Wednesday, 23 February 2022

COVID-19 vaccination

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (15:12): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that:

(a) the vaccine mandate for workers came into effect on 7 October 2021 with a deadline to receive the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine on 22 October 2021;

(b) this has led to significant negative consequences, including workers being denied employment for four months;

(c) the Minister for Health notes in the statement of reasons, dated 12 January 2022, that the mandate may be particularly onerous for parents and may disproportionately affect women;

(d) in the acting chief health officer (CHO) advice to the Minister for Health, dated 10 January 2022, the acting CHO notes that ‘I have considered a consistent one-size-fits-all approach to vaccination mandates for all workforces and even for the general community but, at this time, I do not consider this to be a proportionate response’;

(e) in the 4 February 2022 article published in the Conversation ‘Is it time to rethink vaccine mandates for dining, fitness and events?’, four out of five experts interviewed agreed that vaccine mandates should be reviewed;

(2) calls on the government to immediately revoke the Pandemic COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination (General Workers) Order 2022 (No. 3) and the Pandemic (Open Premises) Order 2022 (No. 5);

(3) refers this motion to the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee (IPMAC) and requests the IPMAC consider reviewing the pandemic orders identified in paragraph (2) and provide advice to the Minister for Health;

and requires the Clerk to write to the chair of the IPMAC to convey the terms of this resolution.

This motion calls on the government to revoke two specific orders: the COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination (General Workers) Order and the Pandemic (Open Premises) Order 2022, and also asks the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee, the new committee that was set up by the pandemic legislation, to review these orders—that is, assuming that the Minister for Health does not act on the direction if this were to pass.

What we have been talking about throughout the entire pandemic and where we have disagreed with many of the things that the government has done is where the appropriate line is or the appropriate use of force. I know that this government is not unique in using force for vaccines. Other governments throughout the country have done it, and also internationally we have seen this in many jurisdictions. We have also seen jurisdictions that have not done that, and one that I have referred to many times previously is Japan, which has had no vaccine mandates, no mask mandates, no mandates for anything and yet has a vaccination rate of, I think, over 80 per cent, off the top of my head.

The use of force in this case, for the vaccine mandates, was ostensibly to drive up overall vaccination rates. The government made the decision to use coercion, to use force, to drive up overall vaccination rates and, as has been pointed out by many in the government, we now have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. I checked the other day and I think in Victoria it is about 94 per cent. It is probably not going to get a lot higher. The use of force did convince some people who were vaccine hesitant or did not want to have a vaccine or perhaps were waiting for a different vaccine or just did not get around to it. When they were faced with the threat of losing their job, they went and got it. Some people did that. That is absolutely true. And many of them who did that were angry that they were not allowed to do it on their own terms, because coercion in the face of a medical procedure to many people—the idea of interfering in that process—violates the ethical idea around consent, and this is one of our serious problems.

We have never had a problem with masks or vaccines. What we have had a problem with in the Liberal Democrats is the use of force. In fact if you cast your mind back to very, very early in the pandemic, when masks were not recommended for use, I actually asked a question to the Minister for Health at the time about why the government was not recommending them. At that time I never imagined that the government would mandate them. In fact if the government had been making recommendations the whole way, I probably would not have had a problem with that.

But now we have a situation where the government has achieved its objective of very, very high vaccination rates, yet there are still some people who have chosen not to be vaccinated. This is roughly going to be about 6 per cent of the population. If we have a 94 per cent vaccination rate, then we have 6 per cent of the population unvaccinated. These people have been sacked from their jobs. They have been ostracised. They are not allowed to go to the pub. They are not allowed to go to restaurants. They are not allowed to do all of these activities. They have been demonised in the media, and for what? Why? Because they have simply been human. This is why they have been discriminated against. This is why they have been locked out. This is why they have lost their jobs. They have chosen this for whatever personal reason, and I do not question people’s personal reasons on why they do things with their own body. That is none of my business, and I do not think it should be any of the government’s business either, but they have made that decision, and they are still in this situation.

But clearly if they have already lost their job, the threat of losing their job and the threat of being locked out of pubs and locked out of restaurants is no longer working. It is not going to work with these people. So we have to ask: what is the objective of these general worker mandates now? Is it just punishment—that these people did not do what they were told? Why are we treating these people like this? To have such a large percentage of the population effectively turned into an underclass—how did Victoria ever come to this? It is absolutely shocking. I have heard so many times in this place people call these people crazy or conspiracy theorists or right-wing extremists or Nazis and all sorts of stuff like this. I am one of the few people that have actually gone out and talked to these people. I have gone to talk to them.

Mr Ondarchie: Me too.

Mr LIMBRICK: And yes, you have too.

Mr Finn: Me too.

Mr LIMBRICK: And yes, Mr Finn has too, but very few have gone out and talked to these people and asked them. Many of them had very varied reasons for why they have made these personal decisions. Some of them have chosen to share their reasons and explain them to me. Many of them have complex health conditions, and they have concerns. They have allergies. Some of them know a friend who had an adverse reaction from a vaccine, and they are scared. And some of them might be misinformed. But ultimately is this really justification for using force against these people like this? How long are we going to have this underclass? How long are we going to have these people unable to be employed? How long are we going to lock them out of restaurants? How long are we going to lock them out of pubs? This has to end.

The objective has been achieved. Whether or not you believed it was a valid use of force to raise vaccination rates, vaccination rates have been raised, so that objective has been achieved. And if you thought that somehow stopping unvaccinated people going into the pub or going to work was going to stop transmission, well, clearly that has been proven wrong. They have not been able to go to work and we have still had a large number of transmissions in workplaces and everywhere else. We are getting over that now; it is coming down now.

What I am asking with this motion is that at the very least we get some of these experts—and I have looked at the experts that have been appointed to this committee; some of them I do not know, some of them I do—to consider if this is still a proportionate response. Even if you thought it was proportionate a few months ago when we brought it in, is it still proportionate now? And what is the objective of it? I think these are very, very important questions, and this large group of people—hundreds of thousands of people—deserves answers. They deserve to know at least why their rights are being violated in this way. They have the same rights as every other Victorian has. I do not see them as some sort of person that should have less rights than everyone else. They have the same rights: they have the right to work, they have the right to freedom of movement, they have the right to freedom of assembly. They have all these rights that I thought were protected by our human rights charter, but those protections have not seemed to work out too well. So I would urge members of this place to consider, if you supported mandates, why you still support them when our vaccination rates are really so high. I look forward to hearing your views on this.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (15:20): I rise to speak to the motion put forward by Mr Limbrick on the ending of the vaccine mandate. First of all, I have been listening to some of the arguments put forward, not just now but also throughout recent times, by many members, including the opposition and the crossbench. I have to say that the decisions that the government has made have been based on expert advice and based on science and evidence and data, which I will come back to shortly, and not based on the kind of pseudo or pretend science or propaganda from some, not all, of the anti-vaxxers who were recently outside the Parliament. I understand what has been said by the people outside, but some of the conspiracy theories have misinformed a lot of people—not that they are all doing it, but the messages have been misinformed and also very dangerous.

