Senate debates

Wednesday, 11 August 2021

Matters of Public Importance

Prime Minister

4:48 pm

Photo of Malcolm RobertsMalcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The subject is blame, and I'll return to that in a minute, but I can't let the previous speaker's comments go. These vaccines have been provisionally approved. The testing is not complete, because the TGA admits it sees merit in bypassing the testing procedures because of perceived urgency. That is it. They are provisionally approved. They are not fully tested. They rely on the manufacturers' recommendations and the manufacturers' testing. That's it.

At the same time, we see a drug that has been proven safe, now proven effective in clinical trials, in practical real-world trials, in many countries. We see it actually treating COVID successfully, curing COVID successfully and being a prophylactic to prevent COVID and prevent its transmission. That drug is ivermectin. It has been approved in many countries for 60 years; 3.7 billion doses have been given around the world. It has been approved in this country since 2013 for treating various illnesses. It has not been approved for COVID. There are doctors now wanting to use it. There are some doctors actually using it because they're so concerned about people's health.

So we've got a situation in which a minister is bypassing some empirical evidence—there are overseas clinical trials yet he's ignoring them—that could really change the situation in this country. It would change it, just as it has in India and other countries. In the meantime, all we've got is a blame game, exactly as this motion says. The blame game is not just from the Prime Minister. It's from state premiers, state bureaucrats, health ministers and federal ministers. In the meantime, no-one is talking about the people's needs. (Time expired)

Comments

No comments