Posts

Affordable Medicinal Cannabis Needed for Millions of Australians

,

On Wednesday of the last sitting week in November, Senator Shoebridge proposed a bill to legalise cannabis. While support for legalising cannabis is growing strongly across Australia and Queensland, it’s essential to approach the topic with care, data, and diligence. It’s important to understand that despite claims by the TGA and the Lib-Lab UniParty that medicinal cannabis is freely available, the reality is quite different. The plant is artificially expensive and restricted in availability.

In an honest and effective way, we need to make medicinal cannabis easy and affordable to access for millions of Australians. One Nation will continue to lead the way in taking this first, humane step.

While we welcome much of Senator Shoebridge’s bill, there are three key sticking points that One Nation cannot accept:

1. One Nation cannot support home grow at this time. The trial of home cultivation in the ACT has shown it’s not widely adopted. A licensed commercial system would benefit more people than home grow at this stage

2. The fines and jail sentences proposed in the bill are excessively high. One Nation believes in ensuring that the punishment fits the crime, and this bill strangely gets that balance wrong.

3. One Nation does not support creating a new government entity to maintain a cultivar database. Instead, we would work with existing entities to achieve this purpose.

That said, the approach of removing cannabis from the control of pharmaceutical company salespeople at the TGA and establishing a new unit led by people who understand the plant, the industry, and can advance medicinal cannabis—is an excellent idea that One Nation fully supports.

A vote for One Nation is a vote for Australian, whole-plant, natural medicinal cannabis for anyone with a medical need. It would be accessible via a prescription from a doctor, nurse practitioner, or cannabis specialist, and filled by a pharmacist or qualified dispensary under the PBS.

This plan will not increase costs to taxpayers. Evidence from countries that have adopted this model shows that cannabis reduces healthcare spending, as it’s cheaper than many expensive pharmaceutical alternatives—if implemented correctly.

Transcript

There’s much in the Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 which would make the regulatory environment for cannabis in Australia much, much fairer, so I thank Senator Shoebridge for bringing this bill before the Senate. I feel very pleased to speak, excited about some things and disappointed about others. For too long, the government of the day, both Liberal and Labor, have acted to defend the pharmaceutical state from the competition that medical cannabis represents. Indeed, our regulatory body, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, is funded from the pharmaceutical industry that it purports to regulate. The result is regulatory capture. 

In recent years the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, has taken decisions that defy logic and that breach integrity—decisions that have placed 90 per cent of Australian adults at great risk of harm and death, decisions that have led to excess deaths it refuses to address, because the cause is the TGA and our health authorities. The TGA is a failed experiment; that is abundantly clear. It’s time to shut down the TGA and its apparatus of expert committees and agencies which act in concert to support the pharmaceutical industry to the detriment of the Australian people. It’s time to return control of drug and medical device approvals to the department, where the parliament will be able to exercise oversight and ensure accountability and transparency, which are sadly missing with the TGA. 

The department can be downsized. Health is the state responsibility. Centralised regulation of drugs in the hands of the Commonwealth makes sense, and the states should be charged the cost of doing it or do it themselves, as they used to. Cannabis was removed from medical options in Australia following the Menzies government’s passage of the National Health Act 1953. This legislation placed the British Pharmacopoeia as the primary source of standards for drugs in Australia. Cannabis was a stalwart of pharmacopoeia. In 2024 the only pharmacopoeia that still includes medicinal cannabis is the European version. My point is that cannabis was widely used and accepted as a legitimate medical option across a wide range of profiles for a wide range of conditions. Without a doubt, pharmaceuticals have been a boon for modern society in many ways, although for many people modern pharmaceuticals don’t work, or the side effects can exceed the benefit. There’s a simple reason for this: medical cannabis has thousands of versions, with different combinations of cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, steroids and other elements of the plant. There are thousands of elements. The Australian cannabis cultivar repository has almost 1,000 live cultivars of cannabis and is adding more all the time. 

The significance of this is that it allows a patient, under the right guidance, to match their strain of cannabis—known as the profile—to the condition that they have. Modern pharmaceuticals employ and promote the opposite approach, matching a pharmaceutical product to a condition—one size fits all, if you like. That’s not the way health should be. But both approaches should be available to the Australian people. 

I know the government and the opposition will point to the number of prescriptions written under the pathway scheme for medical cannabis and use that to mislead the public about the success of the current system. Before they make that ill-informed statement, I ask for an answer to the question the TGA refuses to answer: how many people who received a prescription for medical cannabis actually filled it? I’ll ask that again: how many people who received a prescription for medical cannabis actually filled it? My office is hearing from patients who could not afford the prescription, who could not find a chemist to fill it—often because supply was not available—and who paid out big money to get supply that was stale or even mouldy. I want to know how many people who used a medical cannabis product then suffered a side effect. I received a response to a question on notice around this last year. The answer, though, did not differentiate between legal and illegal supply. 

So many people have trouble with price or availability and they fill their prescription on the black market. Some of the black-market players run rings around the quality of the legal supply, and many others do not. On the volume of prescriptions written, though not necessarily filled, the rate of harm from medical cannabis is substantially below the rate of harm for many pharmaceutical drugs. Yet cannabis has not been embraced as an alternative treatment. It used to be the leading medicine in the medical almanac in the 1930s in America; it was No. 1. So why hasn’t it been embraced? Why has it been knocked out? Money talks. 