The first thing I would like to say is that vaccines do save lives. That is an irrefutable fact. Take some of the statistics coming out of the Department of Health in recent times of people who have been admitted to ICU who are unvaccinated versus the people who are vaccinated—so clearly that is the case. Compared to those who have had two doses, it is 4.5 times, or nearly five times, worse for the unvaccinated. And those who have chosen to have three doses, including the booster, are protected 34 times more than those who are not vaccinated. Those are only some of the statistics coming out of this state, where we can see that, and there are other numbers from throughout Australia and indeed the world.

The vaccine mandate has worked in saving lives, in protecting the health system and in protecting the health of the community. So far, unfortunately, we have had around 5000 deaths. I mention this because I would like to compare that with some other numbers from elsewhere. Let me take the US, which is a very advanced and developed nation. In the US there have been about 2837 deaths per 1 million people. Their vaccination rate is quite low compared to what we have here, partly because they do not have a uniform mandate—they may have mandates from state to state, but not a uniform one. At the moment only 65 per cent of US citizens in the eligible category have been vaccinated, and only 28 per cent—less than 30 per cent—have been triple dosed. The number I just quoted was the total for Australia. I just say that the vaccine works, and the vaccine mandate has been instrumental in protecting the lives of the people and the public health system and also ensuring the safety and the health of the public.

I just want to comment now on some of the arguments that have been put forward. The vaccine mandate has helped us to have around 95 per cent of people vaccinated with two doses and a lesser number with three doses. The vaccine mandates have not applied uniformly for everyone, and the recent one put in force by the government is not targeting everyone: it is only for key and critical sectors and for the workers in those sectors.

Those mandates have helped us to get to where we are today, to get to the opening of the economy and keeping the economy and businesses open. The critical sectors, which are very transparent and clearly understood, include aged care, health care—where people have to face vulnerable people themselves as well as people that they have to see and work with—disability and education. Those people have been encouraged and also mandated to have the vaccine for their protection.

It is a difficult choice. We have to, as a government, make difficult decisions between personal freedom and also our responsibility to the community, particularly critical and key workers. We have been constantly reviewing all the measures in place. This time we have many overseeing committees. We have joint parliamentary committees and we have advisory committees, and we will no longer put in place any measure that is not necessary, and we should not. We are not listening to the opinions of people—maybe people outside, maybe politicians here—who pretend to be experts in everything and all things. We make no apologies for protecting our system, for saving lives and also for protecting the public in general.

In the few minutes I have left, I have to say this vaccine mandate was introduced for a very good reason, with the support of experts and with the support of science, and it has been showing very heartening results in terms of saving lives and saving the public’s health. This motion to end the mandate without advice or expert opinion is actually a slap in the face for thousands and thousands of healthcare workers—who have to work day and night and very long hours to help the people who are infected, COVID and otherwise—their partners, their kids and their families. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the workers who have been at the forefront: public health workers, nurses, doctors, ICU workers and all the people on the emergency staff who have to deal with the pandemic. I thank them so much for their dedication and effort in helping us to get to where we are today.

In conclusion, vaccines do work. Vaccine mandates do work. We are committed to doing what the experts tell us to do to keep the community safe. We will be constantly reviewing the situation and the advice, and we will introduce appropriate measures. Because of the measures in the past, we have been able to reopen the economy and keep the economy open.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:29): I am pleased to rise and speak to Mr Limbrick’s motion this afternoon. Mr Limbrick has gone through the reasons why he has put this motion on the paper and why we are debating it today. I have been listening to Dr Kieu, and I want to raise some points in my contribution around some of the points that he made in his commentary on this debate and also his remarks regarding some of my colleagues in this house.

I want to just go to Mr Limbrick’s motion at the outset and say this motion is talking about the vaccine mandates for workers that were put in place last year. The government argues that the mandates work, because we have got 93 per cent of the population double vaccinated. That is true, we have, and Victorians have come out in droves.

I am critical of the government’s lack of education and information for people. I felt that they pushed people into a corner. They had no choice to be able to participate in society but to get a vaccine. That is the wrong way to go. I am a strong supporter of vaccinations. You all know that; I have said it time and time again. I know Mr Limbrick is double vaccinated. I am not sure if he is triple vaccinated, but whatever. He is double vaccinated, but his motion talks to those people that for whatever reason have not been vaccinated.

This is quite different from what has happened in New South Wales. By mid-December New South Wales said, ‘Well, we want you all to get double vaccinated. We think it’s important for you to all get vaccinated, but for those that haven’t we’re still going to open up the economy and allow you to participate’. That is what has happened in our neighbouring state. And yes, they knew that there would be challenges in the health system, and there were. In fact—

Mr Gepp: And deaths.

Ms CROZIER: Well, let me come to that. I am coming to that, Mr Gepp. I am glad you have raised that. I am very glad you have raised that, Mr Gepp, because the figures on the deaths are: in Victoria today there are 2409; in New South Wales there are 1859—550 less despite the fact that New South Wales has opened up fully and allowed people to participate in society and in their communities.

Mr Gepp interjected.

Ms CROZIER: Mr Gepp interjects again and really ridicules those people that are not vaccinated. As I said, I am a supporter of vaccination. I am a very big supporter of vaccination. I am somebody that needs vaccination. So for you to be—

Mr Gepp: On a point of order, Acting President, Ms Crozier is right to refer to my interjection, but what she is not right to do is to verbal me about what I did and did not say. I said nothing about vaccinated people, and she should withdraw.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Hang on, I will make a ruling which should satisfy you, Mr Finn. There is no point of order. It is just debating.

Ms CROZIER: I know the government is very testy about this, and rightly so, because there are more deaths in Victoria—550 more deaths than New South Wales. I was going to raise it in part of my contribution for Dr Kieu, because he kept comparing Victoria to the United States, and I was interjecting at the time saying, ‘Compare to the other states in Australia. That’s a better comparison about what Australia has done’. And make no mistake, in terms of stats we have done remarkably well.

Mr Gepp interjected.

Ms CROZIER: Yes, Mr Gepp, we have, but in Victoria, where we have had the harshest of restrictions and the longest locked-down city in the world, our outcomes in Australia have been the worst. And those impacts of the lockdowns on children, for the people that are shut out of society, the mental health impacts—they are not able to earn an income. How is that fair?

