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Labor Rejects Call for Royal Commission into COVID-19 Response

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Last year I was successful in having the Senate inquire into the prospective terms of reference for a Royal Commission into the government response to COVID-19. The Inquiry was held in good faith by Senator Scarr and I thank everyone concerned for their work, which produced a 128 page report full of honesty, decency and common sense. After hearing and reading testimony from multiple highly qualified witnesses, every one of whom called for a Royal Commission.

The Committee recommended a Royal Commission be held and included a comprehensive Terms of Reference that would have uncovered the truth. Last week, the Government provided a response to the Inquiry Report, which stated that the Government does not support a Royal Commission, does not support working with the States to review COVID, does not support the proposed terms of reference and does not support you, the public, having further involvement in the inquiry process.

This is the same Labor Party that took one million dollars from the pharmaceutical industry in 2022/23, including large donations from Pfizer and Astra Zeneca.

Do we have the best government money can buy? You decide.

Transcript

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the document. 

I wish to comment on Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee report COVID-19 Royal Commission. Last year, I was successful in having the Senate inquire into the prospective terms of reference for a royal commission into the government response to COVID-19. The inquiry was held, and I thank Senator Paul Scarr for his even-handed treatment of the process and for producing with the secretariat at an excellent report—outstanding! After hearing and reading testimony from multiple highly qualified witnesses, every one of whom called for a royal commission, the committee did, in fact, recommend a royal commission be held. Their report was 128 pages of honesty, decency and common sense. 

Last week, the government provided its response to the report—one-and-a-bit pages. Here’s what it says: ‘The government does not support a royal commission. The government does not support working with the state governments on an inquiry. The government does not support the proposed terms of reference. The government does not support any further public involvement in the inquiry process.’ How can we have an investigation when the government says it does not support working with the state governments, yet it’s got an inquiry underway right now that is not considering the state governments. Instead, the Albanese Labor government will continue with their cover-up inquiry, comprised of two bureaucrats and a university academic closely involved in the COVID response. Shame! The government is letting bureaucrats and academics investigate themselves. What a disgrace! It is betrayal. It’s inhuman.  

During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister promised a royal commission or similar inquiry. A Senate select committee inquiry would fit that description. Then Senator Gallagher promised us a royal commission. No wonder the public distrust politicians, when two promises that were as clear as day were broken the minute the Labor Party came to power. It does raise this question, though: what was the motivation for the government to proceed with a cover-up instead of its promised judicial inquiry? Could it be the donations the Labor Party received from the pharmaceutical industry in the last election?  

Here’s the list from the Australian Electoral Commission of donations made to the Australian Labor Party in 2022-23: AbbVie, the makers of leuprorelin, a puberty blocker, $14,000; Alexion Pharmaceuticals, $33,000; Amgen biopharmaceuticals, $27,500; Aspen Medical, $83,000; AstraZeneca, $33,000, and isn’t there a huge conflict of interest in refusing to investigate them; Bayer, $33,000; Bristol-Myers, $52,000; HA Tech pharmaceuticals, $54,000; and Johnson Johnson pharmaceuticals, $36,000. Kerching, kerching, kerching! The cash register at the Labor Party is ticking over. Here are more donations: Merck Sharpe Dohme, $66,000; Navitas, $33,000; Pfizer, $25,000—another cash register kerchinging. There was Roche, $66,000; Sanofi-Aventis, $42,000; Pharmacy Guild of Australia, who enjoyed years of profit dispensing high-paying COVID injections, $154,000; and Medicines Australia, the peak lobbying body for the pharmaceutical industry, which just gave the former head of the TGA, Professor Skerritt, a job as a director, donated $112,000 to the Labor Party campaign funds—kerching! Including smaller donations, the Labor Party raked in almost a million dollars from pharmaceutical companies and associated favours bought. It’s not just big pharma, either. Remember when you couldn’t get COVID at Bunnings, yet you could get it at your neighbourhood hardware store? Governments forced many hardware stores to stop business during lockdowns, and they went broke while Bunnings grew its market share. Then they set up vaccination stations in their car parks. I know many people thought that was odd, so let’s look at this list of donations. The owners of Bunnings, Wesfarmers, donated $110,000. For completeness, let me list One Nation’s pharma donations in 2022-23: none! There was not one donation from the pharmaceutical industry, the banking industry, the healthcare industry or the net-zero industry. Why? It’s because One Nation is not for sale. 

I will now review what the government is covering up with their refusal to hold a COVID royal commission. This is based on expert witness testimony to the committee inquiry and on peer-reviewed papers and data analysis which have come out since the inquiry. Firstly, testimony before America’s congress proves SARS-CoV-2 was the product of gain-of-function research, with funding from Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health, managed through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance. The research started in the USA, and when President Obama banned gain-of-function research, it was moved to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. But the research continued secretly and illegally in North Carolina. We know that. In 2021, Australia’s CSIRO confirmed it assisted in the Wuhan research. We’re complicit. 

Secondly, the official timeline for COVID is wrong. The University of Siena in Italy sequenced COVID on 10 October 2019. Unconfirmed reports persist of three lab technicians from Wuhan lab presenting with flu-like symptoms to a hospital in Wuhan in mid-September 2019. Those three were COVID patients ‘zero’. Wuhan has 90 direct overseas flights a day, including five a day into Italy and five a day into Australia, where symptomatic infections started showing up around the end of December 2019. This means that, in October 2019, when the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored the COVID-themed Event 201 war game that the World Economic Forum organised, COVID was alive in public. Note that the Nobel Prize winning virologist Luc Montagnier sequenced COVID in April 2020 and found: ‘It is not natural. It’s the work of professionals and of molecular biologists—a very meticulous work.’ Luc declared the virus was a combination of the original man-made SARS virus, parts of the HIV virus and a bat virus which was there to fool the body’s immune system into thinking it had never seen the virus before and as a result had no immune response to it. 

The fact the virus escaped before it could be perfected has saved billions of lives. What they tried to do was evil personified. Here is an example. The RNA genome of SARS-CoV-2 consists of 30,000 nucleotides and 11 major coding genes. Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna took the 4,284 nucleotides constituting the spike protein. At positions K986P and V987P, they introduced mutations to stimulate increased production of human antibodies. Those spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 are involved in receptor recognition, viral attachment and entry into the host cells. The last part is significant. Both COVID itself and the mutated vaccine material enter human cells. There’s certainty on this point. These COVID vaccines are gene therapies yet are not regulated as such. No safety testing was done on the long-term effect of introducing a mutated COVID DNA strand into the human genome. 

Secondly, Oxford University investigated brain injury from COVID. It mapped the brains of 785 participants and waited for them to get COVID; 401 obliged, creating a control of 384. All were scanned a second time, and any brain function difference was attributed to COVID spike proteins. Oxford University found: ‘significant longitudinal effects, including a reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue contrast, changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally connected to the olfactory function and a reduction in global brain size in the SARS-CoV-2 cases. The participants who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 showed on average a greater cognitive decline between the two time points.’ The paper concluded these results may indicate degenerative spread of the disease through olfactory pathways through the nose. Doctors who advocated for nasal preparations were actually right. The nose turns out to be the key. One study found 471 bacterial agents in 171 face masks, many of which had high resistance to antibiotics. This was an important issue for the royal commission to understand. Thirdly, Yonker et al. from Massachusetts General Hospital tested young people presenting with chest pains and found free spike antigen was detected in the blood of adolescents and young adults who developed post-mRNA-vaccine myocarditis, linking the shots with heart disease in the young. Fourthly, we knew as early as November 2021 that spike protein could build up in the lungs, heart, kidney and liver, causing an inflammatory response, yet we kept injecting spike proteins into people, including children, over and over. Now they’re dying suddenly and doctors are baffled—the hell they’re baffled. 