Restrictions to medical cannabis are more than directly regulatory. Other subtle hurdles make it difficult to access and use affordably, and that’s to the detriment of Australians’ health. Cannabis will never be approved because the cost of navigating the TGA system is so high that no cannabis supplier can afford it. The Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 contains a new regulator which could function as a unit with the department. The Cannabis Australia National Agency, CANA, would employ people who know the plant and who know how it should and should not be used. That’s a blessing. CANA would set standards for use, sale, promotion, production and importation without the need for a sponsor. CANA could work with the department to understand the supply needs of the pathway scheme to issue formal guidance on profile and volume until such time as the industry develop the critical mass to do that themselves. This solves the pathways scheme’s biggest hurdle: the supply is patchy and the quality is often rubbish. CANA would license strains of cannabis and issue guidance for use through a new agency. I suggest the Greens could have used the existing Australian cannabis register, although that’s a small point. Regulation is necessary. Some of these insane new varieties of cannabis coming out of the United States have THC levels above 30 per cent. The cannabis that came to Australia during the Vietnam War was only three per cent THC. Over 30 per cent THC is insane, though perhaps useful for palliative care at best. 

At this point, One Nation and the Greens diverge. The bill allows home cultivation of six plants. One Nation cannot support home grow. There is a qualification here: our opposition to home grow can exist only if Australians have access to safe, cheap, tested, licensed and accessible product, with a prescription from a doctor or nurse practitioner filled through a chemist or other suitable agent and supplied on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS. One Nation introduced a bill which would have done just that, and it was roasted, including by the Greens, can I say. In an interesting example of karma, their bill met the same fate. 

The German government tried for two years, through 2022 and 2023, to introduce legislation which was similar to mine—sensible down-regulation of cannabis. They spent two years fighting entrenched interests, their own department and the Bundestag, the German parliament, and then lost patience. In a decision which could be characterised as ‘Stuff the lot of you’, the government simply legalised cannabis. That came into effect on 1 April this year. I’m pleased to inform the Senate that, in a country which is directly comparable to our country, Australia, legalised cannabis hasn’t caused the world to end. In fact, nothing harmful has happened. This was the same result in the Australian Capital Territory, which allowed home grow three years ago with the same result. No harm happened. In fact, nothing happened. And that is a problem. Legalising cannabis is supposed to help people treat medical conditions, reduce drug and alcohol addiction, reduce the presence of organised crime and chill. None of that appears to have occurred. Homegrown appeals to the small number of Australians within the cannabis community who know what they are doing and who have the land to home grow. For most Australians, regulated supply works better. At this point in the development of cannabis in Australia, regulated supply will help more Australians than home grow will. I’ll say that again. At this point in the development of cannabis, which is continuing, in Australia, regulated supply will help more Australians than will home grow. 

The cannabis community makes a mistake that I find quite frustrating. They judge the plant on the basis of their experience and knowledge. They advocate for open grow and use like it were nothing more than a herb. It’s not just a herb. As I said earlier, there are 1,000 different profiles, and that number is increasing. How does an average Australian, a typical Australian, with no or limited knowledge know which one is right, how to grow it properly, how to prepare it properly and how to store and use it correctly? A typical Australian doesn’t know that, and that suggests smoking the plant, which One Nation suggests is the worst way to take medicinal cannabis. The most scientific, the most accurate and the safest is to purchase a cannabis vaping solution and vape it. But I won’t go there further today. 

The other aspect of the bill One Nation cannot accept is the fines and jail sentences for minor breaches of the regulations. Seriously, six months in jail and 200 penalties earned, which is $36,000? On the other hand, children under 18 get off without a penalty at all. I get that the Greens are trying to raise the age of criminal responsibility, but a 17-year-old who starts a business growing and selling cannabis gets no penalty at all. One Nation questions that. This has not been thought through properly. 

Let me finish with a warning and an invitation. Increasingly, One Nation is tending to the German response. If you won’t allow sensible regulation, then no regulation it is. We need sensible regulation. One Nation is prepared to engage with the government and others across the Senate to achieve a sensible regulation of cannabis, including on the PBS. We continue to listen to the community, to the people, Queensland and Australia, because we want to achieve a sensible regulation of cannabis including on the PBS.  

/4 Comments/by

AFP Questioned on Tainted Blood Complaint

,

During this session with the AFP, I inquired whether they had received a complaint about several individuals who had received tainted blood as a result of failures by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Red Cross to ensure the safety of blood donations used in medical treatments. The question was taken on notice.

Transcript

Thank you all for appearing tonight. I’ll get one question out of the way first. In October this year, several haemophiliacs and parents of haemophiliacs filed criminal complaints with the Australian Federal Police commissioner, Commissioner Kershaw. The complainants have not received any acknowledgement of their submissions. Is the federal government aware of these complaints? When can the complainants expect a response?

Mr McCartney: I’m not across the matter. I’ll take that on notice, and we’ll come back to you.

Senator ROBERTS: We’ve supported these people and we’ll continue to support them. They’ve got a serious case. It’s an injustice that’s very strong and sustained. Their counterparts in Britain have been dealt with properly. These people over here are not being dealt with.

/by

One Nation Calls for Inquiry into Unsustainable Immigration

,

Australia is in a housing crisis. Tent cities are appearing across the country, from parks and bridges to family cars, as rents soar and home ownership becomes unattainable. I’ve seen these conditions firsthand, and it’s heartbreaking. Since 2020, rents have increased by 40%, and the average house price has jumped to nearly 10 times the average income.

A major driver of this crisis is our turbocharged immigration program. While I value the contributions of migrants—being one myself—the current intake is unsustainable. In 2023 alone, over half a million net migrants arrived in Australia. This relentless surge is straining our housing market, health services, infrastructure, and economy.