Dr Kieu spoke about the healthcare workers and the frontline workers, and they have done a very magnificent job, but what about those people behind the scenes in hospitals too? The orderlies, the ward clerks, the food monitors, the physiotherapists, the pharmacists, all of those people that make a hospital work—they have done a great job too. They have helped the doctors and nurses deliver the care that they have needed to do. So I think everybody in the health system should be included, not just doctors and nurses, quite frankly, and I think all of those people get left out far too often because the government’s rhetoric is all about doctors and nurses, forgetting how a hospital operates.

I say again that in Mr Limbrick’s motion he goes on and says in part (c) of the first part of his motion:

the Minister for Health notes in the statement of reasons, dated 12 January 2022, that the mandate may be particularly onerous for parents and may disproportionately affect women;

In the statement of reasons from 12 January of this year, and I will read it in:

Exclusion from a physical workplace based on vaccination status may be particularly onerous for single parents, for parents of younger children, and for parents of multiple children (who may find it impossible to work effectively at home). This may … disproportionately affect women who typically bear more of the child-minding or caring responsibilities in the home.

That is from the government’s own statement of reasons. That is the point Mr Limbrick is making. He goes on to say in part 1(d) of the motion:

in the acting chief health officer (CHO) advice to the Minister for Health, dated 10 January 2022, the acting CHO notes that ‘I have considered a consistent one-size-fits-all approach to vaccination mandates for all workforces and even for the general community but, at this time, I do not consider this to be a proportionate response’ …

Now, we know the Premier was on holidays when this was said, but he came back and made all these grand statements about a third dose being mandatory. I had doctors and frontline workers who were ringing my office and saying, ‘This is ridiculous. I’ve got COVID, but I am mandated to have the third dose by 12 February’, I think it was, or the 14th. They could not do it. They said, ‘I’ve got COVID now, and in 10 days time I’m expected to have a third dose because the government has mandated it’. Well, the government changed that decision because they saw how ludicrous it was. But here is the Premier coming out and mandating the third dose—saying it was being considered, again putting more stress and pressure on people who have been trying to do the right thing, let alone those that are unvaccinated and cannot even participate. But this is what this government does. It puts an arbitrary date, an arbitrary statement, without being nuanced about the situation.

We have come through over two years now of this crisis, and we have learned a lot. And with the community being as highly vaccinated as we are, surely to goodness it enables us as a community to be able to manage this. There are, thankfully, very few people in hospital with COVID in intensive care on a ventilator—very few, less than a dozen. We were told that opening up was going to cause thousands and thousands to come into our system.

It did not happen, thank goodness, but the modelling again was wrong and the warnings again were wrong. We have just come through the masks debate, and I am very pleased that the government has supported that. They did not vote against it. Epidemiologists and senior doctors and others were saying that the modelling said it was going to be catastrophic when schools opened up. Well, that has not happened either. We know the virus is there. The government actually does not know how much virus is out there, because they have lost track of contact tracing. They lost track of contact tracing last August, I might add. They have ditched the QR codes because they know they cannot contact trace. I was saying that months ago, and finally the government came to the party on that and realised that as well.

So we have all of these issues, and we have got the Premier out there chasing his tail a bit on this. He has had to backflip on his third-dose mandatory vaccine; however, other senior officials are saying, ‘No, it’s still under consideration’. Well, I bet it is still under consideration, because you actually cannot trust what the Premier says. If there is one thing he is consistent about, he says one thing and then does another. That has been fairly consistent throughout the course of this crisis. So all of those aspects around vaccination, the advice that has been provided, the advice that has not been provided and the selective advice that is provided to the government are there for Victorians to see. And they know it. They can see what has happened. They have been watching this. And Mr Limbrick’s motion, where it goes to the heart of those people that actually do have a right to work, they have a right— (Time expired)

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (15:39): I rise to speak on Mr Limbrick’s motion. Again this is another one of those debates that we seem to have again and again and again in this place. I think it is important that we remind ourselves that in terms of vaccines in excess of 14 million have now been administered throughout Victoria and they have played a very, very important role in us getting to the point we are at today.

As I said during the masks debate, there is not just one strategy that has been adopted here. There have been a number of different settings that have been put in place throughout the pandemic, and importantly they have been put in place to enable us to respond to the pandemic, both in terms of the spread of the pandemic but also in terms of handling those that are in our communities suffering from the effects of the pandemic—those who have contracted COVID-19. We have seen and heard again and again and again, and it is always absent in the propositions put forward by those opposite, including Mr Limbrick; I will put him in the same camp as the opposition, because he has been part of that—

Mr Limbrick interjected.

Mr GEPP: You keep interjecting, mate; I will keep whacking that back over the net straight back at you, because, yes, you have been out the front talking to those people. We have all seen some of the videos where you were the poster boy for the Reignite Democracy Australia group. You were the headline act early in this pandemic until you realised what you were in for—the groups that you were actually associating with—and you scurried off. That is what you did, and that is what you do. You sleep with the light on, mate. That is what you do: you sleep with the light on. Each and every time you go out there and you advance some weird and wacky proposition, you just come in here and shoot from the hip and think, ‘Oh, well, no-one’s ever going to check these facts’. Well, let us check the facts you were spruiking just before about Japan. You held Japan up as the example. Well, let us compare and let us have a look at what has been happening recently in Japan. Japan is a much bigger country than Australia—4.5 million cases compared to our 3 million cases; 5000 deaths in Australia and over 22 000 deaths in Japan. So despite the fact that their case numbers—

Mr Limbrick: They have a much larger population.

Mr GEPP: I know—I said that they have got a much larger population—but the incidence of deaths compared with the number of cases does not back up your argument, Mr Limbrick. When we have a look at the last seven days, on 17 February there were 90 522 cases in Japan and 253 deaths; on 18 February, 95 603 cases and 244 deaths; and on 19 February, 92 939 cases and 235 deaths. And it keeps repeating to the extent where yesterday they had the single biggest death rate in Japan over the entire pandemic. So when you come in here and you make statements about certain countries and you want to hold them up as the example of what we should be following—no, thank you. We do check facts. We do look at the assertions that you make, unlike others who may not and who may want to blindly follow you. But if you are going to come in here and start quoting things, then at least be accurate. Do not be mendacious and bend the truth to suit your proposition—

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Order! Mr Gepp, through the Chair, please.

