Wednesday, 23 February 2022

COVID-19 vaccination

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (18:06): (1764) I wish to raise a matter in the adjournment this evening for the attention of the Minister for Health. I have been approached by a number of constituents who are deeply distressed by experiences that they have had with their family doctors over recent times. They have been to see separate doctors, I might say, to ask or to inquire as to whether it is possible for them to get a medical exemption from the so-called vaccine, the mitigation treatment, that they are required to get under the coercion program put in place by the Andrews government. They have been told—even though they are fully entitled to that medical exemption and have been told by their doctors that they are entitled and that they should be, under normal circumstances, entitled to a medical exemption—the doctors will not give them that exemption because they are terrified of the reaction of the government.

Now, this is just appalling. If the government wanted to terrify doctors, to crush any form of independent spirit that they might have, well, congratulations to the Premier and congratulations to the Minister for Health, because that is what they have done. But I tell you what, when I go to see my doctor about what I may have wrong with me, I do not want the health minister sitting in with me, and that is what is happening. That is what is going on. Perhaps on the bed in the corner you have got Martin Foley and you have got Dan Andrews sitting there looking at the doctor saying, ‘Don’t you do the wrong thing, or you’re gone, son’—or indeed ‘daughter’ for that matter.

So we have got a situation here that I never thought possible. I mean, I have always been told from time immemorial that the relationship between a doctor and a patient is sacrosanct and that nobody can come between a doctor and a patient. Well, Martin Foley can. Daniel Andrews can. This is an obscenity. This is an obscenity that is going on in this state, where people are not being able to get the treatment that they need and that they deserve because doctors are afraid of what the government will do to them. We know what sorts of countries allow that to happen. They are called communist countries. And unfortunately Victoria has gone down that path.

So what I am asking the Minister for Health to do is to give doctors back their freedom to treat their patients in a way that they see fit, without fear of retribution by a government that should not be interfering in the doctor-patient relationship.