House debates

Tuesday, 30 November 2021

Bills

National Health Amendment (Enhancing the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill 2021; Consideration in Detail

12:37 pm

Photo of Craig KellyCraig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move amendment (1) circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 1, page 3 (before line 4), before the heading specifying National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits-Budget and Other Measures) Act 2018, insert:

National Health Act 1953

1A At the end of section 9B

Add:

(11) Nothing in this section or any other Commonwealth law allows the Minister to:

(a) require a person to receive a vaccine; or

(b) provide, or arrange for the provision of, a vaccine unless the Minister is satisfied on reasonable grounds that the vaccine is not or will not be administered to a person without the person's free and informed consent.

(12) Without limiting paragraph (11)(b), a person's consent to the administration of a vaccine to the person is not free and informed if:

(a) when the person consents, the person is under a threat of negative consequences (including prejudice or disadvantage) if the person does not consent; or

(b) the consent is a result of coercion.

1B After subsection 84C(1AA)

Insert:

(lAB) To avoid doubt, for the purposes of determining a person's eligibility for a concession card or any other concession or benefit under this Act, it is irrelevant whether the person has been injected with any:

(a) experimental medical intervention; or

(b) medical intervention that has less than 5 years of safety data.

1C After subsection 101(4F)

Insert:

(4G) The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee must:

(a) review recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Medicines Scheduling in relation to new restrictions on prescribing previously approved drugs for off-label use; and

(b) advise the Minister and the Department about the recommendations.

1D After subsection 132G(2)

Insert:

(2B) Nothing in this section or any other Commonwealth law allows the Minister to:

(a) require a person to receive a COVID-19 vaccine; or

(b) provide, or arrange for the provision of, a COVID-19 vaccine unless the Minister is satisfied on reasonable grounds that the vaccine is not or will not be administered to a person without the person's free and informed consent.

(2C) Without limiting paragraph (2B)(b), a person's consent to the administration of a COVID-19 vaccine to the person is not free and informed if:

(a) when the person consents, the person is under a threat of negative consequences (including prejudice or disadvantage) if the person does not consent; or

(b) the consent is a result of coercion.

1E At the end of Part VIIIB

Add:

132H Restrictions on COVID-19 treatments

(1) This section applies to a treatment for COVID-19 that:

(a) has documented success in reducing hospitalisation or death from COVID-19; and

(b) is currently being provided by medical practitioners in Australia.

(2) Before the Minister engages in conduct (whether or not under this Act) that would have the effect of restricting the ability of medical practitioners to provide the treatment, the Minister must consult with the medical practitioners in Australia who currently provide the treatment.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), engages in conduct includes makes a legislative instrument.

There are five separate clauses to this one amendment which I have put together as a single amendment for the ease of the House. Firstly, I will talk about clauses 1A and 1D together as they are basically the same. They amend to enhance the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme section 9B, which is the provision of vaccines, and also section 132G(2), which is the provision of COVID vaccines and treatments. Both parts have the same wording, which I'll read out. They add two paragraphs to both those sections, and they are:

(11) Nothing in this section or any other Commonwealth law allows the Minister to:

(a) require a person to receive a vaccine; or

(b) provide, or arrange for the provision of, a vaccine unless the Minister is satisfied on reasonable grounds that the vaccine is not or will not be administered to a person without the person's free and informed consent.

(12) Without limiting paragraph (11)(b), a person's consent to the administration of a vaccine to the person is not free and informed if:

(a) when the person consents, the person is under a threat of negative consequences (including prejudice or disadvantage) if the person does not consent; or

(b) the consent is a result of coercion.

These two additional parts of the amendment to the National Health Act are most important. We have two provisions in the act about the provision of vaccines, but neither of them have any requirement that the administration of those vaccines be only done with free and informed consent. This is a fundamental tenet of medical ethics that has developed over the centuries, and it should be in our National Health Act to spell it out loudly and clearly.

The reason this amendment is needed is that it's very clear when it comes to free consent that we have medical treatments being administered in this nation today that are not given with free consent. And we see it in thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs and occupations, from airline pilots to nurses to schoolteachers to people that work at Woolworths. They are facing not only a loss of their job unless they submit to take one of the COVID vaccines; in many cases, they are facing the loss of their career. They are being prohibited to work in their career of choice. When someone has a mortgage to pay, when someone has rent to pay, when someone has children that they need to look after, they have no option; it is coercion and threats that they are actually taking these COVID vaccines under. That is not free consent. We have a society at the moment where you cannot cross a state border unless you have been vaccinated. In Sydney today, I cannot sit in a barber's chair and get a haircut; I cannot sit in a barber's chair in Queanbeyan, but, if I come across the border to Canberra, I can get a haircut. In Sydney today, inside, I cannot sing, I cannot dance, because I'm unvaccinated.

This is an absurdity. We are abandoning those principles of medical ethics that have stood us in good stead and have been developed over the centuries. Those two provisions need to be put in to ensure that we are getting free consent. Because it's free and informed—that's the phrase. There is also no informed consent. How can we have informed consent in this nation when we have doctors that are censored and silenced and face threat of deregistration if they decide to put up an alternative expert medical opinion?

There is no one source of truth in this issue. It is important that we allow doctors to be doctors, to practise medicine. (Time expired)

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