Mr GEPP: Do not be mendacious. Our vaccination rate here in Victoria is magnificent, and it has been a wonderful achievement for all of those Victorians who have been able to go and receive their vaccination, including, might I say, the magnificent children of Victoria. Haven’t they just been wonderful? I went and got my third shot a few weeks ago at a state-run clinic up in Bendigo, and it was wonderful to see all of the children lined up on that Sunday afternoon to get their jab, doing their bit for Victoria. I want to say to them, ‘Thank you; well done’. They are just fantastic little people, and if that is the sort of response we are going to get from them, then we know we have got a fantastic road ahead with our young people.

If we did not have the vaccine mandate, would we be at the number that we are at today? Would we be in a position where this Friday we are going to have significant changing of restrictions, where mask rules et cetera are changing? Of course the answer is no. If we had not had the restrictions in place, if we had not had the mandates in place, our health system would have been absolutely catastrophically overrun. Ms Crozier purports again and again and again and again and again to be the champion of the health system in this place and regularly reminds us of her previous occupation. Had we followed the things that Ms Crozier said that we should have done over the course of this pandemic, we would have had utter chaos in our health system. Our health system would not have been able to cope with the influx of people suffering from COVID. And I know; I have got firsthand experience. I have had a bit to do with our health system over the last couple of years, so I have seen firsthand what has happened in our health system and have been able to see very easily what would have occurred had we not had the various rules in place that we have had over the past couple of years. But I contrast that with the approach of the shadow health minister. Had we followed her advice throughout the course of this pandemic, we would be in all sorts of trouble here today. In fact I remember last year, distressingly, reading a Facebook post by the Shadow Minister for Health, who had mischievously gone out and suggested to people in this state that BreastScreen—

Ms Crozier: That’s wrong.

Mr GEPP: No, it is not, because you withdrew it. It is not wrong at all. You posted it and then you had to withdraw it, as you should have, because it was a disgrace.

Ms Crozier: On a point of order, Acting President, the member is quite wrong. I never withdrew it, and he is taking it all out of context. It is still up there on Twitter, Mr Gepp. He is taking things out of context, and I would ask you to draw him back to this debate because he is getting very agitated. I would suggest that he needs to come back to Mr Limbrick’s motion, because he is actually—

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): It is not actually a point of order, but Mr Gepp, let us try and stay on track, please.

Mr GEPP: Thank you, Acting President. I am happy to take your advice as always, and if I inadvertently said to the house that Ms Crozier withdrew her inappropriate advice to the people of Victoria last year about the removal of breast screening operations, then I apologise. Clearly it is still up there, and it is still wrong. It was wrong then, and it is wrong today. If she has not withdrawn it, she should.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Mr Gepp, could we get back to the matter at hand, please.

Mr GEPP: We are talking of course about the vaccine mandates. In summary I would simply say that we have put in place a series of measures over the course of this pandemic, all designed to do one thing and that is keep our Victorian communities as safe as we possibly can. I want to congratulate the Victorian communities that have complied with all of these directions and have followed the rules that we have put in place not because they wanted to but because they were a necessity that has been repeated all around the world. You would think that Victoria is an island—that we alone have suffered this and everybody else has dodged the proverbial bullet. Sadly that is not the case, but through the measures adopted by this government I am proud to say that I think we have done a sterling job. Victorians have done a sterling job, and I reject the proposition from Mr Limbrick.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Thank you, Mr Gepp. Just before we go to Dr Cumming, I am not sure if I heard an unparliamentary term before—it was an interjection—but let us keep this professional and not use names. I am not sure enough to make an issue of it, but I am just going to give a general warning.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (15:49): I rise today to speak to the Liberal Democrats motion on the notice paper about stopping the mandating of vaccines for workers so we, as promised, can go back to a normal society. We were promised by this government and, if not, by others that when we hit 90 per cent we would go to COVID normal. But, no, that has not occurred. We are at 94 or 95 per cent, but, no, we cannot. The government cannot let go of control. Your promises were constantly broken throughout this pandemic. So, respectfully, this government will come in here and say, and I have heard, that if we had not mandated it on 15 October we would not have got the vaccination rates here in Victoria, which is ludicrous. Canberra did not, and they got to almost 99 per cent. Also at that time, just before 15 October, we were at 80 per cent. You knew in one or two more weeks we would be at 90 per cent. But, no, you had to mandate it and create the chaos that we have witnessed for the last four months: October, November, December, and it is going to keep going. This chaos is going to continue. But you are happy with that. You are happy that 000 calls are not being answered because of the 5 per cent of people who have chosen not to be vaccinated. It means nothing. They are in an office. I can assure you that with other places around the world that have hospital systems with unvaccinated people they are in another room or are doing rapid tests or are using another health precaution. But not this government. No, we will have to go without nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers—you name the profession—dentists, professionals, scientists. We will go without 5 per cent of them and make everyone suffer. And we can see that.

As soon as we had this mandating we could not even go back to normal with hospitality. Why? Because of that 5 per cent. People struggle. I also want to touch on the amount of people who have fled Victoria due to the amount of unnecessary lockdowns that this government imposed on us. Now, you can shake your head, government, you can keep telling us that we needed them—we did not. Western Australia, Tasmania, Darwin, Adelaide, Queensland—no, it is total mismanagement from this government.

And then to listen to the last contribution from this government about the people who were protesting—they were protesting against mandates. I have come into this chamber numerous times and said these people are pro choice. They are holding out for the other nine vaccines that are on the market. We were only given a choice of two, and we absolutely were not allowed to use the vaccine that was created here in Australia—and now the government is allowing that. But will you lift the mandates? What do you want, 100 per cent? You will never get 100 per cent. And with these vaccines, the people who are vaccinated can catch the virus and pass it on. It is ludicrous to mandate it when it is not a silver bullet. It has never been a silver bullet—never been a silver bullet.

The police response during these lockdowns was wrestling with people to wear a mask—unbelievable—shooting rubber bullets at them, pepper spraying them, locking people in prison for their beliefs and going into people’s houses because they posted something on Facebook because they were pregnant and said, ‘I wish to discuss this’. This was in regional Victoria when there were no mandates, and the police went in there. You should be ashamed of your response—ashamed. But, no, you are constantly trying to peddle the view that somehow you saved us. You did not save us—not at all—and the statistics show it. You do not lock down healthy people, ever, in a pandemic—not in all my training. No, no, no. Healthy people work; we protect the vulnerable.

These mandates across the whole of Victoria when there were no cases were trying to achieve a ‘doughnut’—promoting the eating of doughnuts during a health crisis! There was no proper holistic response at all, nothing about wellness—eat your takeaway, drink to excess. We had the police not doing their normal responses, chasing people for a mask and wrestling them—the cloth mask that we all know does not do anything in the great outdoors. Proud you should not be. Mandating health workers especially—and everybody—is ludicrous. Mandating educated health people—they are educated, they have degrees, they are professors and they are doctors, and you are mandating them. Do you know better? I doubt it. But they cannot make their own health choices for themselves.