The math is simple. With 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, about one million homes are occupied by these individuals. Yet, we’re building far fewer homes than we need, leaving more Australians homeless and without hope. This unprecedented immigration inflates demand, driving up costs in housing, infrastructure, and everyday essentials. High inflation, soaring interest rates, and gridlocked roads are the direct results of this unsustainable growth. Meanwhile, our health system is overwhelmed, and working families are left to fend for themselves.

The government’s solution? More immigration. It’s time to prioritise Australians—our families, our communities, and our future. Let’s address the housing crisis with meaningful reforms, not empty promises.

Transcript

Australia is in a housing crisis—a housing catastrophe. Tent cities are appearing across the country in the way many people have never seen before. I have been to them. It’s disgraceful. In almost every major city in Queensland I’ve been to, the tents are there. People are sleeping under bridges, in caravans, in parks or in their family car. In August 2020, the national average rent was $437 a week. It’s now $627 a week. That’s an increase of 40 per cent over just a few years. In 1987, the average house price was 2.8 times the average income. Today the house price is 9.7 times the income. That’s nearly 10 times. What hope have our children got? 

A major driver of the housing crisis is Australia’s turbocharged immigration program. Listen to the facts that I’ll come up with soon, and remember that I’m not against migration. I was born in India; I’m half migrant. Australia has a very proud history of migrants building this country, but at the moment we have too many. Let me give you those figures. Australia’s net overseas migration used to average a bit over 80,000 a year. For the 2023 year, our net intake was an astonishing 547,000 new people. That’s more than half a million new people net. In the nine months to September 2024, 394,000 immigrants were added to the population. That puts us well on track for yet another year of more than half a million arrivals into the country. That’s net. That’s after the people who’ve left have been removed from the count. 

Soon after setting Australia’s immigration record last year, Prime Minister Albanese promised he would cut immigration rates. Instead he increased immigration rates and is on track for a second new record in a row. Before 2020 and excluding tourists and short-stay crew, there were around 1.8 million temporary visa holders in the country. Today that number is 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, an increase of a third. Using Australia’s average household size of about 2½ people per dwelling, that means temporary visa holders are taking up one million homes. One million homes are unavailable because of this immigration program. 

The Master Builders Association’s October housing review shows that, in the 12 months to 30 June this year, only 158,000 homes were completed. So much for your housing policy. That’s less than we needed to cover new arrivals let alone the homeless and those sharing who want their own place. Every year that this Labor government is in power is yet another year Australia’s housing crisis becomes worse. That is why it’s beyond a crisis; it’s a catastrophe. The ALP and the Greens can promise more houses all they like. Houses aren’t built out of rhetoric. When Australians are sleeping on the street we have to stop the flow of more people into the country. 

Some of these temporary visa holders have to leave. Let’s start with the 400,000 overseas students who have completed or discontinued their study and have failed the 100-point test necessary for permanent residency. These students are in a limbo which is best solved by returning home and developing their own countries with the skills learnt here. Then there are hundreds of thousands of long-stay visa holders who have failed to learn English and failed to get a job but who nonetheless avail themselves of social security. I’ll say that again: they failed to learn English, failed to get a job and are on social security that the Australian taxpayers are paying for. If someone has been in this country for five years and has failed to earn their own way then their visa must be critically reviewed to determine if Australia is the right place for them. It’s time to put the temporary back into temporary visa holder. Our country is bleeding; stop twisting the knife. 

The unprecedented level of immigration isn’t just leading to the housing crisis; 2.45 million extra people add to inflation. Inflation is caused when too much demand is chasing too few goods. It’s really simple, and 2.45 million new arrivals is a lot of new demand. It’s a hell of a lot. The government’s net zero energy policy has driven up power prices—we can all see that— and reduced the capacity of agriculture and manufacturing to meet this demand, leading to demand inflation. It’s a double whammy on inflation. The Reserve Bank has refused to lower interest rates because, as they have publicly stated, this unprecedented rate of immigration is creating so much excess demand, and they have said that reducing interest rates now would cause inflation to worsen. House prices are at highs. Now we’ve got interest rates high. This is a huge catastrophe. 

Why is the government doing this? As Senator Hanson said, we’ve been in a per capita recession now for six quarters. We should be in a recession, according to the performance of our economy. The only reason we’re not in a recession is that they’re flooding the joint with migrants to bump up the gross domestic product. You see, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative gross domestic product. So the only thing saving the recession tag from being hung around Prime Minister Albanese’s neck and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s neck is the record immigration coming in to take us over zero so we’re just barely hanging in there. They don’t want to be tagged, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who are in office, when the recession hits. Instead they will let hundreds of thousands of people go without what they need, facing inflation and tens of thousands of people without a home. 

Immigration is also affecting our health response. Ambulance ramping is at an all-time high in most states, including in my state of Queensland. It takes time to train paramedics, expand emergency departments and buy new ambulances. The pace of the government’s increase in new arrivals has placed demand on our health system and it simply can’t keep up. Lives are at stake, people are dying, and Labor does not care. It doesn’t care about working families. It doesn’t care about mums and dads working then coming home at night to their family car in a park to see if their kids are still there. That is what this government is doing. 

One of the largest budget costs is more infrastructure, especially on roads and transport. These projects are collectively costing hundreds of billions of dollars. The huge demand for infrastructure materials and qualified people is driving up the cost of infrastructure, adding to inflation. Many of these projects wouldn’t be necessary if we didn’t have an extra 2.45 million people in the country. The people coming to work from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, coming to work from the Sunshine Coast, even Caboolture, Burpengary, Morayfield, every day to work in the city of Brisbane are tied up in a car park or are in stationary traffic for hours—their lives just slipping away. 

