David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against this motion moved by Senator Roberts, and I want to thank Senator Cox for her contribution and for putting onto the floor of the Senate the perspective of First Nations communities when it comes to spreading disinformation about critical public health responses, because these conspiracy motions, these conspiracy theories from the cooker conspiracy club that occupies the far-right fringes of the Senate chamber, actually cause harm in the real world. I don't know what the credentials are to get into the cooker conspiracy club, but they would probably involve some secret handshake and a genuine disgust of science and evidence. You have to establish that before you get entry into the club. There's a dark and miserable 1970s shagpile on the floor of the cooker conspiracy club, and they wear a variety of strange antiquarian suits or clothing. Who knows what it involves?

But at the core of it is a dangerous disbelief in science and, worse still, a political willingness to play with people's lives and play with public health for a narrow sectional political interest. It's actually dangerous, what they're doing. It is dangerous to public health. It's particularly dangerous to First Nations communities, who are especially vulnerable to these public health risks. And it is a reckless abuse of their positions as senators in in place.

What the pandemic did highlight, very clearly, was a dangerous lack of preparation around the world for pandemics. When it came to Australia, the pandemic showed how the Commonwealth was not adequately prepared to respond to a global pandemic. As much as we might want to wish pandemics away or hope they could be dealt with by putting up sovereign borders and sealing Australia off from the world, we're in a globally connected world, and if we're going to respond to the threat of a global pandemic then we need to do it in co-operation with the rest of the world and we need some global strategies on how to deal with a pandemic. That means we need organisation and resourcing. To ignore that or to pretend otherwise exposes our community and the rest of the global population to harm.

And they're quite happy to do that. The cooker club are quite happy to expose Australians—particularly vulnerable Australians, those with significant health concerns, older Australians—to highly elevated risks from pandemics. They're quite happy to do that, because they think they get some sort of narrow political benefit out of it. I think we saw one of the Victorian senators step up and say how spreading conspiracy theories had been his pathway to getting elected to this Senate. Well, that's a kind of tragic statement, really—that the spreading of conspiracy theories was actually his way of getting elected. He was quite shameless about it. And the far-right fringes of the National Party and the Liberal Party are giving a safe berth to these same conspiracy theorists, because they think there's an electoral advantage in it—a narrow electoral advantage in tearing down public health outcomes, tearing down public confidence in vaccines, which we know have been among the most significant public health victories for the planet in the last century. These senators may not like it. They obviously don't like science. They obviously don't care. But vaccines have been among the most significant public health outcomes, and they're willing, for their narrow political advantage, to tear down public confidence in that. That is almost the definition of venal politics, right there from that lot.

Of course, conspiracy theories are now in vogue in the far-right fringes of politics around the world. This is the kind of Trumpian politics they're trying to introduce into Australia. They've never seen an election result they don't agree with that they haven't wanted to tear down through a conspiracy theory. In the United States, they use conspiracy theories to produce appalling public policy outcomes, not least of which is targeted voter suppression. So they create a conspiracy theory about the integrity of the voting system without any factual basis, based on one or two anecdotes, and then they weaponise that politically to do targeted voter suppression in the United States. That's the game plan of the cooker conspiracy club. That's what they do in the United States, and they want to bring that game plan here. They do it on antivax as well, bringing deeply unscientific, non-credible anecdotes to try and tear down public confidence in vaccine efficacy.

Of course, one of the things they want us to do is to repeat their conspiracy theories, because if we, in meeting these unscientific fringe conspiracy theories, repeat their conspiracy theories, it produces what's called the backfire effect: if we engage in any way in a place like this—the Senate—with the details of their myths and their conspiracies, that somehow makes them appear more plausible. They want us to repeat the nonsense back at them because that gives their nonsense some kind of credibility. I think we need to be mindful of not doing that—not repeating the nonsense conspiracy theory—and instead resorting to the facts.

When it comes to the very sensible moves afoot to get a pandemic treaty, the facts are these. The World Health Assembly's pandemic treaty is designed to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body. The intent is to draft and negotiate a world health convention agreement or some other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The idea is that we cooperate with the rest of the world to come up with a plan for the next pandemic; to prevent it or to be prepared if and when it hits the planet; and to have an integrated response to deal with a global pandemic. They don't want that to happen, because they don't care about vulnerable people. They don't care about the elderly. They don't care about people with an immunosuppressed health response. They don't care. They're willing to play with the lives of vulnerable Australians for their own narrow political advantage, and that is an obscene outcome from the cooker conspiracy club in the Senate.

The intent is to adopt the instrument under a longstanding article of the World Health Organization's constitution. Then, of course, once we have a global treaty framework, how to implement it is entirely up to Australia. How we implement a World Health Organization treaty is up to decisions of the Australian government and our state and territory governments. I know that's awkward for the conspiracy theorists to take on board. Perhaps they should read the Constitution they say they care about. I'd suggest Senator Rennick not start his lessons in Australian constitutional law in 1776, because he's probably on the wrong continent, but it's up to him. But, if they read the Australian Constitution and looked at High Court decisions, they would know that entering into a treaty under Australian law in no way incorporates that into Australian domestic law. It just doesn't. That's an awkward constitutional reality for the club. The conspiracy club finds the reality of how our Constitution works politically inconvenient because it doesn't work with their scare campaign. But the Constitution is very clear. The High Court has said repeatedly that the act of the executive government in entering into a treaty—whether it's a World Health Organization treaty or an arms reduction treaty or a treaty on bilateral trade—does not incorporate the treaty into domestic law. It just doesn't.

Some people would think that understanding the Constitution would be a prerequisite for a senator before they get up and spout their conspiracy theories, but they're not troubled by that. They're not troubled by evidence. They're not troubled by law. They just want to make people feel uncomfortable and uneasy because they think there's a political advantage in it. But entering a treaty does not incorporate the treaty into Australian law. For any element of a treaty to be incorporated into Australian law, this parliament or a state or territory parliament has to determine to do so, by passing a law or granting a power to a minister. The idea that entering into a treaty is some sort of surrender of sovereignty is just plain nonsense. They know it's nonsense, I think, because I actually give them some credit. They know it's nonsense. They know it's false. They know it's a lie, but we still get ridiculous motions like this. They know they're peddling lies to the Australian public. They know they're deliberately creating unease in people.