There is this continual abuse that you continue with with your masks on children. Shame on you. Shame on you for not allowing our children to go through this pandemic with the most protection that we could have put over them, which is making sure that they were not being abused at home, making sure that they had playgrounds to play on, making sure that they went to school and making sure that we did not need to put a mask on a small child. They did not need to see people walking around with masks on outdoors. They could have actually been watching responsible adults putting masks on when they were meant to be putting them on—around the vulnerable, around the sick. But no, you wanted this absolute psychological warfare on our children, which we are going to pay for. This shadow pandemic is going to be there for a long, long time.

Mr Ondarchie: There are going to be more lockdowns.

Dr CUMMING: It will be disgraceful if this government ever goes down that path. How much psychological abuse do they want to put Victorians through? We are psychologically abused. Go to Queensland; they can spot a Victorian wobbling and shaking around putting on a mask in the great sun. They know it; they can see us.

Ms Symes interjected.

Dr CUMMING: Not you, I know. You look at me like that. Not you, because you would not know what it is like to go without a pay cheque, to have lost your business.

Ms Symes: I think you underestimate us.

Dr CUMMING: Oh, really? Well, you have not been sticking up for all those small businesses or the people who have lost their houses or the hundreds of thousands of people who have left Victoria. That is our shortage. But continue. Continue to actually go on with your propaganda machine. What about the right-wing stuff? Hilarious! Keep peddling that rubbish. I cannot wait to see that committee, especially when I have got footage of the left-wing nutters that are out there. I cannot even say in this chamber what they were chanting, because it would not be parliamentary. And their abuse of independent reporters such as Real Rukshan—anti-immigration. What was it? They were there, right? That is a protected species, that disgusting behaviour.

Ms Taylor interjected.

Dr CUMMING: No, no. Why don’t you mention that? Why don’t you mention those protestors, the pro-vaccination protestors and how they have abused people? I would love to hear that. You must be. I still have got the footage of when they were pulling people off the steps of Parliament and dragging them into Parliament—for a health response. Shame. And I feel sorry for the police officers. They are traumatised from what this government enforced during a pandemic. Shame on you. Keep mandating—disgusting.

Sitting suspended 4.00 pm until 4.18 pm.

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (16:18): It does give me an enormous degree of pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on Mr Limbrick’s motion 708 on vaccine mandates and associated issues. It is amusing in its own way, I suppose, for some when we hear Daniel Andrews, the Premier of this state, get up and say, ‘Equality is not negotiable in Victoria’. Well, he might think that, but of course he is not talking about the people who have not been vaccinated or indeed cannot be vaccinated. He is not talking about them because they have been locked out of Victorian life now for some months, and it would appear that the Premier has absolutely no intention of allowing them back into Victoria in the foreseeable future. I think that is a deplorable situation.

As things stand at the moment, we have somewhere in the vicinity of a 96 per cent vaccination rate. I use the word ‘vaccination’ loosely because vaccination means that you are protected from a disease. This vaccine does not actually protect you from the disease. It does not stop you from getting the disease. It is more of a mitigation therapy, as it were. But nonetheless 96 per cent of the Victorian population has received the vaccine.

We have heard from Mr Gepp and we have heard from others looking back over what has happened over the last two years. Let us look forward from today. Surely to God, with 96 per cent of the population fully vaccinated, we do not need mandates. Look, we have never needed mandates in my view, but we certainly do not need them now. They should be done away with.

Now, I have to say that the coercion, the bullying—and isn’t this government showing a real penchant for bullying?—of the population of Victoria by this government over the last year or so, the last six months, has particularly been appalling. It is absolutely deplorable. I have to say that I find a government forcing people to have a medical procedure against their will to be repugnant. That is a clear violation of basic human rights—a clear violation. I cannot for the life of me understand why a government which supposedly stands for equality, human rights and all those wonderful things that it rabbits on about would not put that into play, because we have now about 4 per cent of the population who cannot go to a restaurant. They are not allowed to work and feed their families. They are not allowed to pay off their car. They are not allowed to pay their mortgage or their rent. They are not allowed to live life as they knew it or indeed we know it. I am not what is described as an anti-vaxxer. I am fully vaccinated and have been for some time. Indeed my wife is a nurse and she has been on the front line of the war against COVID, so I have perhaps a better understanding than most as to what is involved here. But I still say there is no need for this mandate. If there was any need at all, it has gone—it is finished, it is done. We do not need it anymore.

It seems now that the Premier is actually persecuting people, punishing them for not doing as they are told, and that seems to me to stink to high heaven. That is something that I find absolutely intolerable. For those people who gather out the front of this building from time to time—and I spoke at one of those rallies last year that attracted somewhere around half a million people—it is appalling when the government goes out of its way to disparage, indeed to defame, large numbers of Victorians who are just expressing their opinion, expressing their view, expressing their concern. I wish more people would take the time to get involved in public affairs. We should be encouraging them, not discouraging them. But of course they do not suit this government’s aims. They do not suit this government’s needs, so they must be run into the ground. They must be trashed. And that is what the Premier and the government have done: they have trashed them.

One thing I must say is that the number of people I have met out the front there at the times that I have been there who are actually from my electorate has been absolutely astonishing. The number of people from the western suburbs in particular who come into these rallies has been absolutely astonishing, and there have been a couple of times when it has been like old home week; it has been like some sort of reunion of the west out the front. That is something that I do take on board, and I say to the people of the west who have come in, ‘I salute you’. I say, ‘Good on you’. It was good to meet those of you who I had not met before, and I want you to know that I am with you. You already knew that anyway.

But these people that the government and the media have trashed as anti-vaxxers, they are not anti-vaxxers. They believe in freedom. They believe in human rights—a big difference, a very big difference. They too are appalled by the fact that we have a government in this state that is dictating to people what medical procedures they must have. That is something that I think a lot of people would be appalled about. You do not have to be anti-vaccination to be appalled by a government forcing people to have a medical procedure against their will. I think that is a pretty basic sort of thing. These people are concerned about human rights. That is the bottom line. They are average Australians from every walk of life, and it is a great pity that more members have not joined in these rallies and these marches because I have to say that the friendliness of the people involved has astonished me in fact. The feeling, the warmth, the camaraderie, if I can use that word, has been very, very strong. For the Premier and for the media to condemn them as being extreme right-wing ratbags or neo-Nazis or whatever they might say, that is just nonsense. There may well be a few who are a little bit nutty, but you get a few who are a little bit nutty just about everywhere, including in this Parliament, I might tell you. I say that as I look at the benches opposite, and I cannot help but think to myself, ‘God, how true is that?’.