We have people sleeping under bridges. As I said a minute ago, we have a mother and father returning after work to see if the children are still in the car in the park in which they live, or a showground or maybe a tent under a bridge. Australia has the world’s richest reserves of minerals, bar none, and we have people sleeping in tents because the Labor government does not care. 

It’s a vicious cycle where the government claims that we can fix the immigration problem with more immigration and that we can fix the housing catastrophe by adding bureaucrats and more immigration—fix housing, the catastrophe, with more immigration.  

/3 Comments/by

Labor Rejects Royal Commission into COVID

,

Labor refuses to call a Royal Commission into COVID, because they’ve already been given $1 million in donations from Big Pharma.

One Nation is calling for a COVID Royal Commission now, to ensure we never repeat the same mistakes.

/by

DNA Contamination Found in Australian COVID-19 Vaccine Vials

I sent a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese supporting Russell Broadbent’s request for him to address the concerning findings in a recent scientific report prepared by Canadian virologist Dr. David Speicher.

My Letter to Prime Minister

240930 PM-Albanese-MIRDownload

Report Prepared by Dr. David Speicher

240909 – D Speicher ReportDownload

Russell Broadbent MP’s Letter to the Prime Minister

Australians-Demand-Answers-25.09.2024Download

Special Council Meeting | 11 October 2024

Council Meeting Details » Town of Port Hedland

/2 Comments/by

Australia’s Contaminated Blood Scandal

One of the most troubling scandals in Australia involved government agencies, the Australian Red Cross, blood banks, and CSL, who knowingly transfused contaminated blood to individuals in need of transfusions. This included blood from donors with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV, which was then used for transfusions to people, including haemophiliacs, who underwent surgery or other critical procedures.

Many recipients of this tainted blood subsequently contracted these diseases themselves. Despite numerous efforts to seek compensation from the responsible agencies and the Commonwealth, no resolution has been achieved so far.

In contrast, the Canadian government addressed this issue and compensated victims. Furthermore, following a Royal Commission into contaminated blood in the United Kingdom, the full extent of the scandal was acknowledged, and victims were provided with appropriate compensation.

I have has actively pursued justice for Australian victims, questioning the Blood Authority at Senate Estimates in February 2023 and again in June 2024 about the possibility of a Royal Commission and compensation. I remain dedicated to ensuring that Australian victims receive the justice and compensation they deserve.

Photograph: Science Photo Library/Tek Image/Getty Images

Senate Estimates: February 2023 | Questions and Answers

A0532_CommunityAffairs_HealthandAgedCareDownload

Senate Estimates: June 2024 | Questions and Answers

A1552_CommunityAffairs_HealthandAgedCareDownload
/by

The Threat From Lab-Grown Meat is Lost on FSANZ

,

I have asked, over multiple estimate sessions, about the approval process for lab-grown meat. While I acknowledge and understand Food Standard Australia New Zealand’s (FSANZ) need to take their time with this decision, the process seems more about ticking the boxes rather than conducting a serious investigation into the potential health impacts of this Frankenstein food product.

Australia has the highest quality farm produce globally, with the capability to both feed our population and export protein. There is absolutely no need for lab-grown meats. The process of cultivating muscle cells from live cattle via biopsy in a bio-reactor to create meat, bears a resemblance to how cancer cells replicate.

Lab-grown meat has the nutritional value of whatever it has been cultivated in. There’s no chance this product will match the nutritional value and safety of real meat.

One Nation believes that before lab-grown meat is approved, extensive generational testing must be conducted to assess the impact of this product on human cells, including testing for potential damage to reproductive capacity and to the development of cancers – a process known as genotoxicity testing. If such testing were performed on rats (a perfectly valid method), it would have been completed by now. The lack of such testing is alarming and begs the question – why has it not been conducted?

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. At last estimates, I asked about genotoxicity of products grown in a bioreactor—lab meat. Your answer on notice—and thank you for providing this—was: ‘There are no safety concerns, including genotoxicity.’ Is that still your position?  

Dr Cuthbert: Yes, it is.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Your answer doesn’t address my question. I didn’t ask if you had no genotoxicity concerns. I asked, and now repeat: have you received genotoxicity testing on this or a similar product from a suitable jurisdiction?  

Dr Cuthbert: I’ll pass to Dr O’Mullane, who is the general manager for risk management and intelligence and is managing the assessment.  

Dr O’Mullane: Thank you for the question. If I could just go back to a statement around genotoxicity or carcinogenicity, and that is that the starting material for these types of cell based meat products are cells taken from healthy animals. They are not cancerous cells and they are not cancer cells. They are cells that are harvested from connective tissue, from muscle tissue, from skin tissue. They are then taken into a bioreactor and they are selected. There are natural variants that can live for a reasonable period of time in that bioreactor under very specific and controlled conditions, along with tissue culture media components. Taken outside of that bioreactor, they are not capable of surviving. They are not going to survive food processing activities or cooking; they would certainly not survive through the human digestive tract. So our position very clearly is that the cells that are used in terms of the quail application that we’re currently looking at don’t pose any cancer concerns. They’re not cancerous. That view is held not specifically for these quail cells but certainly in a more general sense via the US Food and Drug Administration who have made statements in this effect and also the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, who provided a report last year around cell cultured foods, and they have made similar statements. To your question on genotoxicity data, I don’t believe that genotoxicity data was provided as part of this application. I will confirm that. So the characterisation of the safety risks are very much around the molecular characterisation of the cells and what is involved with the actual culture media. So we are confident that these cells and the actual products that are generated from those cells aren’t going to pose a human health and safety concern. 

