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

Today the front page of the Australian tells a story of how, across the nation, 700 BHP workers are facing the sack. Seven hundred Australians are being thrown out of their jobs, and yet we hardly hear a whimper about this from either side of politics. Where is the party of the workers, who say they stand for the workers of this country? Where are they when it comes to arguing for the 700 BHP workers that are being sacked? They're being sacked not for poor job performance or for anything that they've done wrong but because they have decided to exercise what should be their right in a democratic society. Whether you participate in a medical experiment, whether you undertake a medical intervention, should be your free choice in a democracy. Your job should not be held hostage because you've decided not to participate in a medical experiment.

Seven hundred workers across the nation, today, are being thrown out by BHP, and that is on top of the tens of thousands of workers that have already lost their jobs—teachers, nurses, doctors, paramedics, retail workers and truck drivers. Across all sectors of our economy, people have been thrown out of work because they have simply decided to exercise what must be a right in a democratic society. No democratic society should mandate the injection of a substance into your body just to keep your job. In many cases, this is more than just people's jobs; it's people's careers that are being thrown out. Teachers are losing not only their job but their career. Ambulance officers and paramedics, who we rely upon, are today sitting on the sidelines of our economy because they've decided not to get injected with one of these experimental COVID vaccines.

This is the shameful day for our nation. But what is even more shameful is the lack the people in this parliament that are speaking up and using their voice against it. The economy is not doing so well that we can afford 700 mining workers in BHP to be no longer working in that industry. We're looking down the barrel of a $1.4 trillion debt, and we're telling these people that they cannot participate in the economy? The party of the workers is silent about these workers losing their jobs—absolutely silent. It's hard to know what's worse: those in this parliament that actually think that the government and big industry and big medical and big pharma and the bureaucrats here in Canberra know better and should force you, against your will, to be injected—they think that it's okay to have a society where your freedoms are all held hostage to the point of a needle; or, equally, the number of people in this House that know in their heart that that is wrong, that know in their conscience that that is wrong, but come to this parliament and say nothing about it.

To mandate an injection, to mandate a medical intervention—and not just any old medical intervention; a medical intervention with an mRNA vaccine, a substance that has never been injected into humans before, that we have no long-term safety data for—is not only unethical, immoral, a breach of human rights but simply darn un-Australian, and more of us need to use our voices to stick up against it. What's even worse, there may have been an argument six months ago, 12 months ago, when we had all those experts stand up and say, 'If you get injected, you can't catch COVID and you can't spread it'—that was what was told to the general public, where they talked about 90 per cent plus efficacy. That's what we were promised. That's what this was sold upon. We now know that is completely untrue.

It's not only untrue. If we want to see how idiotic and how stupid these mandates are, and how counterproductive they are, just look at the latest data out of the United Kingdom, from the official UK Health Security Agency. In their weekly COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report, for week 6 of the year, 10 February, just have a look at what that data shows. You'd think these mandates would mean that, if you've been injected, you are less likely to have COVID. That is the entire premise behind it. But look what the data shows. Look at the rates of cases reported between week 2 and week 5 of 2022, a four-week period. In the UK, of those aged 30 to 39, there was a 4.9 per cent COVID-positive rate amongst those who were injected not once, not twice, but three times! A 4.9 per cent infection rate over that month amongst those injected three times. But for those not injected at all, those that are vaccine free, that supposedly have a higher rate of COVID, it's actually just over two per cent. So the rates of infection in the UK in the 30 to 39 age bracket are less than half amongst those that are vaccine free, compared to those that have been jabbed not once, not twice, but three times—a 140 per cent difference. It's the same for the 40 to 49 age group, where there's a 172 per cent greater probability of having COVID if you've been injected three times, compared to a vaccine-free person. For my age bracket, those that are 50 to 59 years old, there's a 2.6 per cent infection rate for those injected three times, but for those not injected, those vaccine free, just 1.167 per cent—a 120 per cent higher rate of infection amongst the triple-jabbed than amongst those that are vaccine free.

With that data, how can anyone possibly mandate these injections? It should be a free choice in a free society. Yet here we have thousands of Australians—we saw them here on the weekend, the largest protest ever in this nation's history—protesting just for the right to work in a free, democratic society. We have taken that right away from them. We have the constitutional power here in this parliament to end these insane, illogical, unethical, immoral, un-Australian mandates. We have the constitutional power here today to end them if we want to. But, sadly, there are so many in this parliament that are happy to see these mandates go ahead because they think that it gives them some extra protection. They are prepared to sell out the human rights of other Australians because they think they might get some benefit from it. They think it may somehow be not popular.

We've got to stand up for what is right in this parliament, and it is not right that 700 Australians are losing their jobs today, 700 BHP workers. It is not right that teachers are being told they can't go back into the classroom to teach in front of their children, because they have decided to be vaccine free. It is not right, when our hospitals around the nation are in chaos and the queues are lengthening, that we have paramedics and ambulance officers stood down, unable to work in the hospital system because they've decided to be vaccine free. I would hope that more members of this parliament would speak up. I know that, at the moment, this is not popular, but let me tell you: history will judge us on the decisions that we are making, history will record that this parliament stood by and did nothing, and history will condemn this parliament for those actions.

In the years to come, parliamentarians will look back upon this parliament, look upon the actions of every single member of this parliament, and say, 'What did you do to stand up and fight against those illogical abuses of human rights, those vaccine mandates?' Sadly, there are very few of us that will be able to say that we've stood by to fight the good fight. We weren't concerned about the attacks upon us in the media, because we called it out according to our conscience. And my conscience tells me that what is happening is completely and utterly wrong. It's contrary to everything that I believe in: freedom of choice, freedom of bodily autonomy. If you don't have the freedom to decide what substances you will inject into your body, what's the point of any other freedoms? Our freedoms of medical choice, our freedoms of economic opportunity, our freedoms of personal travel are all subject and dependent and interlinked. When we break one, we break them all.

Turning to the election, there are only a few sitting days left in this parliament. I hope that, in the month's break that we have before budget week, many other members of parliament will look into deep into their conscience and speak out about how wrong this is and stand up for those Australian workers. Every Australian worker that has been sacked because of these vaccine mandates must have their job back. We can do it in this parliament, if only we have the courage.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

See this speech in context