Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Motions

COVID-19 vaccination

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:40): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that:

(a) a resolution of the Council on 14 October 2021 determined that members of the Legislative Council were required to provide proof of their COVID-19 vaccination to attend Parliament and perform their duties as elected representatives;

(b) this resolution resulted in four Legislative Council members being temporarily excluded from the parliamentary precinct and prevented from voting in the chamber;

(2) calls on all members of the Victorian Parliament and political parties registered with the Victorian Electoral Commission to confirm that they will support the right of all people elected at the 2022 Victorian state election to sit in the Parliament and perform their duties as elected representatives, regardless of vaccination status;

(3) further calls for the immediate removal of COVID-19 vaccine mandates for parliamentary staff and electorate officers; and

(4) instructs the Clerk to destroy all existing vaccination records collected under paragraph (8) of the resolution of the Council on 14 October 2021.

The Liberal Democrats are strong believers in democracy. In fact we are such strong believers that we put it right there in our name. How the views of people are reflected in the Parliament is a very important component of democracy. By long-held convention there are only a few reasons that disqualify you from being an elected member of Parliament in Victoria. Firstly, you must be a citizen of Australia. You must be over 18, you cannot be bankrupt or have a history of criminal behaviour and you cannot have a job where you make money from the Crown.

Most of us agree that by and large these are sensible provisions that still allow for the will of the people to be reflected in our Parliament. However, last year, without a great deal of debate or thought for such a serious matter, another reason was introduced: medical status. With the government fully supported by the Liberal Party, I, Mr Quilty, Dr Cumming, Mr Somyurek and also Mr Angus in the lower house were excluded from Parliament for refusing to divulge our vaccination status. We all had our reasons for doing this, but I know for Mr Quilty and me, although we were fully vaccinated, it was important to take a stand for other people and to take a stand about privacy of medical information in general.

Some of you may remember that Mr Quilty, Dr Cumming and I spent a few sitting days in a nightclub here in the CBD. We were allowed to speak to legislation but not to vote. Whether or not the government intended this to be the case, there was always a question mark hanging over proceedings. Remember that the background here was the introduction of the highly controversial pandemic bill, which members who were suspended from Parliament had indicated opposition to. Had we not eventually handed in our medical records, passage of that legislation would have been considerably easier for the government. This was subversion of democracy. The Hansard for those days we were suspended will forever have an asterisk at the bottom as to whether or not the laws created were created under legitimate representation. Since that time it seems nearly everyone who is fully vaccinated and believed they would not contract or pass on the virus has contracted COVID one or more times. This is contrary to some of the reasons given by the government when they first brought in their motion and suspended members of Parliament. The COVID-zero policy has been abandoned, and we are seeing more reasonable measures this year.

With this motion and this new information, and in the cold light of day, the Liberal Democrats are simply asking for a more reasoned approach. We believe it is time for human rights to make a comeback and in particular the right to participate in public life—one of Victoria’s human rights that is articulated in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. Voters at the next election should expect that they will be represented properly regardless of the medical status of their elected MP. As it stands, this new imposition on democracy has a very real potential to be misused to the detriment of the people of Victoria, and we are seeking to obtain commitments that this will not happen.

There is a common saying that justice should not only be done but it should be seen to be done. The same goes for democracy. The Liberal Democrats want human rights to make a comeback. We commend this motion to the house.

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:45): I rise to make a contribution on this motion, and again it seems like we are in Hotel California today—you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave. We just see the same themes going round and round and round in this chamber today—more about how this is terrible, our human rights have been infringed, this is terrible for democracy and all the rest of it. But what I will say is that in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines most of the people I speak to in my electorate and beyond that in fact who are not involved in politics and who do not sit in this chamber just want to move on. They do not want to be reminded of this kind of stuff, because these were pretty hard years. Everyone had to make sacrifices. Everyone found it challenging.

The sort of commentary that came from Mr Limbrick today in moving his motion seems to be a fairly entitled worldview that somehow our human rights are still being impacted and that this is terrible for our democracy. I remind Mr Limbrick—I do not know, it must be bush lawyer week or something—about the Loielo court case, where the courts looked at whether human rights were impacted. This was in the context of vaccine mandates and the other measures that were introduced by the government. The courts ruled that there was no impact on human rights, because people were still free to do some things and move about in their everyday lives. They talked about human rights being restricted in the sense that if you go to jail or go to prison for something and you are unable to move freely about and do things because you are in prison, that is a different scenario. Mr Limbrick and the Liberal Democrats have learned nothing about that, choose to ignore the court’s ruling on that and just want to keep banging this drum.

I think it is something you should caution yourself about, because, electorally, if you keep talking about these things then most of the people that I speak to have the common view that they do not want to be reminded about this. This is something that you think is going to benefit you at the ballot box, but I remind you of the federal election result, where the Liberal Democrat vote kind of tanked. Honestly, if you think this is going to get you anywhere, it is sad. Really you pay no respect to the fact that people have had very difficult years, and you want to keep reminding them of it. I do not think that it is going to do anything other than reflect poorly on you, your party and what you want to do, which is just play divisive wedge politics. So shame on you for doing that.