Senator ROBERTS: So you have not received genotoxicity testing on this or a suitable product from a suitable jurisdiction?  

Dr O’Mullane: I don’t believe we have. But I will confirm that on notice if I may.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. How can you say then that you have no genotoxicity testing concerns if you haven’t done or seen genotoxicity testing?  

Dr O’Mullane: Based on the points that I’ve already made. It is based on the actual characteristics of the cells. These are entirely normal cells that have been taken out of healthy animals. So there is no plausible reason to consider that they would have any sort of cancer or genotoxicity potential.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you’re relying upon the FDA in America?  

Dr O’Mullane: We are not relying on the FDA. As part of this particular application, certain data have been provided. We are still going through an active process of scientific evaluation which is still running for at least another six months. On the basis of what we have seen to date, we went out with a first public consultation ending in February this year. The risk assessment that we put out very clearly said that there were no human health and safety concerns. If there is any additional information that might be available, either from yourself or others, that could be submitted, we would certainly be happy to look at that and see whether we needed to make any sort of adjustments. But, based on the evidence that we’ve seen to date, we are confident in the safety of this particular cell based quail.  

Senator ROBERTS: But you’ve done no genotoxicity testing. What is the state of approval for Vow Group’s application to produce imitation quail meat in a bioreactor for human consumption?  

Dr O’Mullane: I mentioned that there was a first public consultation round earlier in the year. We’re due to go out with a second public consultation round in July. Then there will be a period of time where we will evaluate any submissions. That second so-called call for submissions report will include the proposed legal drafting: things like labelling that will appear in the Food Standards Code. There will be an opportunity for stakeholders to comment on our legal drafting in terms of its clarity and enforceability. We then go through a period of proposing a so-called approval report for the FSANZ Board to make a decision. At the moment we’re looking at around the end of the year, probably in December. Once the FSANZ Board has made a decision, there’s a 60-day window where that decision is notified to food ministers, who then have the opportunity to call for a review of that decision or not. Following that, if everything goes smoothly, it would be gazetted and then go into food law.  

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve in embarked on consultation?  

Dr O’Mullane: This is considered a major application, so we’re required to undertake two rounds of public consultation. We’ve undertaken one round, and we’re about to take—  

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve finished the first round. You’re about to start the second.  

Dr O’Mullane: That’s correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: Then the approvals will continue without any further testing, and, even if you give approval, it will be the subject of the health ministers and the states to object if they want to.  

Dr O’Mullane: That’s correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: Have they got the capacity to do their own testing? They’d be relying on you.  

Dr O’Mullane: Yes. They would certainly provide us with very detailed commentary around why they were calling for the FSANZ Board to review its decision.  

Senator ROBERTS: Who decides use of the word ‘meat’, which the public rightly associates with an animal product, not a laboratory product? 

Dr O’Mullane: In relation to the current quail application, as part of the first public consultation we’ve looked at possible options for labelling and what it may be called. Where we are heading to at the moment is either ‘cell cultured’ or ‘cell cultivated’ quail. Based on the consumer feedback that we’ve had, that seems to be best understood by consumers. In terms of the use of the term ‘meat’, you’re right that there is a specific definition of meat in the Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code, which is defined there. But if the term ‘meat’ is used in an accurate context so as not to mislead consumers it could potentially be used in a different context.  

Senator ROBERTS: What do you mean?  

Dr O’Mullane: For example, use of the term ‘milk’. Milk is defined in the Food Standards Code, but milk can also be used in the context of soy milk or oat milk. In that context it’s not misleading because consumers generally know that it’s not from an animal, similar to the use of the term ‘beer’ in ginger beer or ‘bread’ in shortbread. It’s around the context of use that we need to look.  

Senator ROBERTS: Your reply also states that FSANZ is a member of the World Health Organization’s technical working group on cell based food as well as an OECD expert group on cell based food. Can Australians have confidence this decision is all your own work instead of being guided by foreign commercial interests?  

Dr O’Mullane: We’re still going through an active process at the moment. The food hasn’t actually been approved. If it is approved by the FSANZ Board, it will be because there is a scientific weight of evidence supporting the safety and suitability of the cell cultured quail. If it does end up on supermarket shelves, consumers can be confident that that’s the case and that the food will be labelled appropriately so that consumers can understand the true nature of the food and that they can make informed purchasing decisions. Senator ROBERTS: But you’re doing no further testing, including no genotoxicity testing.  

Dr O’Mullane: We don’t specifically do testing. We rely on the evidence that the applicant has provided, and there are—  

Senator ROBERTS: You rely on the evidence the applicant has provided?  

Dr O’Mullane: We rely on the evidence the applicant has provided in the context of the legislative requirements to provide certain information, data and studies. That is supplemented by our own scientific searches of the literature.  

Senator ROBERTS: This is a new field, yet you’re relying on regulations or legislation made in this building?  

Dr O’Mullane: We’re relying on scientific information. It’s a weight of scientific evidence that will then support the decision one way or the other about whether to permit this cell cultured quail product. 

/7 Comments/by

Public Hearing: Vaping Reforms Bill 2024


The Albanese government is legislating to prohibit vaping for recreational use, as an aid to quitting smoking and to sustain smoking cessation efforts. I’ve been receiving numerous messages from Australians who have successfully kicked the smoking habit through vaping. They now either vape a herbal solution to combat the physical habit of smoking, or have completely quit. The Labor government’s move to ban vaping contradicts the international vaping experience.

Health authorities in the UK have found that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking and provides an effective pathway for smokers to quit.