Fifthly, SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, meaning most likely the shots as well, have serious effects on the vasculature of multiple organ systems, including the brain. Outcomes include fatal microclot formation and, in rare cases, encephalitis. Wait a minute. Isn’t New South Wales now urging parents to vaccinate their children against a sudden outbreak of encephalitis? COVID and COVID shots are the same man-made poison, yet we never tested the shots long enough to reveal that. Now people are dying and suffering life-altering disease while we continue to inject the public with boosters containing the very substance that is causing these deaths and injuries. 

Today I’m announcing that, in the first week of December, I will be conducting the third of my full-day reviews of COVID, to be called ‘COVID in trial’. I promise to hound those responsible— 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Allman-Payne): Thank you, Senator Roberts. Do you wish to seek leave to continue your remarks? 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I seek leave to continue my remarks. 

Leave granted. 

References

https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing‐wrap‐up‐dr‐fauci‐held‐publicly‐accountable‐by‐select‐subcommittee/

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2021/june/response‐to‐the‐australian‐25‐june‐2021

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8778320/

https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/10/live‐simulation‐exercise‐to‐prepare‐public‐and‐private‐leaders‐for‐pandemic‐response/

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020‐04/21/c_138995413.htm

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/prca.202300048

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586‐022‐04569‐5

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9883076/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36597886/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003‐021‐02856‐x

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33053430

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Global Health Emergency or Corporate Payday?

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Monkeypox a global public health emergency, triggering emergency powers to drive vaccine sales that benefit big pharmaceutical companies with ties to the organisation. This decision serves corporate interests rather than public health. Regulatory agencies that are meant to protect the public fall under undue influence from the industries they regulate. The WHO is a corrupt organisation that is designed to funnel taxpayer money to its billionaire donors. Australian taxpayers gave $30 million to the WHO last year, likely as a show of loyalty.

Transparency is lacking. Major donors include Gavi, a vaccine alliance funded by corporations tied to predatory giants like BlackRock and Vanguard, who also own large shares in pharmaceutical companies. The WHO’s Monkeypox emergency, declared solely by its director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, highlights the unchecked power of the position. This decision created a market for four already-approved vaccines linked to companies backed by BlackRock and Vanguard, ensuring massive profits for their shareholders. A new Monkeypox vaccine is expected soon, likely fast-tracked by compromised regulators like Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

The WHO previously tried to raise alarm over Monkeypox but found little public concern, so they rebranded it as “Mpox” to push vaccine sales. This benefits the predatory billionaires who control vaccine companies, funnel money to Gavi and the WHO, and fund political parties, including Australia’s Liberal and Labor parties. Recent revelations show Anthony Fauci concealed plans to engineer a more deadly and highly transmissible Mpox virus. This “gain-of-function” research has pandemic potential and should be stopped immediately. It’s troubling that Australia’s CSIRO was involved in gain-of-function research for COVID-19, yet faces no consequences.

The WHO and the TGA have failed in their regulatory duties, serving political agendas rather than public interest. During COVID, the TGA prioritised government control over public health, and there are concerns the same will happen again with Mpox. Every Monkeypox case should be verified through public lab tests, especially as redacted data was used to justify COVID measures that harmed public health.

The time of blind trust in the WHO’s narrative is over; it’s now the age of ‘prove it’.

Transcript

The UN’s World Health Organization, the WHO, has declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern. This triggers WHO emergency powers to drive vaccine sales to financially benefit big pharmaceutical companies that donate to the WHO through their other commercial and ownership interests. The first thing a house of review like our Senate should do is ask, ‘Is this a legitimate decision?’ The answer is: it is not, no. The UN WHO has succumbed to regulatory capture—a troubling development in governance. That may plunge Western society into serfdom under large corporations. 

Regulatory capture occurs where a regulatory agency mandated to oversee and enforce rules to protect the public interest ends up under undue influence from companies with vested interests such as the entities it’s meant to regulate or special interest groups. This can result in the agency making decisions that prioritise the interests of these parties over the broader public interest. The New South Wales government lists six areas for regulatory capture: adherence to public interest principles; organisational culture; structure; processes; transparency; and staff experience. The WHO fails all six. 

I’ve often spoken about the corruption, cronyism and illegal behaviour of the World Health Organization; some of my WHO speeches are on my website. The WHO fails to hold staff accountable for misbehaviour, including rape and sexual assault. Its own investigators conclude the WHO is ‘rotten with rapists’—their words. It is a failure of organisational culture and of staffing quality. The WHO is a corrupt organisation whose decisions benefit its billionaire sponsors with substantial health interests. The scam is simple: take a disease that’s around for generations—firstly the flu, and more recently bird flu and now monkeypox; plant scary stories in a media desperate for clickbait articles; use the media driven fear to declare a pandemic; and then—payday!—mandate vaccines financially benefiting the billionaires that funded the media scare. This betrays the public interest. 

The WHO is a con, a fraud and a criminal enterprise designed to transfer wealth from taxpayers into the pockets of their billionaire donors and owners. It is an organisation to which Australian taxpayers gave $30 million last year despite them having $8 billion in financial assets; that donation was likely more about fealty than financing. Identifying the WHO’s donors is difficult since its annual accounts show 32 per cent of donations as ‘other’—another failure of transparency. One of the WHO’s major donors is Gavi, the globalist vaccine alliance of international academics, bureaucrats and pharmaceutical companies funded through corporate donations from companies whose share registers feature investment funds like BlackRock and Vanguard. They feature on big pharma share registries; they own big pharma. If Australia had racketeering laws this arrangement would be illegal. This is a failure in structure. 

The monkeypox declaration came from the WHO director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, acting alone. The process for making such an important decision is not meaningfully regulated and gives Ghebreyesus too much power to direct a worldwide health response. This is a failure of process, and it’s deliberate. The proclamation is designed to create an international market for new monkeypox vaccines. The WHO already have four approved vaccines for monkeypox: cidofovir, distributed through Pfizer; brincidofovir, manufactured and distributed through Chimerix, whose controlling shareholders include Vanguard and predatory wealth fund cronies; TPOXX, from Siga Pharmaceuticals, with shareholders BlackRock and Vanguard; and ACAM2000 from Emergent Biosolutions, whose largest shareholders are—wait for it—BlackRock and Vanguard. With these drugs the world’s predatory billionaires have decided it’s time for another fundraiser. All four drugs are off-label use—so, any day now, expect a killer new vaccine for monkeypox to be given the hosanna palm frond parade through our disgraced regulators like Canberra’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA. 

The WHO tested this scam a few years ago with a minor media fear campaign that discovered the public didn’t take something called monkeypox seriously. So they rebranded it as mpox. Amusingly, they claimed the name monkeypox was insulting to monkeys; monkeys have feelings too, you know! So mpox is monkeypox rebranded to sell more vaccines from vaccine companies who funnel the profits to the world’s predatory billionaires—those same billionaires who own the corporations that donate to Gavi and the WHO as well as fill the coffers of political parties around the world, including massive donations to both cheeks of the Liberal-Labor uniparty in this country. 

