Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to identify myself with the words of the member for Boothby and what has happened in South Australia.

I'd like to speak about an issue of the moment, as the member for Boothby has just done. Probably, from a Victorian Liberal Party point of view, the issue would be Moira Deeming and what has happened down there and the way the party has come to a place, but I will speak about that on the ABC in a minute, because that'll be the first question they ask me.

So what was front of my mind when I thought: what are the issues of the moment? They are, for me, the increased deaths in Australia due to the vaccines and due to COVID and asking questions around that, and then two stories in mainstream Australian newspapers—not on the net, not somewhere hidden away in the deep state but in mainstream newspapers—about the death of a daughter in Australia after she had the vaccines. That cuts straight to the point of: why are this government, the previous government and others, especially Mr Butler's health department, in one way ignoring the letters that I've sent them by giving me just standard replies, when I'm asking about people who have been severely injured? In every one of our electorates, they're there. Some have been injured not so severely, but many have been severely injured by the vaccines that were mandated, and the fact that we did mandate them and force employers enforce them on their employees. That comes to my mind today, because those things are more important to me than the petty politics that we carry on with in other areas.