The measures in the bill will, however, allow individuals wanting to quit or who are in the process of quitting, to obtain a prescription from their doctor for a vape. The use of this provision is being disingenuous, as many Australians who are attempting to access vapes to aid them in quitting are finding that either their doctor refuse to prescribe a vape, or the pharmacy does not stock them. 

Additionally, the costs have surged as demand s gone up exponentially as volume has fallen, and as medical establishments take a much larger share of the sale than a tobacco/vape retailer did.

Although there’s concern about children, it’s always been illegal for minors to vape, just as it’s always been illegal for children to smoke cigarettes. While vaping poses less risk to minors than smoking, the ideal scenario is for parents and guardians to prevent their children from engaging in either. The idea that vaping serves as a gateway to smoking is wrong and is not supported by experiences in many other countries like the UK that have legalised vaping.

The Minister’s actions will force vaping underground, evidenced by recent incidents where two vape shops were targeted by organised crime. Illegally supplied vapes will likely be adulterated with addictive substances, manufactured cheaply and with little regard for safety.

This is a health disaster waiting to happen and is entirely foreseeable.

One Nation supports the regulation and licensing of vapes and vaping products exclusively for adult consumers.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for being present today. Professor Buchanan, can I confirm your involvement with the University of Wollongong School of Health and Society?

Prof. Buchanan: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. The University of Wollongong school of health receives substantial grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council year on year. Is your testimony today completely
independent of the people who fund you?

Prof. Buchanan: I am not funded, Senator Roberts, by the University of Wollongong. I have an honorary position and I receive no funding from the University of Wollongong.

Senator ROBERTS: The university is associated with the Global Challenges Project, which is funded by Open Philanthropy, an organisation that campaigns against smoking specifically by taxing it out of reach of
everyday Australians. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?

Prof. Buchanan: Sorry, Senator; in the last part of your question I got a bang on the microphone and I didn’t catch it.

Senator ROBERTS: Sure. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?

Prof. Buchanan: We support a comprehensive approach to reducing tobacco. Excise is one of those approaches, and there is a range of others. They are all outlined in the National Tobacco Strategy and we support
all of the measures in the National Tobacco Strategy.

Senator ROBERTS: Cancer Research UK have a 100 per cent opposing view to yours. Their analysis of the use of e-cigarettes, ones that are registered with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the equivalent of our TGA, states this: Lots of people want to know about the health effects of e-cigarettes … Many studies show that vaping is far less harmful than smoking. This is because e-cigarettes don’t contain cancer-causing tobacco, and most of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes are not in e-cigarettes. … … … There is no good evidence that vaping causes cancer. … … … Because vaping is far less harmful than smoking, your health could benefit from switching from smoking to vaping. And you will reduce your risk of getting cancer. Who is right — Cancer Research UK or the Australian Cancer Council?

Prof. Buchanan: What we are all saying is that we want to see people who smoke stop smoking, because it is incredibly risky. If some smokers can benefit in quitting by using e-cigarettes then we would support that. We have never not supported that. But we would like to see that support provided through a healthcare professional who can enable that person to make the right clinical decisions to manage their nicotine addiction and then to move forward by helping them to quit vaping. In many of the studies where people have used vaping to quit, we’ve seen an increase in the number of people who dual use rather than quit products altogether, and that is not a good outcome.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll come to what you’ve said in a minute. Johns Hopkins Medicine also maintains that: Vaping is less harmful than smoking. … … … Regular cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic. … … … … vaping exposes you to fewer toxic chemicals. Professor Buchanan, why are you supporting a bill that exposes smokers to more toxic chemicals than vaping?

Prof. Buchanan: We are not supporting a bill that increases people’s exposure to anything. What we are supporting are ongoing comprehensive tobacco control measures in this country which have proven to be incredibly effective in reducing smoking rates. At the same time, for those smokers who are struggling to quit— and we need to remember that it is a very small percentage of the population—we want them to get the help that they need under the care of a healthcare professional.

Senator ROBERTS: We are on the same track now, then. Professor, the United Kingdom National Health Service says of vaping: Nicotine vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking. It’s also one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking. That is what I think you want. It says: Vaping is not completely harmless and we only recommend it for adult smokers, to support quitting smoking and staying quit. Is the Cancer Council of Australia out of step with the science?

Prof. Buchanan: I think we have already addressed that. What we want to see for people who are looking to quit smoking are evidence based approaches to quit. We know that most Australian people who are looking to quit smoking will quit unaided. For those who need support and cessation aids to quit—and that is not the vast majority of smokers; in fact, the vast majority of smokers who quit smoking do so unaided—there is a strong evidence base of safe, effective, regulated medicines in Australia. E-cigarettes are not one of those and so people should be receiving support for using those products under the care of a healthcare professional.

Senator ROBERTS: My electorate office has been receiving many contacts from real Australians complaining about this measure and saying how much vaping has improved their lives, reduced their nicotine dependency and even helped them quit smoking entirely. Are these people lying or are you protecting the $500 million ‘quit smoking’ industry from a product internationally proven to reduce smoking?

Prof. Buchanan: We have not said anywhere that this product will not help some people to quit smoking. We do believe that it well. But because the nature of the product is that it is not a safe product people are best placed to work with their healthcare professional—

Senator ROBERTS: It’s stated that two out of three—

CHAIR: We need to let the witness finish.

Prof. Buchanan: I do take objection to your implication that we are somehow protecting an industry. We are actually about preventing ill health from smoking and also associated with vaping.

