Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. I'm very happy to follow Dr Mike Freelander, the member for Macarthur, and another doctor the member for Higgins. They made very sensible contributions following on from the shadow minister for health and ageing, the member for Hindmarsh.

It is just one year ago—a year since the world changed for everyone—that COVID-19 first appeared in Australia, in late January 2020. It is one year—the equivalent of about one week of home schooling, for those who have had the joy of that—but a long time ago. It is obviously a very serious pandemic, and in that time Australians have picked up many new skills, not all of them willingly. The ability to work from home will hold us in good stead for some productivity gains and some family-life balance. Home schooling children is not something I would recommend, as the father of two boys, even though I was a school teacher in another life. We've learnt how to keep our social distance, and as we've heard from our health experts, that 1.5 metres has given us a much better flu season. We've learnt how to wash our hands for at least 20 seconds with soap regularly; how to wear a mask when necessary; how to monitor our health much more than we have perhaps been used to, particularly men, I would suggest; how to have Zoom meetings and the like; and how to hold COVID-safe activities. We've got a bit more to do on COVID-safe activities in terms of making our community strong, but I'm sure that we will get there.

We have been lucky in Australia. We've been lucky that we're an island continent and lucky we've had some great leadership. In Queensland, I've been very glad to see the work of the very capable Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and the health ministers—previously Steven Miles but now the wonderful Yvette D'Ath—and also the Chief Health Officer, the unflappable and always thorough Dr Jeannette Young. They have done an incredible job making difficult calls at tough times, I know from personal experience, making difficult calls to keep all Queenslanders safe. I'd also commend Minister Hunt and the former Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy, and all of the Commonwealth officials who have done so much to keep Australians safe. The role of our leaders has been more obvious in the last year than usual, I would suggest. Australians have relied on their guidance and the correct information. Largely, Australians have trusted their state and federal leaders and followed the health advice given to them. We've been a compliant lot, even with the personal sacrifices of not being able to attend funerals, weddings and other family functions, parties and all those sorts of things. We've heard the tennis players here for the Australian Open say that Australia is the envy of the world in its response to COVID-19. As I said, we are a lucky country, perhaps a little bit lucky. It's been a horrible one year on. One year ago Australia was on fire, and that kept away a lot of tourists who perhaps would have been here, and we could perhaps have had a swirl of COVID-19 that would have been an extra challenge. As I said earlier, the professional leadership in the health sector is what I particularly want to call out.

But I will point out my disappointment that some so-called leaders in their communities have been spreading dangerous misinformation. Obviously the chief culprit, as we've seen in the last few days, is the member for Hughes, who seems to have made spreading misinformation an art form, an art form that is dangerous for people. We know that Australians listen to their political representatives, particularly as the mainstream media fracture. We know that they listen to Facebook messages. We expect our political leaders, especially, to know about what is going on. Australians don't expect that their political leaders are being dangerous or careless or are deliberately spreading misinformation. It's especially dangerous during a pandemic, because when people are scared they are tempted to cling to simple falsehoods as a way of making sense of the chaos.

It was especially disappointing that the Prime Minister chose not to condemn the member for Hughes on Monday, when he had an opportunity to do so in front of the press gallery at the National Press Club. The standards you walk past are the standards you accept. All the Prime Minister would say on Monday is that you don't go to Facebook for COVID information and that the member for Hughes was doing a great job. Obviously, when the Prime Minister made that statement, he had his own media people devoted to putting out Facebook messages. In fact, the way that most people have been getting up-to-date information about the ever-changing COVID restrictions is not by waiting for the newspaper but by going to social media. No doubt the people in the electorate of the member for Hughes have been doing that.

In Queensland, the Premier's social media channels have been a great source of information about local cases, because they're immediate. You need to know, 'It was that restaurant.' There was a restaurant that was 100 metres from my office. We needed to know exactly which restaurant was involved and at what time you could have been affected so that the tracing process could take place. We needed to know when the testing centres were open and what the restrictions were. We needed to know all of those things. We needed to get information out quickly. My own social media channels have endeavoured to inform my constituents in Moreton about changes to restrictions in the local area and to provide information about the pandemic as immediately as it has come to hand—accurate information. People should be able to expect that their federal or state representative is giving them credible information. I saw the member for Higgins and the member for Macarthur, both respected doctors, making much the same comment. The member for Higgins particularly spoke about how necessary it is for Facebook information to be accurate. The member for Hindmarsh said much the same thing.