I look at what people in my electorate are telling me, which is that they feel that this government acted appropriately in keeping them safe. The reason why we had to move to lockdowns was that we did not have vaccines. Why didn’t we have vaccines? Because the federal government did nothing about it. People know and understand that the safety measures that were put in place were to keep people safe, and that is what happened. We were able to make sure that the deaths that occurred were minimised, because had we not done that there would have been thousands and thousands and thousands of preventable deaths. We know that vaccination protects people from death from COVID, severe illness and severe injury. I just had my fourth vaccine jab the other day. I was feeling a bit dusty for a day, which was not very good. But I have to say, ‘Yay for science. Go, science. Yay, science’, because it showed me that my immune system functions properly when it is stimulated to do so. I actually think it cleared up the cough that I had not been able get rid of for a couple of months, which I reckon I had overhanging from when I had COVID. The fourth jab I think helped me get over that, so I am actually thankful and grateful for that.

People talk in my electorate about vaccines and what they mean to them. They are grateful for the fact that we have a public health system that makes things freely available and accessible to them. We know the measures that the government has gone to to make sure that people with disability and others in special categories could access vaccines for free where necessary, and this was a situation where government had to act quickly. We had not had a pandemic for 100 years. This was a circumstance that the Labor government did not dream up and bring on itself. We did not conjure that up. I am sure that you would like to blame us for that, but it is something that we did not do. Again, people in my electorate are not expressing the extremist views that are being espoused by Mr Limbrick and the Liberal Democrats. As I said, people are grateful for vaccines.

Of course one of the things that Victoria did was talk about vaccine mandates, and we have moved on from that because we are in a different phase of the pandemic. I do not understand why we have to keep talking about this, because we have kind of moved on, but you want to keep dragging us back there because, again, you want to be cynical, you want to use wedge politics and you think it is going to help you electorally. Shame on you for doing it. There are people who are struggling still now with the after-effects of having to deal with COVID-19. They might have lost family members. They were separated from family members and people made lots of sacrifices during the pandemic, but you want to keep reminding people of it. I do not know how that is going to work for you. I just think that is very entitled and incredibly selfish of you.

There are many people who we know are grateful for being able to access vaccines in their community. This has been more difficult for others, depending on the areas that they have been in and worked in. Nevertheless employers, for example, when they are running a business—and you may not be aware of this; I do not know whether you know much about this—certainly have got to provide a healthy and safe workplace for their employees. That also then crossed into the rubric of making sure that if you went to work you were not going to catch COVID at work, so we went to working from home scenarios and we went to making sure that people when they came to work were vaccinated. Mr Limbrick talked about privacy and all this kind of stuff. Well, no-one’s privacy was impinged on. The fact was you had to show your COVID vaccine status, because obviously an employer who did not require that of their employees was actually being exposed to bearing some kind of liability if there was an outbreak at their workplace. So, again, these are things that do not occur to you over there, because what you want to do is just bang the drum, be divisive and whip up fear and anxiety in the community. It does not help. The community wants to look to parliamentarians with a sense of optimism and also a sense of being able to move on. What is moving forward for the future? What are we offering people? Not a reflection looking back to the past, which is all you offer.

I will sum up. I have got 3 minutes left on the clock. What I know is this: the majority of community members share our views about vaccines, because let us face it, 98 per cent of people have had their first dose. A similar, slightly lesser amount have had their second dose. A third dose is at around 60-odd per cent, and then people are well on their way to getting their fourth dose. If people did not agree with vaccines, we would see a very different scenario to that. So, again, you are pitching to a very small audience. People in the workplace generally thought well of vaccine mandates because it meant they could go to work—when they could return to work—and have some level of confidence that perhaps they were not going to catch COVID in their workplace, because their employer was required to put in measures to ensure that did not happen.

We know we are not out of this pandemic yet and we cannot afford to be complacent. Like I said, that is why I went and got my fourth dose the other day. I have had COVID. I do not want to get it again, and I know people are getting second reinfections at this point. I was listening to the chief health officer the other day with his update. He suggests we have just peaked in this wave and we are on the way down. Hospitalisation rates for COVID are down by 10 per cent, which is a good thing to hear. But we have had a pretty nasty flu season as well, so we are still dealing with a whole range of challenges that winter has thrown at us while still with COVID. And now we have got monkeypox; it is there.

I think most people generally—fair-minded people—accept that science provides us protection by virtue of vaccines, and Victorians have done an amazing job in getting vaccinated. They have helped slow the spread of COVID-19 and helped to protect vulnerable Victorians, because that is the collective nature of Victorians. We know and understand that by getting vaccinated not only are we protecting ourselves, but we are protecting those people who are vulnerable. I, along with many people in my electorate and other Victorians, actually care. I do not want to go into an aged care home and infect some elderly person who could die, likewise a person with a disability or someone who is immunocompromised or has some illnesses that they might suffer from. Let us face it, there have been plenty of able-bodied and very well people who have died from COVID-19 as well, so the idea that I could just run around freely and infect people because I just care about me and what I want is pretty offensive to me and most Victorians.

