

Dr Gould: I will get to that. Producing raw mortality counts by vaccination status is of very limited value. Obviously, the counts we would expect to be higher for vaccinated Australians because the vast majority of Australians were vaccinated. So we needed an appropriate denominator. So that work needs to be done. We also need to—

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, Dr Gould, you can still have comparison of people who have had one vaccine, two vaccines, three shots, four shots et cetera.

Dr Gould: Yes, and what I wanted to get to: you could do that with raw mortality rates, but, as we have discussed, age is a really important factor for mortality, so age standardisation is really important there. But there are other forms of work there that we need to do to ensure that we are comparing like populations with each other—so, effectively we are comparing statistical apples with each other. And that was the whole purpose of the research that we commissioned by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance—that they could do that challenging but really critical work so that they could give a better sense of the mortality outcomes for people—

Senator ROBERTS: What is the answer?

Dr Gould: The answer is that it is very clear that COVID vaccines provided significant protection against mortality from COVID. They also extended that research to all-cause mortality. As we have said, COVID was the last—

Senator ROBERTS: Could we get a copy of the report please?

Dr Gould: Absolutely. It is publicly available, and we would be happy to send you a link for that.

Senator ROBERTS: Where abouts?

Dr Gould: I can’t quote the exact web address, but it is—

Senator ROBERTS: When did you ask them to do that report?

Dr Gould: I believe the date is current to 2022. We could take on notice when we started conversations about the report.

Senator ROBERTS: If you could please. What is the death rate comparison amongst vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians? I know you said there are many qualifications but, filtering through the qualifications, what is the death rate?

Dr Gould: It is lower for vaccinated Australians as per that research.

Senator ROBERTS: Could we have those numbers please?

Dr Gould: The way that they describe it is actually in terms of the protection against death from the—

Senator ROBERTS: Not the death rates?

CHAIR: Just one moment please, Dr Gould. Senator Roberts, just the last five minutes you have been interrupting quite regularly while they are answering—

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.

CHAIR: Could you maybe wait until they finish and then ask your next question.

Dr Gould: I think that research should answer a lot of your questions.

Senator ROBERTS: Has anyone ordered you not to analyse deaths, or excess mortality, or to do so in a certain way to hide anything?

Dr Gould: Absolutely not.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you, Chair.

National Rural Health Alliance

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here, Ms Tegen. Your submission’s third paragraph includes this statement: The absence of geographical data makes it impossible to fully understand the impacts of excess mortality on rural and remote consumers. NRHA strongly advocates for the creation of datasets demonstrating excess mortality in relation to remoteness. We need to ensure that the committee notes this, Ms Tegen. Is this something that must be in this inquiry’s report?

Ms Tegen: Absolutely.

Senator ROBERTS: What about preparedness? You should have been aware that there was a preparedness plan for rural areas for a flu epidemic. Were people in rural areas aware of such a plan, and was it followed?

Ms Tegen: I am not sure whether they were all included in such a plan. If there is a federal plan, it needs to be taken to those rural communities. A classic example, again, is through the PRIM-HS model where, at a local level, they start looking at, ‘How do we manage a risk like this if it comes to our region?’ It’s no different from a fire plan or a flood plan that rural communities have. It’s really interesting. Why is it that the Defence Force and police forces are all funded to do this, to support their workforce to do this well? We need to do it in health. It needs to be done under a national health strategy, and there needs to be a compact between federal, state and local government, with the community.

Senator ROBERTS: I must commend the witness, Chair, for providing clear, concise and very strong advocacy. It’s refreshing. What discussions, meetings and planning occurred in the early stages of responding to COVID to guide your response in rural areas to COVID, once we were told there was supposedly a major virus on the loose?

Ms Tegen: The National Rural Health Alliance started a series of teleconferences and updates with not only its members but also its Friends of the Alliance, which are the grassroots people. In addition to that, we held meetings with the government to provide real-time feedback to those communities, and the clinicians. Again, clinicians on the ground were really stretched in rural areas because they already had workforce shortages. It needs to be revisited, taking into account the learnings of the populations and the response on the ground.

Senator ROBERTS: Your submission raises the topic of a shortage of health professionals in rural areas. You have said it repeatedly today. How did the shortage of health professionals in the bush make the impact of COVID worse, and what can be done about it?

Ms Tegen: It burned out a lot of the workforce. It made people feel that they weren’t supported, because as soon as we felt that COVID was finished and it was ‘business as usual’, they are still trying to recover from what happened over the last four or five years. They still feel that they are not supported. We are now focusing on the future workforce, yet we are not able to support or provide more bolstering for the current workforce. The communities are back to normal in terms of living their life. They’re working in an environment where there is a higher inflation rate.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s tough.

Ms Tegen: It’s tough. These communities are the most underfunded. If you’re looking at agriculture and primary industries, they are the only communities around the world that are not subsidised. Here we are, expecting them to deal with health issues, with global markets and with weather patterns. We don’t expect that from the city. Why do we expect it from the country? It is because it’s out of sight, out of mind.

Senator ROBERTS: One of the things I’m picking up, between the lines, is that you don’t see the imposing of systems and processes from the city on rural as being effective. You are calling for a national rural health strategy. You’ve also made the point that people need to be accountable for their own individual health.

Ms Tegen: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t that something that could be said about the whole country’s health?

Ms Tegen: Absolutely. By increasing the amount of data that is available, by increasing an understanding of health care, not only the healthcare system but also your own health, you are more likely to be able to deal with your own health issues because you have an increased health literacy level. I will make a comment about the death recently of a person that was raising the awareness in the population. That was Michael Mosley. Australians loved watching him. He increased their understanding of health care. Norman Swan is increasing the understanding of health care. His Coronacast was listened to by millions of people around Australia. Rural Australia still has a very high readership of and listening to the ABC, and those initiatives were really important to rural people. We need to make sure that they are not forgotten, and that we have a social contract to do something about this, rather than having reforms and inquiries, and nothing happening with them.

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