POLLIES HIJACK DEBATE

PHIL Warwick (CP, 27/11) and Kevin Byrne (CP, 27/11) need to be strongly supported in their arguments against the anti-vaxxer league using the Anzacs and veterans more generally as totems for their shenanigans.

Such ragtag assemblies as we have seen across many cities over

the past few weeks invoke discredited urban myths and nonsensical treatments in support of their protests. They claim severe loss of freedoms, while engaging in the most basic freedom of all, which is public protest.

The sad thing is that such people are supported by an equally ragtag bunch of politicians who proclaim an equally distorted prism of Covid-19 and the pandemic it has caused.

Craig Kelly, the Member for Hughes in suburban Sydney, claims that Invermectin, used mainly to treat parasitic conditions in horses, is an ideal medication to use in treating Covid.

Well, the medical scientific advice is that “such unproven and potentially dangerous Covid ‘treatments’ have significant risk of side effects ranging from vomiting and diarrhoea to seizures and a coma”.

Locally, Bob Katter claimed just last week the cases of eight people raised with his electorate office who had either died, become crippled or faced serious medical complications after being vaccinated. Pauline Hanson claims the Covid-19 vaccines have “not been properly tested”, and using lockdowns is a “bullying tactic” to coerce people into getting the jab. A stance dismissed by the scientific and medical experts.

On the other hand, the Labor administrations of Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, with their autocratic and blatantly political approach to the pandemic response, bear significant responsibility for the burgeoning protest movements that now exist. They have engaged in obfuscation, heavy-handed dictums, secrecy and falsehoods to further their own political ends. As such, they deserve as much opprobrium as the protesters.