But these people are just ordinary Australians expressing their opinion, and the fact that there have been hundreds of thousands of them week after week after week coming to this building is a message in itself, and I hope that they will remember what has happened over the last six or seven months here in Victoria. I am hoping that they will remember that come November and they will remember who has done it to them. I hope they will remember who allowed the government to have the extraordinary power when they voted for the pandemic legislation. I am hoping that the people out the front and others right around the state who are concerned about their civil rights and liberties will send a very clear message on election day or indeed in the two weeks before, the election period—

Ms Crozier: They need to save Victoria.

Mr FINN: They need to save Victoria, Ms Crozier, absolutely, and they have a duty, they have an obligation to do that come November. So I am hoping that it will not be a one-off—a march and a rally is not enough—that they will gather in large numbers and they will turf this crowd out, because what the Andrews government has done to Victoria and to Victorians over the past two years is nothing short of despicable, nothing short of disgraceful and something that we should never, ever tolerate again.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:28): I get that there are some purist sorts of lines about individualism and freedom and beliefs—I heard the word ‘belief’—and that is all fair and well, but that is not actually going to help fight the disease. It is a nice purist argument, but beliefs and purist arguments are not the best weapon when you are fighting a pandemic—or so the experts say, and I actually think they have credence with that argument. If we did not literally have to share airspace, as we do in all the communal facilities and schools and otherwise, then perhaps you could live through that purist argument, sit on that rock, stand up high and say, ‘Nup, I’m not going to do that because it’s all about me and not about everyone else in the community in which I claim to live, because it’s just about me, me, me, me, me’, but we actually do live in a community, and unfortunately pandemics involve more than one person.

In fact they involve thousands of people across the globe, because this disease spreads and it is virulent, and we have seen the consequences across the globe and locally as well. But restrictions were put in place which have helped contain the disease, hence unpalatable decisions had to be made.

You can take an obstructionist position and just oppose everything because ‘We want to try and get those votes and appease the conspiracy theorists and anyone else who has a purist belief or otherwise, because we might be able to grab those votes as well’, but unfortunately none of that helps in fighting a pandemic. If only it did. If only it was that simple.

What I do take exception to is the inference of such malice on the part of the government: that we have this dreadful attitude to children and to human beings and we want to torture them and inflict all this injury on them; that there could not possibly be a good motive behind what we are doing, that we actually do genuinely care about everyone in this chamber, everyone in our community, everyone across Victoria and frankly across Australia as well. I will tell you what I do, and I do not think I am out of line in saying on behalf of all those in the government that we genuinely care about our communities. We want people to be safe and healthy; we want them to have happy lives. Part of the imperative for getting people back into their workplaces and kids back into school et cetera has been the expediting of vaccinations. And yes, you can have the purist argument, ‘We’ll just leave it to the individual to decide when they feel they are ready to have a vaccination’, but we know that we human beings get distracted, we have other things going on in our lives and we may put off some of these vital decisions. We know that sometimes human beings even when they have symptoms will put off going to the doctor. I am not criticising that; that is just part of being human. But unfortunately if you just leave it to normal human behaviour, whatever normal is, then that may mean that pandemic just gets a leg-up and goes faster and harder.

We know that implementing vaccine mandates enables, statistically, a much faster uptake of vaccinations. That in turn has enabled us to relax the restrictions to the extent that we have to date. It is a cycle. You can see that all these behaviours and these measures are put in place with a noble goal, and that is to ensure that we minimise the spread of COVID-19. No-one has in any way said that vaccinations are a silver bullet. Who said that? Nobody would say that. But they are one of the essential tools, along with masks, along with social distancing and other elements, to help minimise the risk of people getting or spreading COVID-19, or if they get COVID-19 to minimise the risk of them ending up in ICU and, in the worst-case scenario, dying.

But the imperative which has not been discussed here by those opposite is the need to think about the healthcare workers and the pressure on them and hospitals. If you want to take the pressure off those on the front line, maybe a little bit of consideration for them, then it is imperative to get the vaccination rates up so that we can take the pressure off the health system and thereby enable a return to a more normal life. I say ‘more normal’ because we cannot put our heads in the sand and pretend the pandemic is over. That is a consistent theme that I see over there—complete avoidance of the issue of health and the fact that there is a pandemic and that we have had to adapt and address the pandemic and the circumstances and the ramifications of that. Frankly, call me selfish, but I care about my mother’s health. I care about my cousins. I care about you. I care about your parents. I care about her parents and all your relatives and your children. Everyone here matters.

Members interjecting.

Ms TAYLOR: Strangely enough, on our side of the fence we actually are governing for everybody. We are governing for everybody, and that means that sometimes we have to make unpalatable decisions, because, guess what, when you make decisions in government it is not all about getting votes, is it? It is about doing what is best for the community and ensuring that we can get to the other side of this pandemic.

There was some discussion about equality and so forth with regard to vaccine mandates. We know that vaccine mandates are not one size fits all, as evidenced by the different requirements for the highest priority workers and settings and the time frames for getting their third dose. What is the problem with that, with recognising those workers where the settings are such that they are at higher risk or those that they care for are at higher risk? Do you want facts or don’t you? Does it fit the narrative? I do not know. We are not here about fitting a narrative; we are here about being frank and addressing an issue, a very pressing issue, in the community.

Specified critical sectors, including aged care, health care, disability care and education workers, must all be vaccinated with three doses to continue working given the high risk—get this—of exposure to and of spreading the virus. What is so terrible and malicious about our government taking this action when looking at those vulnerable settings and people most at risk? What is so malicious about that? I have been trying to think about that. There was even an allegation of abuse of children, and I was thinking: I beg your pardon? For goodness sake, when the calibre of the debate plummets to that level and is so devoid of facts and evidence it is frankly disgraceful. It is also extremely manipulative. I know there have been times on social media that I have seen some commentary, and it beggars belief because I can tell from that that it is not based on scientific evidence; it is based on some of the most unfortunate and manipulative and extreme angles when it comes to the pandemic, as if to suggest that there are somehow any easy decisions for a government to make under these circumstances—because there are not.

A member interjected.

Ms TAYLOR: Exactly. Like the Premier—least of all the Premier—would in any way want to have to mandate vaccines unless it was absolutely necessary. Of course he would not. But of course those opposite keep trying to infer all this malice, this nastiness, on the part of the government, and never could anyone make the presumption that actually we do care deeply about our community and we want to make sure people are safe and supported and able to live, because, guess what, a business cannot run if you are not alive. A business cannot run if you are not well. You need to be in good health to be able to run that business. And hey, if you want customers coming into your business, they need to be well too, because if they have COVID-19 and they are suffering, if they happen to be those that actually are suffering with COVID-19 and have the more severe symptoms, they are not coming into your business.

