Three-quarters of Australians say Scott Morrison should rebuke Craig Kelly for Covid misinformation
Three in four Australians agree that Scott Morrison should publicly rebuke one of his MPs for spreading misinformation during the pandemic, according to new polling commissioned by the Australia Institute.
Polling to be released by the progressive thinktank on Monday also indicates more than half of those surveyed agreed that the prime minister should condemn outgoing US president Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol riots.
During a stint as acting prime minister last week, Michael McCormack declined to rebuke Liberal MP Craig Kelly for likening mask mandates for schoolchildren to child abuse. The Nationals leader said he was “not into censorship” and Kelly was “entitled to his view” although he did not agree with it.
Under rules in various Australian states, children 12 years and under are exempt from wearing masks.
The Australia Institute raised the issue when polling a nationally representative sample of 1,003 Australians on Thursday and Friday last week.
Respondents were asked their stance on correcting misinformation after being told: “A federal Liberal party politician has posted misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic on social media, including promoting unproven drugs, and has described masks for schoolchildren as ‘child abuse’.”
Some 76% of respondents agreed with the statement that Morrison “has a responsibility to clearly and publicly criticise this politician and correct the misinformation”, including 38% who agreed strongly with the statement. Just over 10% of the sample disagreed, while a similar number were unsure.
The poll found majority support for Morrison taking a stand across party lines, including 77% of the subset of the sample who were Coalition voters.
The question on Trump, meanwhile, was preceded by the statement: “World leaders, including Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau, have criticised or condemned United States president Donald Trump’s role in inciting last week’s riots in the US Capitol. So far, prime minister Scott Morrison has not.”
Some 56% of respondents then agreed when asked whether Morrison should either criticise or condemn
Trump for his role in inciting the riots, while 26% disagreed and 18% were unsure.
Support for the idea of Morrison condemning Trump over the issue included 49% Coalition voters, compared with 35% of Coalition voters who disagreed.
Morrison, who is due to return from a week of leave on Monday, has previously condemned the Capitol rioters for the “terribly distressing” violence and he called for a peaceful transfer of power to election winner Joe Biden.
To date, however, Morrison has declined to specifically address Trump’s responsibility for undermining the election results or encouraging the mob. The prime minister said he was not a commentator on the leaders of other countries.
Ebony Bennett, the deputy director of the Australia Institute, said Morrison’s lack of condemnation of Trump’s role in the deadly insurrection was “a failure to defend the most basic principles of democracy”.
Bennett said the US experience had shown that democracy “must be actively defended”.
She said Morrison should act on the poll’s finding of broad support to publicly criticise Kelly for spreading misinformation about Covid-19.
“Vaccinating the Australian population against Covid-19 will be one of the largest peacetime operations in Australian history and if MPs who spread misinformation like Craig Kelly have the tacit endorsement of the prime minister it will only jeopardise and undermine the success of the public health effort,” Bennett said.
The Australia Institute says the survey was conducted online through Dynata’s Rapid Results polling, with nationally representative samples by gender, age and region. The margin of error – at the 95% confidence level – for the national results is 3%.
Morrison has previously said – in the context of the vaccine rollout – that “if misinformation or disinformation is being presented, we will be also seeking to proactively address that through official channels”.
The chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, last week rebuked Craig Kelly, saying there was “no evidence” antiparasitic drug Ivermectin was useful in combatting Covid-19 and he did not want to give prominence “to views that I just don’t agree with and are not scientifically based”.
Craig Kelly had accused social media companies of attempting to “purge” comments about unproven Covid-19 treatments after the MP received a warning from Facebook over his claims regarding Ivermectin.
The chief medical officer’s response went further than government leaders, including McCormack and the health minister, Greg Hunt, in rejecting the MP for Hughes’ views, as has been demanded by doctors and the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Hunt said that although “there’ll be very different views, we listen to our medical advisers”, while McCormack said: “Facts sometimes are contentious.”