Last Tuesday, American congressional investigators revealed that, for nearly nine years, Anthony Fauci concealed plans to engineer a pandemic-capable mpox virus with high transmissibility and a case fatality rate of up to 15 per cent. That’s homicide. The gain-of-function project proposed through NIAID in America from virologist Bernard Moss was to splice genes conferring high pathogenicity from the clade I virus into the more transmissible clade II virus. The new chimeric virus or combined virus could have retained up to a 15 per cent fatality rate and a 2.4 reproductive rate—a measure of transmissibility—meaning, on average, every sick person could infect up to 2.4 other people, giving it pandemic potential. It’s marvellous, what it’s designed to do! 

We know gain-of-function research produced the COVID-19 virus. Is this monkeypox outbreak also man-made? 

Gain-of-function research serves no useful purpose and should be terminated immediately. It’s deeply troubling that Australia’s CSIRO admitted and bragged about its involvement in gain-of-function research that produced COVID-19. And now an online meme simply says: ‘They’re doing it again because you didn’t punish them last time.’ That’s truth indeed. 

The WHO fails all six elements of regulatory capture and so does Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA. The TGA is not acting in public interest, which former New South Wales deputy ombudsman Chris Wheeler considers fundamental to representative democratic government. The TGA may claim that, during COVID, it was caught between the parliament, its direct employer, and the wider public. It chose to serve the government’s need for air cover for controls decided on political, not medical, grounds. The TGA should have read the findings of the 1990 WA Inc royal commission, which found: 

The institutions of government and the officials and agencies of government exist for the public, to serve the interests of the public. 

That’s clear. Yet, during COVID, the TGA chose a different path: to support their own agency, to the detriment of the public. What will the TGA do this time, with monkeypox? 

Monkeypox is transmitted through direct contact from sexual activity or intravenous drug use. A Philpot scientific study found 98.7 per cent of infections resulted from gay male sexual transmission. Transmission can occur through direct personal contact of the infected site. Infected animals can spread the disease. Asymptomatic spread, though, is, like COVID, an assertion with no evidence. The clade Ia variant of monkeypox can affect children. The clades currently circulating, though, clade Ib and II, have not been proven to infect children. 

Australia has two monkeypox vaccines approved for over-18s. Both are off-label repurposed drugs approved for smallpox. JYNNEOS from Bavarian Nordic uses cidofovir, which I mentioned earlier, as the active ingredient. Bavarian Nordic have an application in to America’s Food and Drug Administration to give this vaccine to children aged 12 to 18 and are in early testing to support their application to extend use to children aged two and above—two and above! Why does a child need a vaccine against a disease that’s predominately only transmitted through sexual contact or intravenous drug use? The case for a monkeypox vaccination program must be a very high bar for any person who does not engage in risky sexual activity. 

TGA’s website data from the 2022 monkeypox round of vaccinations in Australia shows 3,163 adverse events per 100,000 vaccinations—a staggeringly high three per cent. I note a study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, with authors from the University of New South Wales, entitled ‘Autoimmune blistering skin diseases triggered by COVID-19 vaccinations: an Australian case series’. This report found that COVID-19 vaccination either caused the recipient to develop autoimmune blistering disease or made the recipient’s existing condition worse. The cases are extremely rare, and, for once, I can agree with the TGA. I alert Australia to the chance that these outbreaks of a related disease could be mistaken for monkeypox. I note that autoimmune diseases and shingles—that is, herpes zoster—can intersect, and both are side effects of the COVID vaccines. If the Senate is going to be called on to support a monkeypox response, then it’s essential every case is verified through publicly disclosed laboratory testing. 

Page after page of redacted data was used to support COVID measures and the damage to public health is undeniable. It’s homicide. ‘Safe and effective’ was not one lie; it was two. People are not believing the UN World Health Organization mpox narrative. The time for blind trust is over. We’re now in the age of ‘prove it’. 

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Peter Dutton’s Unsettling Stance: Is Free Speech Under Threat?

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Last week, Opposition Leader Dutton replied to an interviewer, calling for the public to dob in loved ones, friends, or workmates who have changed their opinion of the Government for the worse to ASIO. After facing backlash on social media, I expected the Opposition Leader to clarify his remarks, but he has yet to do so.

His advocacy for Australians to report their fellow Australians to ASIO for expressing concerns about government COVID measures—which destroyed lives, health and families—is deeply troubling. 

We are witnessing police actions in Canada and the UK where merely attending a protest rally, without any violent actions, is grounds for arrest and imprisonment. Is this a glimpse into the future under the Liberal Party?

Transcript

Last week, Opposition Leader Dutton, in a media interview, made a comment we expected he would clarify but he hasn’t. In the interview, the interviewer said: 

“We saw the terror threat raised to Probable yesterday. But there are multiple fronts now. 

One of those fronts that I found most interesting has come out of Covid. There’s the conspiracy theorists, the anti-vaxxers … what does it say to you about government overreach, and government, essentially, controlling people’s lives and the effects that that can have?” 

Peter Dutton’s answer: 

“None of that, though, should give rise to the sort of conduct that you’re referring to. I would say to anybody in our community, whether it’s within your friendship group, your family group, the work group, whatever it might be, where you see somebody’s behaviour changing, regardless of their motivation, or if they’ve changed radically their thoughts about society and government … you need to report that information to ASIO, or to the Australian Federal Police as a matter of urgency”. 

In 1997, in the legal case Lange v the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the High Court found: 

  • Under a legal system based on the common law, everybody is free to do anything, subject only to the provisions of the law, so that one proceeds upon an assumption of freedom of speech and turns to the law to discover the established exceptions to it. 

To protect human life, free speech stops at incitement to violence against others and at incitement to break the law.  

Free speech does not stop, as Peter Dutton suggests, merely at criticisms of others. Advocating that Australians be dobbed into ASIO for venting about government COVID measures, destroying their lives, health and families is a tone-deaf disgrace. In Canada and the UK right now, police response to criticism of the government is underway. Mere attendance at a protest rally without any violent words or actions is now enough to be arrested and imprisoned. Is this a glimpse of the future everyday Australians will endure under the supposedly honourable men and women of the Liberal Party, under an opposition leader who has come to bury Menzies, not to praise Menzies. I call on the Opposition Leader to clarify his remarks immediately. 

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Ethnic Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality Rates in Australia! 💉📉

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In a recent senate estimate session, I highlighted the alarming ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality rates. Australians from the Middle East died at three times the average death rate, those from Southern Europe twice as high, while sub-Saharan Africans had lower mortality rates. 

What’s driving these disparities? The health experts suggest that low vaccine coverage and socioeconomic factors played roles in these differences. As vaccination efforts improved, mortality rates began to align more closely with the general population. 

These are just theories, not explanations, and it comes across as a lazy response. There’s no justification for not making an effort to understand the reasons behind such a serious medical issue.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Professor Kelly, you previously brought someone forward to talk about the differences in incidence and severity with a low-socioeconomic profile.  

Prof. Kelly: Mr Gould, yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Australian residents from the Middle East died at three times the population mean, those from Southern Europe were twice as likely to die and those from North Africa were almost three times as likely to die; however, sub-Saharan Africans were less likely to die. Why are we seeing ethnic differences in COVID mortality in Australia? I understand that ‘ethnic’ is to do with culture.  