Right before I came into the chamber to speak, I went to the Facebook page of the member for Hughes. This page has 86,000 followers. So 86,000 people are seeing his information directly, and many of them then share that information with their followers or tell their friends about the information—the misinformation—supplied by the member for Hughes. I know that. I am a member of a Facebook group connected to my home town of St George in western Queensland, and they regularly receive this information. A couple of people send this information on like it's the gospel truth, like it's handed down from a health department. Because it's coming from a member of parliament, it must be true. I went to that webpage before I came in here at 5 pm, just half an hour ago, and right now it contains a whole lot of information on hydroxychloroquine and other things. After a couple of days spent talking about misinformation and the Prime Minister huffing and puffing about calling the member for Hughes, that information is still going out to 86,000 people.

Obviously, the member for Hughes's misinformation isn't confined to medical information. After the storming of the Capitol in Washington, the member for Hughes and his mate the member for Dawson—another superspreader of misinformation—were claiming it was a false-flag operation. It was an attack on one of the world's oldest democracies, where people died. As an Australian, I would say it is one of the most important democracies. But that misinformation wasn't condemned by the Prime Minister either. The member for Dawson and the LNP senator Matthew Canavan have also chimed in, supporting the member for Hughes. The member for Dawson has been spreading medical misinformation by sending Queenslanders an open letter addressed to the Queensland Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeannette Young, the most experienced chief health officer in Australia, with incorrect assertions about hydroxychloroquine. Today, on public social media, Senator Canavan was also backing the member for Hughes.

Why won't the Prime Minister do more to pull his team into line? The Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer actually felt the need to comment on the member for Hughes's prolific social media—no doubt paid for by the taxpayer—by saying that he didn't want to give prominence to 'non-scientific ideas'. A vaccine expert has labelled the claims of the member for Hughes as appalling and destructive. When the shadow minister for education had the opportunity to do so this morning, she called out the member for Hughes on his alarming misinformation. The standard of misinformation being spread by the member for Hughes is dangerous. It can cause death to those who follow it. The assertions of the member for Hughes go beyond being misleading; they are getting very close to being unhinged.

Let's look at some of the dangerous assertions he has made. He's accused our chief medical and health officers of 'crimes against humanity'. He's promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, against scientific evidence. He has engaged in conspiracy theories about big pharma, saying that this is all a conspiracy, because the vaccine will make more money for big pharma than his favourite remedy, hydroxychloroquine. He asserted that hydroxychloroquine didn't get approval in Australia as part of some anti-Donald-Trump conspiracy by the TGA and the chief health officers and that it would be approved after the United States election—which it hasn't because there's not enough evidence to support that it works.

I have faith in the TGA. I support the government 100 per cent on having faith in the TGA. It's extraordinary that these are the assertions of a federal member of parliament on his Facebook page right now—someone who is being paid by the taxpayer to represent his community, someone who the Prime Minister actually appointed to the Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources Committee.

We know that vaccines will play an important part in allowing the world to combat and/or live with COVID-19, and that's why the Australian Immunisation Register is so important. I stress again that this is nothing to do with making vaccines mandatory; people still need to make their own choices in consultation with their treating physicians. Making sure Australia understands who has had these vaccines is what this legislation is about.

Without a vaccine, we can't hope to have open borders and the freedom of international travel—something that is crucial to Queensland, the Sunshine State, and particularly to North Queensland, which has been hammered by the lack of international tourists. Vaccines won't be successful if there is not an uptake by the public. We need to give people confidence in our testing processes and, ultimately, in the vaccines that will be available. We need to encourage people to get the vaccine. It is a waste of taxpayer money to spend a fortune on advertising campaigns when a member of parliament is spreading unscientific misinformation.

The Prime Minister, after question time today, forced into a corner, finally had to acknowledge the dangerous rhetoric of the member for Hughes—and I do commend him for that. Unfortunately, I don't think the Prime Minister has gone nearly far enough. As I said, at five o'clock today this information was still being pumped out to the Australian public. The misinformation is still on the member for Hughes's social media. He hasn't taken it down. It is still misleading people. The Prime Minister should demand that the dangerous misinformation—and there is a tonne of it—should be taken down from his social media channels immediately. That's what a true leader would do.

I also take this opportunity to thank the wonderful researchers that we have here in Australia for their tireless work during this pandemic. We really appreciate your efforts. In particular, I want to mention the scientists at the University of Queensland, who came oh so close, and some of the other Brisbane laboratories. I won't go through all of them. I know some of those scientists and I thank them for their incredible efforts.

I support this bill and Labor supports this bill because it's crucial that the government's broader COVID-19 response be based on science. It needs to defend science and it needs to actively counter the misinformation campaigns coming from the government's own ranks that are putting at risk the health of all Australians.

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