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Make Ivermectin available

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

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Christine Holgate and Vaccination Bungle – 2SM with Marcus Paul

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Marcus] Yeah.

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

[Marcus] Franchisee’s, franchised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Marcus] All right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Brendan Murphy]

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

About, about 20 million going on.

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

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

Will that include the elderly, the frail?

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

In the States?

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

And you won’t be taking that view.

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Witness]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay.

[Witness]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

Isolate and arrest.

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

That seems pretty complete Professor Kelly?

[Professor Kelly]

individual behaviours.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sorry?

[Professor Kelly]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay. Thank you.

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

[Chair]

The last question.

[Malcolm Roberts]

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

[Brendan Murphy]

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

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

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