Dr Gould: Yes. Just talking around the numbers involved, as you say, the ABS has reported, during various stages of the pandemic, mortality rates for people born in different countries and, as you’ve said, there are higher mortality rates for people born in places such as the Middle East. There are a number of potential reasons for that. One of the areas that I discussed in my previous answer, which I think is relevant, is that, for a lot of those communities, initially, vaccine coverage rates were low. So significant work was done during the course of the pandemic to work with those communities to increase the coverage rate, and we really saw quite a dramatic shift during the course of the pandemic in the variation in mortality rates between these communities in the general Australian population; to a large degree, they came into line with the general population experience, so that was a positive outcome. Certainly, there’s an indication that the vaccine rates would have had a role to play. We did talk as well about socioeconomic status. We do know that, for some language groups or groups born in different countries, those rates may correlate with different socioeconomic status as well, so there may be some relationships there.  

Senator ROBERTS: So there’s an overlap, potentially, in some areas? 

Dr Gould: Potentially, yes. It’s not broadly always the case. We find that a lot of recent, skilled migrants live in high socioeconomic areas, so it’s difficult to make a broad generalisation there. 

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COVID Update No. 5

In March 2022, my office conducted an inquiry titled “COVID Under Question” to examine COVID and the response measures. Another inquiry was held in August of the same year. Witnesses included Australian and international health experts, as well as individuals or loved ones who were impacted by the jabs. The inquiry scrutinised all facets of Australia’s COVID response, involving politicians from multiple parties, ensuring a genuinely non-partisan cross-party inquiry.

Channel 7’s Spotlight program revealed widespread public dissatisfaction and concern with the government’s COVID response. Many people are expressing anger and have numerous unresolved questions. Rebuilding trust in federal and state governments, politicians, health departments, medical professionals, media, and pharmaceutical companies cannot happen without fully addressing these concerns.

Call a COVID Royal Commission now!

Transcript

My Senate office held the first inquiry into COVID and response measures, called COVID Under Question, on Wednesday 23 March 2022. Another was held on Wednesday 17 August of the same year. Witnesses included Australian and international experts on health and relatives of people that the COVID injections killed or maimed. All aspects of Australia’s COVID response were questioned. Politicians from several parties participated, making it a true non-partisan cross-party inquiry. 

Because of the two full days of testimony at these inquiries, my decision-making has been much better informed. That’s what a senator must do. I acknowledge the support of my wife, Christine, as our office team’s workload increased in response to the many serious breaches of Australians’ rights and tens of thousands of deaths due to mandated COVID injections. 

Our aim is to restore our country and our planet for humans to abound and flourish. Channel 7’s Spotlight program two nights ago revealed that the public remains very deeply dissatisfied and concerned about governments’ COVID response. Many are angry. The people have many questions to be answered before trust can be restored in federal and state governments, in politicians, in health departments and agencies, in medical professions, in media and in pharmaceutical companies. 

Across Australia, citizens are waking, making an effort to understand for themselves and for Australia. Generally speaking, people are wonderful and deserve to have their needs and expectations of governments met. Citizens are our constitutional democracy’s highest order. As servants to the people, it’s our duty as their representatives to address their questions and concerns. I find it surprising that our health bureaucrats and politicians oppose a judicial inquiry into COVID. Listening to their responses in Senate estimates over the last four years, it’s clear they desperately do not betray they’ve made a single mistake. In fact, their answers suggest their performance has been exemplary—worthy of medals and parades. The United Kingdom even called upon the whole country to stand on their front doorsteps and applaud their health professionals every Thursday evening. The inventor of the Moderna vaccine was given a staged standing ovation at Wimbledon. Certainly, big pharma thought so highly of the head of the TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Professor Skerritt, that they offered him a thankyou job on the board of Medicines Australia—which, despite the grandiose name, is the main pharmaceutical industry lobby group. Heady days, indeed. Those days are over as the reality of their incompetence, self-interest and lies comes home to roost. 

To those in this place fighting a rearguard action against a tidal wave of knowledge and accountability, it must be clear to you now that the battle is lost. Public anger is not going away; widespread and deep anger remains. Trust in the medical profession is lower than at any time I can recall. I fear where that will lead if it’s not corrected. 

Every new unexplained death and every new heartbreak increases public realisation of what was done to the people. Excess deaths, despite statistical sleight of hand, are not falling. The genetic timebomb of mRNA vaccines is still ticking. More people are dying and more will die. The failure of our regulatory authorities to protect us is a crime. Approving a vaccine—a novel vaccine that killed people—is a crime. Banning existing products that have proven efficacy and safety in order to drive sales of a so-called vaccine is a crime. Covering up this corrupt process is a crime. This is homicide. Those who approved the vaccine knew, or rightly should have known, it was a gene therapy—an experimental gene therapy of a type which has failed a generation of safety testing. 

Five United States states—Texas, Utah, Kansas, Mississippi and Louisiana—are currently suing Pfizer for knowingly concealing that the vaccine caused myocarditis, pericarditis, failed pregnancies and deaths. The complaints allege Pfizer falsely claimed that its vaccine retained high efficacy against variants despite knowing the reverse was true: protection dropped quickly over time, and it did not protect against new variants. Marketing the vaccine as safe and effective despite its known risks is a violation of consumer law in all five of those states. The lawsuit alleges Pfizer engaged in censorship with social media companies to silence people who were criticising its safety and efficacy claims and who even dared to question them—proof of which has been public knowledge since Elon Musk released the Twitter files in December 2022. 

The lawsuit charges civil conspiracy between Pfizer, the US Department of Health and Human Services and others ‘to wilfully conceal, suppress or omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine’. While Pfizer has indemnity for injuries, under the PREP Act, that indemnity is invalidated through making false and misleading claims. The reason this relates to Australia as well is that our contract with Pfizer, which provided indemnity against injury, can be negated through misconduct from Pfizer, and misconduct there was. Surely, if we have a chance to move the cost of vaccine harm from the taxpayer to the perpetrator, we must take that opportunity. Citizens of Australia deserve this. 

Evidence for this lawsuit in the United States was gathered during a grand jury investigation and has now been presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, the ultimate court. It makes for horrifying reading. One, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, Dr Bourla—a veterinarian, not a doctor—declined government funding in order to prevent the government’s ability to oversee the development, testing and manufacture of the vaccine. That’s not something someone does with a safe and properly made product. Two, Pfizer’s independence from Operation Warp Speed allowed it to demand a tailor made contract that did not include the normal clauses protecting taxpayers’ interest. Three, contrary to its representations, Pfizer has wilfully concealed, suppressed and omitted safety and efficacy data relating to its COVID-19 vaccine and has kept data hidden through confidentiality agreements—it kept it hidden. Four, Pfizer had a written agreement with the United States government that Pfizer had to approve any messaging around the vaccine. A judicial inquiry can determine if such a clause was in the Australian agreement as well.  

Five, Pfizer used an extended study timeline to conceal critical data relating to the effectiveness and safety of its COVID-19 vaccine. The study timetable was repeatedly pushed out to avoid revealing the results of the clinical trials until after billions of doses had been given. Six, instead Pfizer submitted a ‘Hollywood’ version of the safety trials, which showed efficacy and safety data that their real trials did not, and our health authorities bought it. 