A member interjected.

Ms TAYLOR: That’s right. So you need to draw that circle. A small business cannot run with sick people; it needs healthy people. Therefore the simplistic arguments about ‘Oh, all these restrictions—you’re just blocking business, never mind the health of the community. Never mind that, because that’s an inconvenient narrative. It doesn’t suit us. We want to avoid the difficult, and we want to run simple lines that suit the particular target that we’re aiming for’. Well, I am afraid we deal in reality, and we are here to look after our Victorian community.

Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (16:39): I will try and keep this as brief as I can. One of the founding principles of our party is a little term we call rationality, and I have to say that when I first saw Mr Limbrick’s motion I had a lot of hesitation and I had a lot of anxiety around it, because I knew we would see a debate such as exactly what we have descended into. We have seen once again this subject opened up to cheap political pointscoring, philosophical debate and flights of fancy that are just absolutely extraordinary, when in reality, when we look at this motion, if you throw all of the points that Mr Limbrick makes in point (1) out the window, it boils down to points (2) and (3). What it boils down to is referring the matters that Mr Limbrick wants to prosecute to the cross-parliamentary committee which was voted on in this chamber to be set up to do exactly that—to examine these matters. Mr Limbrick is not even asking for us to refer them in that way. What he is asking for is for the clerks to provide a letter to this parliamentary committee to ask that question. It is up to that committee to decide whether they accept that or not, and they may not. But they may well do, and then that is the process that will be followed.

I just want to say as well about that, I did have hesitations about setting up this parliamentary committee in the first place. Why? Well, the debate that has raged today is exactly the reason why. My concerns were that it could be hijacked and used as a political tool for pointscoring. I argued against it on that ground, and I want to thank Ms Patten actually for floating the idea—putting the proposal forward—in the first place. I had my hesitations—she was well aware of that—for the reasons I have just stated. I am pleased to say that it ended up in a bipartisan committee. I am happy with the result, because that way under that turn of rationality these matters can be discussed and referred or not, as the case may be.

But to come back to the motion, this is exactly what we set this committee up for in the first place—to refer these matters to them and to let them decide whether or not they need to be prosecuted by each of the houses again and voted on. That is up to them. Let them do the job that we asked them to do. There are members of the opposition, there are members of the government and there are members of the crossbench from both houses on the committee. It is truly a bipartisan committee, and they will make that decision. It is beholden on us then to let this go through and actually go to that committee and to let them make the decision, and then we should live with that decision. That is rationality. That is taking all the emotive arguments and the philosophical and the political arguments and, as I said, the flights of fancy away from this and bringing it back to what we are here to do: make decisions based upon the evidence. Let us let that committee do that job.

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:42): I rise to speak in support of Mr Limbrick’s motion, which goes to the heart of freedom of choice, liberty and the right of individuals to be individuals. For the past two years Victorians have suffered at the hands of big government. The rules and decrees that were meant to save us from a virus have in many regards caused more damage than the virus itself. Segregation—the brutal classification of people, based purely on whether they are jabbed, unjabbed or partially jabbed—has become a political weapon to formulate society. Life itself has been determined by whether you have a certain medical procedure or not. Victorians were locked up, restricted to within 5 kilometres of their homes, unable to see others and unable to visit the sick or dying or even go to a funeral when loved ones had passed away. Marriage was even cancelled under the Andrews regime. Borders became cruel lines on a map, effectively iron curtains unable to be crossed, separating people from vital medical appointments, loved ones and their homes. It forced some into paying double rent while on pensioner incomes. Who would have thought this island nation could so divide its citizens?

The decisions made by this Premier and his government on this matter alone were considered among the worst the Victorian Ombudsman said she had ever seen in her time in the job. Only one out of 10 applications for consideration to cross the border were given any merit. Ms Glass said the effect of the bureaucratic system meant some outcomes were downright unjust, even inhumane.

This government says it has saved us from the virus. Now it needs to save us from the inevitable deaths that will happen because of its chronic neglect of the Victorian hospital and health system. Code browns have exacerbated the elective surgery debacle, and for some this has sadly enforced outcomes that are negative and resulted only in the decline in health, the spread of cancer, the prevalence of undetected health conditions, loss of life for some and certainly the loss of quality of life.

The term ‘elective surgery’ is of course a misnomer, for there is nothing elective about it; it is vital and essential surgery. No-one chooses debilitating conditions and pain. Essential surgery is not cosmetic surgery. Schoolchildren have been forced to stare at computer screens at home instead of experiencing robust and engaging learning in classrooms, and the playground lessons and interactions that are equal to the education process.

Daniel Andrews’s big government has imposed too much, asked too much and demanded too much from every Victorian. He was aided and abetted by crossbenchers who supported the pandemic bill of December last year, which merely enables the long, long shadow of control to hang over us all for many months yet. This shadow delivers doubt to businesses, to schools and to the sick, for it demands a loss of freedom and choice and requires a homogenous, monolithic response to all parts of our lives—a one-rule-fits-all system. Mandates are the weapon of choice in this. They fail any test of nuance or understanding. They fail logic, for what farmer working alone in a paddock 100 miles from nowhere needs to wear a mask to protect himself from a virus that is not the bulk killer the modellers wanted us to believe?

The omicron variant is even less foreboding, yet we face a government that continues to demand more from individuals and less from itself. And when times get tough it points the other way, calls people ‘irrelevant’ and calls them quite simply ‘that person’. Victorian workplaces have suffered enough because of vaccine mandates and deadlines for the coercive policy. Businesses already closed down by the pandemic decrees have been handed a double whammy of being closed down due to staff not being vaccinated on time or simply not being vaccinated by choice.

This country of ours has thrived on choice. It is by choice that millions of migrants come here. It is by choice that people have become what they want to be: doctors, lawyers, bread makers, nurses, bus drivers. It is by choice that people go to the ballot box to determine who they want to run this great country and this state of ours. Mandates have conjured a contrived outcome for our population, and while I am fully vaccinated, it is something I have done not only because we are required to to simply turn up in this place and to enable me to do a job, but it is also a matter of choice, because I understand the health benefits to me and the loved ones around me.

Our vaccination rates are now globally leading. We have done our job as citizens. We have excelled in what we have been asked and forced to do. We know well that these vaccines do not stop the spread of the virus, but they do stop the degree of illness and the numbers entering our hospitals. For those now unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, they have the benefit of a surrounding populous that has taken the jab. It is time we move on from mandates. Our economy needs to spread its wings, having been clipped mightily by mandates and illogical rules for two years. Our children need to go to school without masks, COVID tests, home isolation and school closures. Living with this virus has to start to mean something. Mandating vaccines has never been the right thing to do. Sensible Australians have always made the best decisions for themselves and their families guided by good information. Victorians are capable of being responsible for themselves and their loved ones without the dictatorial heavy hand of government. And so it is that we vote today on this motion to reinvest in our beloved choice and to stop the madness of mandates that have walked our society into queues of haves and have-nots, of segregation when none was needed.