CHAIR: Thank you, witnesses, for staying longer than you were allocated. We appreciate your involvement in our committee. If you have taken questions on notice, we are asking for answers back very quickly—by COB Monday 6 May.

/6 Comments/by

Murders at Bondi Junction Were Preventable 

Joel Cauchi, who stabbed and killed six people and hospitalised another 12 people was a known mental health patient from Queensland. 

With a long history of schizophrenia, Cauchi was living an itinerant lifestyle with deteriorating mental health and apparently not being adequately medicated or monitored. 

How could this disaster have been prevented? Significant questions remain unanswered.

Who was responsible for managing his mental illness while in the community?  

Had he been considered safe to be in the community and how could that decision have been so wrong? 

Had he been lost to the system and fallen through the cracks in the system? 

Was this because the Queensland mental health system is severely under resourced with insufficient trained staff and not enough mental health beds in a failed public health system? 

Was this tragedy a result of the closing of mental health facilities and a foreseeable consequence of a policy of treating mentally ill patients within the community? 

Was Cauchi being treated in Queensland under a Treatment Authority receiving enforced treatment and had he moved interstate to NSW to avoid treatment? 

Did the Queensland mental health system know he had moved out of the state to NSW? 

When was the last time his mental health had been assessed in Queensland? 

Fixing this broken system may help prevent a repeat of this horror story. 

/12 Comments/by

Replace Health Pharmacrats With People-First Health Care

,

One thing that has come out of the COVID response is how it’s exposed the pharmaceutical industry to more scrutiny from the public than ever before. More questions have been raised about the Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA) and our Health Pharmacrats than ever before. Yet, what is the alternative?

In this parliamentary speech, I put it on record that we must look at the influence of pharmaceutical companies on the education system for medical professionals, and the relationships between pharma giants and former health department executives. The toxic, inhuman killer ‘pharmaceutical only’ model is failing Australian taxpayers. People are dying needlessly.

As an example, Albicidin is a natural antibiotic with clear potential to become our leading antimicrobial. It’s proven to not create resistance. Albicidin could be, and most likely is the answer to antimicrobial resistance. There are many others, but they don’t get patented. They don’t receive sponsorship and therefore they don’t get approved.

It’s time for an entirely new medical paradigm. One that puts humans first, not big pharma.

Antimicrobial resistance is the new climate change, allowing for control over agriculture, medicine and household and industrial cleaning, in the name of reducing use of antimicrobials. That’s why an alternative solution, using an antimicrobial that doesn’t cause antimicrobial resistance, is being ignored and quietly buried. It’s to protect globalist profits and to control people – and to hell with human and animal health and safety!

Globalists WANT control. Globalists NEED control to complete their agenda.

Australia needs a customer consumer advocate, or natural product advocate, to advance natural products that can’t be patented, yet are safe and effective treatments — products to be listed under Schedule 4 and offered under the PBS as frontline medicines. Not watered down products sold in supermarkets as complementary medicines so that their efficacy can plausibly be dismissed.

Instead of advancing people-first health care, our Pharmacrats are actively promoting mRNA vaccines and medications to the commercial benefit of big pharma. This is caused by “the patent cliff”, which refers to the expiration of patents on popular drugs, leading pharmaceutical companies to face intense competition from generic drug makers, dramatically reducing their profits. The new mRNA technology allows big pharma to replace off-patent drugs with newly patented mRNA drugs at prices that guarantee their profits for the next 30 years. Our health authorities are actively promoting this solution to the patent cliff, despite the myriad of adverse health outcomes from the mRNA vaccines.

Why? These are important matters that can only be answered by a Royal Commission.

What should not wait for a Royal Commission is a system to incorporate affordable, natural remedies into our health approval process. This could be implemented immediately if the Pharmacrats were interested in providing people-first health care.

Transcript

Where’s the scrutiny on our health authorities? During COVID, drugs were rushed through that would never have been approved on safety and efficacy grounds, such as molnupiravir and remdesivir. Last year, these two inhuman pharmaceuticals cost taxpayers $1 billion. Alternatively, tried and tested drugs that are out of patent could have been used for a fraction of the price. Remember that our authorities and the mouthpiece media called ivermectin ‘horse paste’. The statist Left rushed to demonise anyone who defended ivermectin, because the control side of politics—the so-called Left—loves to follow orders. Ivermectin is a Nobel-Prize-winning antiviral for humans. Over 40 years, it has saved millions of lives. Around the world, it’s now been proven safe and effective as an early-stage treatment for COVID, as it always was.

Our health authorities demonised ivermectin to prevent early-stage treatment of COVID in order to build demand for an untested novel mRNA vaccine. How many died because of the long-term strategy that our health authorities followed and pushed—a strategy to use COVID as a cover to introduce a class of mRNA drugs that the public would have rightly baulked at and rejected? How many died from the side effects of mRNA technology—technology that was not tested in Australia and was not tested off the production line, for which the method of production was changed after overseas testing and approval and the fake trials were at best shambolic and at worst criminally negligent?

Why would our health authorities tolerate this? Simply because of a thing called the patent cliff. Pharmaceutical companies are profitable because they develop a new drug and then get a patent, exclusive sale of the drug for 25 years. Drug companies can afford to put that drug through the approval process because once it’s approved they add the approval cost to the selling price—kerching, kerching!

The system of drug patents has created a $2 trillion industry whose tentacles of influence extend to political parties, who happily accept donations, and to health authorities. Their tentacles extend to the USFDA and Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health, who hold patents on drug processes they license to big pharma in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in personal royalties. Their tentacles extend to the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, whose young global leaders sit in this parliament.