Seven, we’re three years into COVID, and scientists still can’t review Pfizer’s COVID-19 raw trial data. Eight, so, when Professor Skerritt said in Senate estimates that the TGA had analysed all of the trial data, that was a lie. They used Pfizer’s ‘special’ data. Nine, Pfizer kept the true effects of its COVID-19 vaccine hidden by destroying the trial control group, invalidating the study. This was not gold-standard research. This was dangerous and fraudulent behaviour. 

Ten, Pfizer rigged the trial by excluding individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 or who were immunocompromised, pregnant, breastfeeding or simply unwell. Why did the TGA claim the vaccine was safe for these people when the vaccine was not even tested on these people? Eleven, the statement that the vaccine worked even if you already had COVID is therefore a lie, yet that expanded the potential market. Twelve, Pfizer maintained its own secret adverse-events database, which was obtained in court processes and showed that, in the first three months of the rollout, 159,000 adverse events had resulted, including 1,223 deaths.  

Thirteen, Pfizer was receiving so many adverse-event reports that it had to hire 600 additional full-time staff. Fourteen, while Pfizer tested its COVID-19 vaccine on healthy individuals in 2020, Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, quietly tested its COVID-19 vaccine on pregnant rats. Subjects had fetuses with severe soft-tissue and skeletal malformations, and some subjects failed, at more than double the rate of the control group, to become pregnant and to implant embryos, amongst other side effects. Some rats lost their entire litter. Pfizer did not issue a press release announcing the rat fertility study findings, and it lied about the outcome. 

My 10 minutes is almost done, and I’m only up to page 24 of the 179-page brief of evidence. There are another 155 pages yet to cover. If it’s not clear to the listeners by now, the vaccine was criminal fraud. I have plenty more to share with you. 

The last word for today is from South Korea, where a study analysed 4.3 million individuals over three months, comparing the rates of various new medical conditions in vaccinated versus unvaccinated groups. The study revealed that the vaccinated experienced a 138 per cent increase in mild cognitive impairment, a 23 per cent rise in Alzheimer’s disease, a 68 per cent rise in depression, a 44 per cent rise in anxiety and related disorders and a 93 per cent increase in sleep disorders.  

In Australia, following my questions to the Institute of Health and Welfare at the inquiry into excess mortality in Australia, evidence was presented that the Institute of Health and Welfare could have done this same research. It chose not to. Our health authorities are not conducting this research because they don’t want to know the answer. They want to avoid the answer and hide the answer. A judicial inquiry is needed to get to the truth, and I call on Prime Minister Albanese to call a royal commission immediately. 

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Australia’s Role in COVID Origins

Australia co-operated with the Wuhan Institute and America’s NIH on gain-of-function research on COVID, which led to the COVID pandemic. Subsequently, both of these institutes conducted similar research on bird flu and now we have a mutant bird flu outbreak.

When I asked the Health Department if this was a good reason to discontinue gain-of-function research, their response was NO and instead, indicated a focus on refining messaging to deflect criticism. Even more troubling is the admission that gain-of-function research into pandemic-potential pathogens is being conducted in level 3 labs rather than level 4.

One Nation opposes gain-of-function research and believes that the “scientists” responsible for developing the novel COVID virus should be held accountable for the deaths it caused. Gain-of-function research for pandemic-potential pathogens does not pass a cost-benefit-risk analysis and should be halted immediately.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, China did gain-of-function research in Wuhan on COVID, and we had a COVID outbreak. Then China did gain-of-function research on bird flu, and now we have a bird flu outbreak, so I’m told. Minister, will your government ban Australian involvement in gain-of-function research?  

Senator Gallagher: I think Professor Kelly has stated the Australian government’s position in relation to reviews that are underway. I don’t know whether there’s more that he can add to that.  

Prof. Kelly: I’d just suggest that be directed to the CEO of the NHMRC, who’s undertaken some of these processes previously, and we’ve had a recent discussion about what else we might need to think about.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

Prof. Wesselingh: Gain-of-function research is an important component of genomic research across the board and leads the development of a whole lot of things, like drugs and vaccines et cetera. I think the issue that you’re talking about is the gain-of-function research on pandemic potential pathogens and, obviously, that does need to be closely regulated. Australia has a very strong regulatory environment to do that, particularly through the OGTR, biosafety committees across the country and, obviously, the facilities we have, which are PC3 and PC4 facilities.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are they levels or standards for infection security?  

Prof. Wesselingh: Yes. PC2 is a sort of standard laboratory, PC3 is additional security and PC4 is very high security.  

Senator ROBERTS: And ours are 2 and 3?  

Prof. Wesselingh: No. All of the work done on gain-of-function in PC3 and PC4 is on pandemic potential pathogens. We have, I think, a really strong regulatory environment to control gain-of-function research in Australia. But as Paul said, we’ve had some additional conversations between the Chief Medical Officer, the OGTR and the NHMRC, in terms of whether there are additional assurances that we should apply to the very small number of gain-of-function activities that occur with these pandemic potential pathogens. We’re certainly looking at that to see the risk benefit and the public benefit of those aspects.  

Senator ROBERTS: Has research stopped while you’re doing that review?  

Prof. Wesselingh: No. We did a very big review of gain-of-function activities, and that has been reported to this committee previously. There were 17 projects that were being conducted. Only four were being conducted with pandemic potential pathogens, and they were all conducted under the controls of the OGTR in PC3 and PC4 facilities; none were being done on COVID; and we continue to use the current regulatory processes in regard to that.  

Senator ROBERTS: What is the status of gain-of-function research in the United States? I understand that it was outlawed under Obama.  

Prof. Kelly: I’m not really able to talk about what may or may not be the regulations in a foreign country.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you do much benchmarking with other countries?  

Prof. Wesselingh: I can comment on that. Gain-of-function research still continues in the United States. We have been watching, with interest, recent developments in the United States, and they have developed a system, similar to the one that I was saying we are currently discussing with the chief health officer, where gain-offunction research can continue; but increased assurances, in terms of the risk-benefit and the public benefit of those activities, are conducted through the US agencies. We’re looking at that carefully, and that’s the basis for our ongoing discussions with the OGTR and the Chief Medical Officer 

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COVID-19: A Man-Made Catastrophe

Coronavirus was the product of 54 years of research aimed at developing a biological weapon. Whether it escaped from the Wuhan Lab accidentally, or was deliberately released, doesn’t matter.

The fact remains COVID-19 is a man-made disaster and those responsible must be held accountable.

Call a Royal Commission now!

This almost 23 minute video is from the 3rd International COVID Summit | May 2023 (Citations can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfLycFHBsro)

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Questions Remain Unanswered on Strike Rate Against Doctors

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During the June Estimates, I asked the Professional Services Review Scheme (PSRS) why there was a 100% strike rate against doctors. I was informed that only a small number of cases make it to the Committee stage after several preliminary steps.

The representative assured me that the system is fair, although she admitted that appeals are restricted to procedural issues and cannot address the merits of the evidence.

While she mentioned that the Committee consists of the doctor’s peers, she did not address my concern about the 100% strike rate.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. At previous estimates, I was told that administrative investigations of doctors conducted by the Professional Services Review Scheme were done in a completely fair manner. Your annual reports reveal that, since 2008, there have been 173 doctors who faced administrative investigations by committees leading to sanctions. How many of those prosecutions were successful, leading to sanctions being placed upon doctors, including suspension of practice?  