Throughout this time I have consistently argued to protect the vulnerable and to do this via due care, good systems and vaccinations. But choice must return and mandates must go—and must certainly go in this place as well. That is why I will support Mr Limbrick’s motion today and why we think it is vitally important for it to be referred to the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee.

That is the committee that in paragraph (3) Mr Limbrick has asked this motion to be referred to—not a parliamentary committee but the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee—and he requested further that the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee consider reviewing the pandemic orders identified in paragraph (2) of Mr Limbrick’s motion and provide advice to the Minister for Health. It also requires that the Clerk write to the chair of the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee to convey the terms of this resolution. This is vitally important, and this is why the coalition support Mr Limbrick’s motion. It is time that mandates have to go.

We should take up also some points that Mr Gepp made, because he was so concerned that Japan had more deaths than us. Well, actually his facts were wrong, because of course he was not taking into consideration the total difference between the populations of Japan and Australia. In fact if you correlate that out, you will find that Japan has had less deaths. We in Victoria have had 2409 deaths. Mr Gepp was keen to say that New South Wales had done very badly, but they have actually only had 1859 deaths—considerably less than Victoria. In fact we have had 550 more deaths than New South Wales. Also we must never forget that in the early days of this pandemic we lost over 800 people due to total failure of the hotel quarantine debacle. That was the policy of this government. It was poorly implemented, and has been proven to be so. We must ensure that all these mandates are gone now and that this committee examines Mr Limbrick’s motion. I have much pleasure in supporting Mr Limbrick’s motion.

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:52): We are on high rotation today. We have got a few down. I rise to make a contribution in regard to motion 708 standing in Mr Limbrick’s name. It is a bit of a burger-with-the-lot motion, but it effectively calls for an end to vaccine mandates.

A member interjected.

Ms TERPSTRA: Very interesting—I will say more about this point in a second, because it has been a bit of a consistent theme that we never release health advice. It talks about health advice. It talks about an article in the Conversation. It talks about asking the government to revoke the pandemic orders around vaccination, and then it asks for the motion to be referred to the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee and that the Clerk of this chamber writes to IPMAC to convey the terms of this resolution.

I have had the benefit of listening to a number of contributions in the chamber today. I concur with Ms Taylor’s earlier contribution, but I also concur with Mr Meddick’s contribution—a very well thought out contribution, particularly on the content of this motion. I think what is disappointing about the tone and candour of this debate today is that we are of course having to get into combating some of the claims that are being made around vaccination, but it is also important to go to some of the elements of this motion.

I might just start with these statistics. We get the catcalls from over here that vaccine mandates are inappropriate—everyone hates them et cetera, et cetera. I will just read out these statistics: 95.3 per cent of the over-12 population has now received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 93.9 per cent have received a second dose and 55.9 per cent have received a third dose. So the majority of the Victorian community actually believe in the science. They understand how vaccination works. There has been a lot of misinformation spread around about what vaccines do, and it is very concerning to hear our Parliament actually being used to ventilate some of these claims around vaccination which have no basis in fact or in science. It is very concerning. More to the point, we have heard a lot of claims from the opposition and claims from the Liberal Democrats that the government does not release the health advice. I will point to item (1)(d) in the motion, which specifically states:

in the acting chief health officer (CHO) advice to the Minister for Health, dated 10 January 2022 …

So clearly that advice was released. Again, it just goes to show that the candour and the conduct of these debates are never about the reality of the matter; it is just about the cheap political pointscoring. People want to run their line that again goes into the whole thing about us being a secretive, bad government. It is all about claiming that the Andrews Labor government is bad, opposing everything always and running negative, misleading disinformation campaigns just to scare people and to obscure any messaging. That is where this is leading.

The bottom line is that what is even more disappointing about this is that you are talking about health messaging. It is not even political messaging; it is actually information that is meant to protect people and save lives. As I said, if you look at the amount of people in the Victorian community who are vaccinated, the majority of Victorians are actually with us as opposed to many of those opposite who claim the opposite. But again, we are in an alternative-fact universe where people keep saying the opposite and hoping that it is going to turn a vote somehow. It is just really disappointing that again our chamber and the Parliament are being used to ventilate some of these really fanciful claims. Again, it is more to Mr Meddick’s point that he raised earlier that the Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee that was set up as a consequence of debate in this chamber and certainly as a consequence— (Time expired)

The PRESIDENT: Ms Terpstra, while you were on your feet earlier Mr Davis raised a point of order about your contribution and mentioned some comments about Dr Bach. I know you indicated to the house that you would withdraw. After checking Hansard, I would ask you to withdraw, please.

Ms Terpstra: Thank you, President. May I just ask for clarification: if a member of this house misleads in their commentary, what would be the procedure to—

A member interjected.

Ms Terpstra: I am asking for guidance. What would be the procedure to deal with that?

The PRESIDENT: That is a different matter. I would just ask you to withdraw and sit down. Then you can raise a point of order.

Ms Terpstra: Okay, I withdraw. And I will raise a point of order.

The PRESIDENT: Thank you. Now, what is your point of order?

Ms Terpstra: I seek guidance and clarification from the Chair. If a member in this house in their contribution misleads the house, what is the process for dealing with that misleading statement?

The PRESIDENT: You can raise a point of order against the member, and we will deal with it.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:58): I would like to thank all the members who contributed to the debate today. I would just like to clarify, or correct, a couple of things that were said during the debate. The motion does not refer to specialised worker mandates—it is only referring to general worker mandates—so any of the discussion about healthcare workers and that sort of thing was not relevant to the motion.

Also, during the debate there was talk about Japan and the number of deaths per million. For the philosophers amongst you, you would know about consequentialist arguments. Worldometer quotes Japan’s death per million at 177 and Australia’s death per million at 193, so they had lower deaths per million without mandates or anything. It is the same with Statista—that is another source—which is showing Japan at 174 deaths per million and Australia at 195 deaths per million. Again, they are similar numbers. I talk with my in-laws in Japan quite regularly about what has been going on here and what has been going on there, and they have been watching in horror at what has been happening here.

I would also say that there has been a lot of talk about whether or not mandates are based on the evidence or health advice. I would rebut that by saying that I do not think that you need to consult a medical specialist to know whether forcing a medical procedure or not is wrong; I think you need to consult a history book.

Motion agreed to.