This is influence that our healthy authorities cultivate while coveting lucrative careers in the pharmaceutical industry. For example, just eight months after approving Pfizer’s untested COVID injections, Professor John Skerritt, former head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, is now on the board of the pharmaceutical industry lobby group Medicines Australia. This isn’t the normal operation of a free-enterprise system that One Nation would support; this is a cabal of greedy, unprincipled, evil individuals treating everyday citizens as cash cows. They want everything you have for themselves, including your health.

The patent cliff is upon us. There’s increasing urgency—desperation—in the measures being rammed through government. Two-thirds of the revenue is from drugs being sold to you that are out of patent now or will go out of patent over the next five years. That threatens big pharma’s harvesting of humans for profit. Modern drugs, once out of patent, can be made for cents per tablet. India specialises in that. Australia used to, and we can do it again. The patent cliff threatens the entire pharmaceutical industry and stops the ability of chemical pharmaceuticals to do better than they do now, in terms of profit.

From where are the new patents going to come? I’m glad you asked, Mr Acting Deputy President: from mRNA of course. There are 400 new mRNA vaccines and drugs currently under development. Such is the expected volume of these things that two manufacturing plants are being prepared here in Australia. Our health authorities decided to press ahead with mRNA technology to save the pharmaceutical status quo—the pharmaceutical gouging of people to extract exorbitant profits. Patient harm apparently no longer matters.

Last week, a study of 99 million COVID-jab users, including in New South Wales and Victoria, found the product was not safe. The study was published by Elsevier, for more than 140 years the world’s leading scientific publisher and data analytics company. The study showed the following conditions were occurring above baseline levels: brain and spinal cord swelling, up 380 per cent; blood clots, up 320 per cent; Guillain-Barre syndrome, up 250 per cent; and myocarditis, up 278 per cent for Moderna and up 350 per cent for Pfizer. After a second injection, myocarditis was up a damning 610 per cent and pericarditis was up 690 per cent. I told you so four years ago. Many good people warned that COVID products were not tested, that they were experimental, and that forcing them on the general population was an insane, inhuman abuse of government power. Now look at those figures. It’s another area for a royal commission to investigate.

It’s time for an entirely new medical paradigm in this country and throughout the West. Pharmaceutical companies are embracing mRNA as their saviour because it can be patented. They can charge whatever they want for it, and compliant health bureaucrats like our TGA, acting out of self-interest, protect pharmaceutical companies from financial harm. The expert medical advice the TGA relies on comes either directly from drug companies or from advisers who have worked for big pharma, who have accepted research grants or sponsorship from big pharma, or who covet doing so in the future. After all, $29-million Sydney harbourside mansions don’t just buy themselves.

These are things that make for a royal commission. One thing that should not wait for a royal commission is a system for getting cheap, natural remedies into our health approval system. Australia needs an office of the consumer advocate to oversee complaints and the harm bureaucrats cause—bureaucrats who appear incapable of acknowledging odious and obvious adverse events. We need a customer consumer advocate or a natural product advocate to advance natural products that can’t be patented but are safe and effective treatments—products to be listed under schedule 4 and offered under the PBS as frontline medicines, not watered down and sold in supermarkets as complementary medicines so their efficacy can be dismissed. Albicidin, for example, is a natural antibiotic with clear potential to become our leading antimicrobial. It’s proven to not create resistance. Albicidin could be the answer, and highly likely is the answer to antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance is the new climate change, allowing for control over agricultural, medicine, and household and industrial cleaning in the name of reducing use of antimicrobials. That’s why an alternative solution, using an antimicrobial that doesn’t cause antimicrobial resistance, is being ignored and quietly buried: to protect globalist profits and to control people—and to hell with human and animal health and safety! Globalists want control. Globalists need control to complete their agenda.

Take another example: blushwood is an Australian native berry. It was shown, in a 2014 test, to kill skin cancer in just 10 days. Did our health authorities rush to understand this plant and bring a potentially lifesaving medication to market? No; they did not. Another one: conolidine is a natural treatment for severe pain. Ignored! Natural remedies include cannabis. Senator Pauline Hanson has led way, advocating for medicinal cannabis since 1996. I joined her, and now there are others.

A recent paper pointed out that natural products work differently to chemical products, yet our system for understanding and testing substance efficacy is geared to chemical drugs. The paper and system offer a new way of measuring efficacy that confirms plants like cannabis and conolidine do work, and explains how they work. The truth is this: currently only when a product is patented and presented as the TGA on a plate, ready for the TGA’s rubberstamp, does it enter our pharmaceutical system. I urge the Minister for Health and Aged Care to introduce a consumer natural products advocate to provide much needed supervision and accountability over our health authorities. Failing that, I ask the Greens to consider if the agency they’re establishing with the Legalising Cannabis Bill would be better suited to handle natural medications in general—those that the TGA refuse to handle in addition to cannabis.

I’m not offering medical advice on the examples I’ve used in this speech; I’m asking why the health department and medical schools first response is to the scalpel and the prescription pad instead of natural medications that cost a fraction of the price. We must have an independent office in the TGA with the budget to sponsor natural alternatives through the safety, testing and efficacy stages, and to have these promoted to doctors who most likely have never even heard of them.

We must look at the influence of pharmaceutical companies in the education system for medical people, in their relationship with former health department executives and their influence through advertising and sponsorship. The toxic inhuman killer ‘pharmaceutical only’ model is failing Australian taxpayers. People are dying needlessly. Stop so-called health authorities committing homicide, child homicide, infanticide. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I say call a royal commission now and make an immediate start on the obvious reforms to our health administration that we need.

/6 Comments/by