Mr Topperwien: The 173 practitioners that you refer to were the ones who were referred to committees after a long process. We’ve in fact been asked to look at over 1,800 practitioners. Those 173 were ones out of the 1,800 that we’ve looked at that the director would have had concerns that there was a possibility that they had engaged in inappropriate practice. That concern that the director would have had for each of those cases would have followed an exhaustive process by which they would have looked at samples of their patient records, interviewed the practitioner, looked at the submissions that had been made and then formed the view that for each of those practitioners there was a chance that they had engaged in inappropriate practice. They were not prepared, probably for most of them, to enter into an agreement or the director was so concerned about what looked like their conduct that they thought it ought to go to a committee of their peers to fully investigate what had actually gone on. So the small number of practitioners who end up going to a committee have gone through an exhaustive process prior to even getting there. And, as I said, they came out of 1,800 practitioners.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. As I said, there have been 173 doctors who have faced administrative investigations by committees, which is what you’re confirming. I’ve asked you how many were successful. You said 100—  

Mr Topperwien: I’m aware that there have been practitioners who have gone to committees where there has been no adverse outcome for them.  

Senator ROBERTS: My understanding is that the number of those who were suspended were 171, not including two doctors who passed away.  

Mr Topperwien: I’m unable to confirm here and now what those numbers actually are, but I can take that on notice and get back to you with the actual numbers of cases that have gone to committees and, in broad terms, the nature of the outcomes of those cases.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’d be happy with that on notice. But my understanding is that, as I said just then, the number of prosecutions that were successful for the review scheme, out of 173, were 171, not including two doctors who passed away. So that’s a strike rate of 100 per cent against the doctors.  

Mr Topperwien: Of those who went to committees.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I’m—  

Mr Topperwien: Of the 1,800 that we started looking at in the first place, those 1,800 came from many thousands that were first examined by the department.  

Senator ROBERTS: I accept that. I accept the 1,800 and 173. But, of the 173, there was a 100 per cent strike rate against the doctors. I went to a barrister to check this out—a reliable barrister who used to teach in constitutional law as well as practice and worked in administration for governments. This finding is an extraordinary result, because no court system goes even close to a 100 per cent conviction rate. How can the scheme claim a fair system with a 100 per cent rate of finding against doctors?  

Dr Mahoney: Would it help if I gave some extra context around the cases that come to Professional Services Review?  

Senator ROBERTS: I just want to know the answer to the question. How can a system claim to be fair when it’s a 100 per cent strike rate?  

Dr Mahoney: If I give you the context around it, that will explain it. The department may wish to add to what I’m saying, but there are a whole range of compliance activities that are undertaken by the Department of Health and Aged Care. We talk about a pyramid. You may have heard of it. At the bottom of the pyramid, the very largest number, are the practitioners who get an educational activity helping them to understand why their billing might need to be looked at or how to bill correctly. The next step above that are what are called targeted letters, where practitioners who have been identified as perhaps needing a little bit more help will get a letter that gives them some information about their own data and just asking them to look at it. That’s really all those letters do. The next step that the department has in place is an audit program. 

Senator ROBERTS: What’s it called?  

Dr Mahoney: Audit.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.  

Dr Mahoney: That sometimes gets confused with other activities. But the audit program, again, is very specific. It’s done by the department. I can talk about this because my previous role was exactly in doing the work with the compliance section of the department. With audit, it’s very specific. Again, it’s particular Medicare item requirements that can be audited, as in, ‘Did you do a specific thing?’—was there a referral, for example, for a service that requires a referral. The team that do the audit work, that’s what they do. They ask a practitioner to send in a set of documents with the proof that they’ve met a requirement. That’s a compliance activity. They’re the next level up in the pyramid. Then we come up to what’s called the Practitioner Review Program. That Practitioner Review Program is going up the pyramid where the concerns about the practitioner’s billing data or prescribing data is of more concern than any of those lower levels. That, again, is a much smaller group. For those practitioners, their data is looked at very thoroughly by senior medical practitioners who are experienced in practice as well as in looking at this data. If those practitioners think that there needs to be some intervention—the department’s medical staff—then that practitioner is contacted. They are given their billing data. They are given an opportunity to have an interview with one of the medical advisers in the department. The outcomes of those—there are three possible outcomes. The first is that the practitioner has explained their billing data, it makes sense and there is no further action taken. The second, and this is by far the largest group, is where there is some concern. The practitioner is given education about why there is concern with their billing and they are given what is called a period of review to change or to make changes to what the issues are. Then their data is looked at again. Again, the majority of practitioners understand that. They take that on board, they learn it and there’s no penalty. This is all what’s gone on before anybody gets to PSR. The third possible outcome for cases that are of really serious concern to the medical advisers in the department is that those cases are referred to Professional Services Review for the next stage up the pyramid. So we’re getting quite close to the top now. The only ones above us are those that are outright fraud that we don’t deal with. That’s not compliance. I need to add a little bit to that. After interview, a very small number of practitioners will go straight—will get referred to PSR because of the level of their concerns. A small number of practitioners who are given that six-month period of review do not make changes and they may go to PSR as well when their data is reviewed after six months. Then there’s the third group of practitioners that are referred to Professional Services Review. As you would know, under the 80/20 and 30/20 rules, if a practitioner breaches those then the department’s required by law to refer those cases to Professional Services Review. So the only cases that we are looking at in Professional Services Review are those that have already been through all of that and they are near the top of the pyramid. So that’s the context around the numbers that you’re talking about. The further context, as Mr Topperwien has said, is that even of those that get to Professional Services Review, only a small number go to committee. So I hope that helped.  

Senator ROBERTS: That has. It’s confirmed some of my fears, but I’ll explain that in a minute if we need to. Isn’t this strike rate of 100 per cent of those who get referred to a committee indicative of a system loaded against doctors with little or no chance of a doctor being able to raise a fair defence to allegations made?  

Dr Mahoney: No. They have chances right through the whole process, as I’ve described, or all the processes at the department of health.  

Senator ROBERTS: I got that. You’ve given me the answer—it’s no, in your view.  

Dr Mahoney: At Professional Services Review, they again have chances to explain, describe and discuss.  

Senator ROBERTS: The system is loaded against doctors, in our view, having listened to some doctors and consulted legal advice. Is it because in the process there’s no meaningful opportunity to challenge or explain the evidence being given against the doctor? My understanding of legal practice, which is pretty limited, is that there are two aspects. A case has to be taken through the process properly. If it’s not taken through the process properly, it’s dismissed. But if it’s taken through the process properly, then they consult the evidence. If the evidence is sound, there’s a conviction. If the evidence is not sound, it’s dismissed. So process has to be followed and evidence has to be strong. Now, doctors cannot appeal the merits of the evidence. They can appeal the process. So your process is fine, but they can’t appeal the evidence. Is that correct?  

Mr Topperwien: I’d just say here that the practitioner has multiple opportunities at the PSR end of the process to challenge the evidence, bring their own evidence and have their own witnesses. They have a lawyer in virtually every case, and the evidence that is the—the substantive evidence on which the committee makes findings is the doctor’s own practice notes. It’s the doctor’s own evidence that shows that they have engaged in inappropriate practice. They have every opportunity to put other evidence if they choose to. 

Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t it correct that a result of the process is that appeals are limited to arguments about process and not about merit or evidence of the case?  

Mr Topperwien: They have an opportunity to take an action in the Federal Court at any stage of the process about whether we have acted fairly and have taken into account irrelevant considerations. We’ve not taken into account irrelevant considerations. Those are the bases on which a challenge may be made in the court.  

Senator ROBERTS: So, as I said, the doctor can appeal the process but not appeal the merits of the evidence.  

Mr Topperwien: That’s right.  

Ms Shakespeare: Senator, perhaps I’d add some more context about the scheme—the PSR. Where people are referred to committees, that’s a committee of their clinical peers that hears evidence and makes recommendations and determinations about their clinical practice from a place of clinical expertise.  

Senator ROBERTS: In theory that’s correct. But in practice it’s not.  

Ms Shakespeare: I don’t think we would accept that either.  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. At the next Senate estimates maybe we can talk further—or maybe before then if you’d be willing to. Would you be willing to engage in a conversation before then?  

Ms Shakespeare: About the makeup of committees for the PSR? I think that’s probably something that we would be able to engage in.  

CHAIR: Senator, via the minister’s office we can seek a briefing for you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, an earlier review of the scheme said the scheme must be overhauled to make it fair and allow appeals to be made on merit. What’s your government’s timetable for a review of this system?  

Ms Quinn: Senator, there have been a number of reviews conducted around the Professional Services Review. You would understand that it’s established under the Health Insurance Act, so it is a lawful—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ve got no doubt it’s lawful.  

Ms Quinn: And considered by the parliament of the time. Concerns about possible inappropriate practice, as you said, are able to be elevated to the courts.  

Senator ROBERTS: I understand that perfectly. I’ve had it explained before and now again today very well. I understand that it was recommended earlier in a review that the scheme must be overhauled. I want to know the progress of that and when is it going to be done.  

Senator Gallagher: Let me see if there’s—  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. I also make it clear that fraud hurts the taxpayers. I detest it and it must stop. So we’ve got no problems there. I also can see that a doctor who stands up and has got the courage of his or her convictions can go right through that process and won’t buckle. I can see some doctors will buckle because it’s just too much. They’ll let go. So some strong doctors, I believe, are being punished. That’s what I would like to talk to. I don’t want to raise individual cases with you. That’s not my position. I’m not an advocate for individual cases. I just wanted to understand the process better. So I look forward to a conversation.  

Mr Topperwien: We are happy to talk to you in general terms about how the process works, the way that the scheme is structured, the qualifications of the practitioners who are on our panel and who are appointed to committees and how that appointment process works.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.  

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts. 

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ABS Data Important for Evaluating COVID Response

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I don’t speak the bureaucratic jargon used in Canberra, so sometimes the bureaucrats struggle to grasp a straightforward question in plain English. It took some time for the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to understand my question, which was about our high migrant intake from a health perspective.

For years, Australians were mandated to get vaccinated. They couldn’t access certain places or participate in activities without being vaccinated. The latest COVID mandates were only lifted for firefighters and healthcare workers just last month.

The ABS is responsible for maintaining official records on these matters, particularly provisional and final mortality reports. I asked whether they have records of the vaccination status of new arrivals so that vaccination rates of all Australians (both new and existing) could be graphed against known health outcomes. I sort of received a response, but the reality is the ABS does not know the vaccination status of the 2.3 million new arrivals, rendering any data they generate inherently inaccurate. This also applies to births by vaccination status, suggesting that new arrivals from countries where vaccination wasn’t pushed have a higher birth rate compared to vaccinated Australians.

This data is really important for two main reasons: first, to understand the harm our COVID response did to Australians and second, to assist in the planning and resourcing of the next response. I will continue questioning the accuracy and relevance of ABS data.

Transcript

CHAIR: I might share the call and come back. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. It’s good to see you, Dr Gruen. Do you know the COVID vaccination status of the 2.3 million new arrivals under the current government? Is that data you’re provided with?  

Dr Gruen: No, I don’t think we know the vaccination status of immigrants—at least, not that I’m aware.  

Senator ROBERTS: I didn’t think so. It’s just striking that we locked down the whole population and mandated a shot that’s still experimental—in fact, for some people it’s still mandated—yet we’re letting people in without any question.  

Senator Gallagher: Senator Roberts, there isn’t a mandatory vaccination program now in the country. It’s a voluntary vaccination program.  

Senator ROBERTS: No, there are still some states and employers that are doing it. 

Senator Gallagher: As a requirement of their employment?  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.  

Senator Gallagher: Well, the Commonwealth vaccination program is a voluntary program.  

Senator ROBERTS: Not if you’re in the Department of Defence, Australian Electoral Commission or aged care. It doesn’t exist anymore—I accept that—but it was never voluntary. If someone on a temporary visa, people who can be here for 20 years, has a baby, does that count as a domestic birth? 

Dr Gruen: I’m not quite sure. You mean it’s a birth in this country?  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I’m sorry; I didn’t make that clear. People can be here for 20 years on a temporary visa. If they have a baby while they’re in Australia, does that count as a domestic birth?  

Dr Gruen: I’m not sure that we have a category called ‘domestic births’.  

Senator ROBERTS: So they’re all lumped in?  

Dr Gruen: No, I’m just saying that I’d have to look at exactly what the categories are in our birth data. I haven’t got our birth data with us.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could you take that on notice, please?  

Dr Gruen: Certainly.  

Senator ROBERTS: If we got a temporary arrival in this country who was not vaccinated and had a baby, they could be providing an inaccurate picture of the Australian domestic birthrate post COVID. If there’s a problem—and some gynaecologists are saying that there certainly is—then that would be covering up a decrease in the birthrate.  

Dr Gruen: I don’t think I understand. Most people are free not to get vaccinated if they choose, whether they’re immigrants or whether they live here. 

Senator ROBERTS: There are studies and also anecdotal reports of a significant decrease in birthrate.  

Dr Gruen: I think we’ve had this discussion before, when you were suggesting that the birthrate in December had plummeted, and we explained to you that that was preliminary data. I think I said to you at the time that people who give birth have got other things on their mind than making sure that their reports are up to date with births, deaths and marriages. As we demonstrated to you at the time, there is no decline in birthrate in December. That was simply a function of looking at preliminary data, and, when the data was more complete, that effect went away.  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I understand that. But, if we don’t trap immigrants by their vaccination status and they have a baby here, then it could be covering up any decrease in birthrate.  

Dr Gruen: We measure the birthrate.  

Senator ROBERTS: If we’re bringing in foreigners who are having babies her, and we’ve had a domestic decline in birthrates, then that’s covering it up. That’s the reason for my question. How do you categorise people?  

Dr Gruen: We look at the resident population and we also record births. But I don’t understand the implication of whether people are vaccinated or not, because the same statements would be true of people who grew up here and chose not to be vaccinated.  

Senator ROBERTS: Correct, but we don’t know because we don’t really have an assessment of the population now because of the inference—  

Dr Gruen: I think I do. We have just as good an assessment as we ever did, I think.  

Senator Gallagher: Births would be captured through state hospital systems that wouldn’t discriminate on visa status.  

Senator ROBERTS: Correct. That’s my point. Do you know what I’m getting it?  

Senator Gallagher: Okay.  

Dr Gruen: All the people who usually live in Australia, regardless of visa status, are included in the statistics.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you trap any data by COVID vaccination status—births, deaths, illness, employment—anything at all?  

Dr Gruen: The Australian Immunisation Register records vaccination status for people who are vaccinated, and that data is linked in our integrated data asset, which goes by the name of Person Level Integrated Data Asset. Researchers have done an analysis using the link between the Australian Immunisation Register and other datasets to examine all sorts of questions of relevance. The department of health used that link to find out which language groups in the community had low-vaccination uptake during COVID, and there have been researchers at the University of New South Wales that have looked at mortality by vaccination status. That was a paper published in the Lancet. So the data exists, and it is available to researchers who are doing research that is assessed to be in the public interest, but it’s individual data that has been de-identified and is kept in a secure environment to be worked on. It’s not data that gets published on our website.  

Senator ROBERTS: No. Given the minister said there are no vaccine mandates at the moment—  

Dr Gruen: I think she said there were no Commonwealth government vaccine mandates. 

Senator ROBERTS: Correct. That’s true. I’m taking it from what you’re saying then that you don’t trap data by COVID vaccination status, births, deaths, illness, employment or anything else like that.  

Dr Gruen: The answer would be that you could uncover that by linking the Australian Immunisation Register to other datasets that capture that information. But, for instance, in our labour force survey we don’t ask about vaccination status.  

Senator ROBERTS: Your data on COVID deaths shows deaths by ethnicity, and people were saying that that was very handy to have and it’s significant, with some nationalities having three times the death rate from COVID as the Australian average, as you pointed out.  

Dr Gruen: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: I hope our health officials are now trying to work out why they’re different outcomes— and some of them are. I notice, however, that you are removing ethnicity from the 2026 census. How is that helping—  

Dr Gruen: We’re not removing ethnicity from the 2026 Census. We never collected ethnicity in any of the censuses, so it’s not a removal.  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, my mistake.  

Dr Gruen: That’s okay.  

Senator ROBERTS: Moving on to inflation—  

CHAIR: Last question, Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’ll be one of a series. I’m just flagging that I’ll come back to this topic when we come back again. Moving on to inflation, your official interest rate does not agree with the perception everyday Australians have—  

Senator Gallagher: That’s not—  

Dr Gruen: Hang on. The official interest rate is the Reserve Bank; we publish the CPI.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That’s a correction. Your CPI—  

Dr Gruen: The Consumer Price Index. 

Senator ROBERTS: Your CPI does not agree with the perception everyday Australians have of how much things are going up. Let’s unpack that: the measure you use for inflation is a basket of goods—  

Dr Gruen: Yes, and services.  

Senator ROBERTS: thank you—which changes more frequently than people might realise.  

Dr Gruen: The basket?  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, the components in the basket. What’s in the shopping basket?  

Dr Gruen: The basket is enormous. For instance, we capture every item—in a de-identified way—that is sold in the four major supermarkets. It’s a very extensive measure.  

Senator ROBERTS: In the last change of weighting, the category of recreation and culture increased by 16 per cent. That category happened to be one of the leading disinflationary categories dragging down the CPI figure. Are you telling Australians that in the middle of the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades they are spending 16 per cent more on recreation and culture than a year ago?  

Dr Gruen: I don’t have the weights for the CPI in front of me, but I’m happy to take that on notice. Do you mean 16 percentage points or 16 per cent?  

Senator ROBERTS: The weighting of the category of recreation and culture increased by 16 per cent.  

Dr Gruen: We can check that. I can tell you that we update the weights every year so that they are an accurate reflection of expenditure by average households in the capital cities. That’s the point of the exercise. Most of the time, those weights change gradually, but I don’t have in my head the particular weight that you are talking about.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll return to that topic in the next one. 

/8 Comments/by

Minister Deflects Questions on Contaminated Blood

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During questioning of the National Blood Authority at last week’s Senate Estimates, I raised the issue of Canada and the UK accepting responsibility for deliberately covering up the exposure of individuals to contaminated blood products from blood transfusions from the 1970’s onwards. I asked the Minister if Australia was going to follow suit and provide compensation, however the Minister appeared disinterested and took most of my questions on notice.

I also raised concerns from constituents who were concerned that blood is not being screened for spike proteins and is sourced from vaccinated individuals, potentially spreading the spike protein widely within the community, including those who had opted not to be vaccinated. The Minister simply replied that there was no evidence to support this statement yet.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: When will government hold a royal commission into the infected blood scandal in Australia, Minister?  

Senator McCarthy: I will take that question on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: When will financial assistance be provided to victims still living with their contaminated blood caused illnesses?  

Senator McCarthy: I’ll take that question on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: When will an apology be made to the victims of this scandal?  

Senator McCarthy: I’ll take your question on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware the Canadian government has recognised the disaster of contaminated blood and has compensated victims since 1994?  

Senator McCarthy: I’m not going to answer that question.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware that a major report into infected blood in the UK has just released its findings confirming the epic scandal and cover-up by the UK government that had provided previously negligible support for victims? They knew about it and they kept doing it—infected blood. Are you aware of that?  

Senator McCarthy: I’ll take your question on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: When will the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory and the Red Cross be held accountable for their actions in knowingly transfusing contaminated blood products into people, killing and disabling many Australians?  

Senator McCarthy: I reject the premise of your question, but I will certainly follow up on many of the other matters that you’ve raised.  

Senator ROBERTS: Specifically, when will they be held accountable? What other support will be offered to these victims?  

CHAIR: Is that question to the minister or Mr Cahill, who’s at the table?  

Senator ROBERTS: To the minister.  

Senator McCarthy: I think I’ve answered question.  

Senator ROBERTS: What other support will be offered to these victims?  

Senator McCarthy: Ms Shakespeare will answer your question. Ms Shakespeare: I wanted to mention the support that’s been provided to people who’ve acquired hepatitis C, in the form of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme listing of highly effective, highly curative antiviral medication since 2016. They’re available to anybody who has hepatitis C, including those who acquired it through the blood system.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is there screening being done to ensure unvaccinated people—this is COVID vaccinations—is being used in transfusible blood products? I haven’t had a COVID injection and I’m not going to get any. If I want to go in for a blood transfusion, can I get unvaccinated blood?  

Mr Cahill: Senator, as you would know, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood collects the blood, processes the blood and distributes the blood. As far as I’m aware, they don’t do any tests for vaccinations. The testing processes are regulated by the TGA, and there’s no test for vaccinations, as far as I’m aware.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. What is the risk that mRNA based vaccines are ending up in transfusable blood products, starting another cycle of contaminated blood being transfused?  

Mr Cahill: I think we’ve probably dealt with that question a few times previously, at different hearings and also on notice. There’s no evidence globally that vaccine COVID is transmitted through blood transfusions.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m more worried about the spike protein. That’s what my constituents are asking me about.  

Mr Cahill: I think those questions have been asked previously and answered.  

Senator ROBERTS: Technology is changing quite a bit and quite rapidly, and the understanding of COVID mRNA injections is rapidly changing. When will this government stand up and be counted and take responsibility for the security of blood supply and blood quality?  

Mr Cahill: All Australian governments contribute funding to the national blood arrangements. In 2024-25 the contribution being made by governments to that is approaching $1.9 billion—for 2024-25—so that’s a significant investment in the safe, secure, affordable supply of blood and blood products. 

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