Just in finishing, as I said, Victorians have done an amazing job. Almost 6.3 million vaccinations had been administered through the state-run system as of 19 July 2022. I congratulate all Victorians on their commitment and on sticking with us and staying with us through a very challenging period of time. As I said, we are on track nationally on third doses, and we are just at the peak of the third wave. I will conclude my contribution there. This motion should be rejected, and I encourage members in this chamber to join with us in rejecting this motion.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:56): I have a somewhat different view, although I do agree with some of the points that Ms Terpstra made. Early doors in Ms Terpstra’s contribution she said that what we need to do is move on from some of the harsher restrictions that we saw in the early days of the pandemic—

Ms Terpstra: I didn’t say that.

Dr BACH: and also from these debates. I take up the interjection from Ms Terpstra. She is correct; in particular she was talking about these debates. My mind went back to a very measured contribution from Mr Gepp earlier in the day where he said that what we needed to be doing in this place was to be focusing on things that matter to our constituents. I agree, and yet I do disagree with Ms Terpstra that there is something ‘extremist’—her word—or ‘shameful’, another word she used, or ‘divisive’ about this motion. When I read this motion, to me it speaks about seeking to do exactly what Ms Terpstra highlighted at the outset of her contribution, and that is to move on. I represent the same electorate that Ms Terpstra does, and many people in that electorate talk to me about seeking confidence. The lead speaker for the government spoke about a desire for a sense of optimism and hope in the community, and I agree wholeheartedly, but I think if we can say to the Victorian people, ‘We’re not going to go back to the failed policies of 2020 and 2021’, well, that will actually go a long way to instil a sense of hope and optimism. The implication that that somehow says that you are against vaccines is, with respect, a rather silly one.

Something else I agree with Ms Terpstra about is the side effect from the fourth dose of the vaccine. Like the honourable member, I went to have my fourth dose the other day. I did not feel particularly good for the couple of days after that, but I still felt that that was a good thing for me to do and an important thing for me to do. But I would have thought that the vast majority of members in this house could agree that we do not need mandates like the ones that Mr Limbrick has isolated in his motion through until well into 2023 and that the Victorian public need to know that we want to move on and talk about those sorts of issues that Mr Gepp highlighted in his earlier contribution. He highlighted health in particular.

The reason for the very strict measures, harsh measures, in some respects inhumane measures, that the Victorian community was subjected to in 2020 and 2021 was first and foremost to prepare the health system. That is what we were told time and time again. We were told that we needed to go so hard to put in place a curfew, for example, and to ban children from playing on playgrounds in order to make sure that there was time to put in place the 4000 new ICU beds, the vast majority of which have now never eventuated; to ready our 000 call centre—and yet we learn about more and more Victorians who tragically have died while on hold with 000; and to make sure that the elective surgery waiting list did not blow out. Well, there are now about 90 000 Victorians who are waiting for really important surgery. I oftentimes do not think that the terminology of ‘elective surgery’ fully communicates how serious the matters are that we are discussing—things like hip and knee replacements—yet so many Victorians are waiting in pain. But together as a community we did accept many of the harsh restrictions of those times, and Mr Limbrick is correct to point out that on this side of the house we did support many of those measures that we were told at that time by the government, the chief health officer and others were necessary, predominantly to prepare the health system for the moment when we got back to a more normal mode of working.

So I agree. I want to be talking about Victoria’s health crisis. I want to be talking about education standards, which Mr Gepp also spoke about. I want to be talking about transport infrastructure and the waste and blowouts that we have seen there, money that could have been far better spent on other things. And yet, if we continue to see measures like the measures that Mr Limbrick has discussed in his motion remain on the table for the government into the long term, that nobbles our ability as a chamber, indeed as a community, to carry out more fulsome and appropriate debate about the sorts of things that my constituents, who are the same constituents as Ms Terpstra’s constituents, contact me about daily.

I confess that I feel the lead speaker for the government went way over the top in asserting that this was somehow an extremist motion or it was shameful to be wanting to have these discussions. I had actually already noted here on my notes that I wanted to discuss moving on, and that was exactly the language that Ms Terpstra used. We want confidence and optimism in the Victorian community. We want businesses to know that they are going to be able to function as near to normally as possible, but for that to happen we do need more clarity from the government that these kinds of measures are not going to be resorted to again, that we are going to fix the health system that we were told would be fixed 2½ years ago, that we are going to continue to give sensible advice to folks and that the kind of heavy-handed measures we have seen in the past are a thing of the past to allow us to focus on the issues that Victorian people demand we now turn our attention to, to fix the problems, some of which have been brewing for many years and many of which have certainly been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (17:02): It is kind of a shame in a way because, when you reflect on vaccines, really they are one of the greatest public health achievements—perhaps the single most life-saving innovation—in the history of medicine, and I feel with these kinds of debates there is a risk of actually casting a bit of a slur upon or putting down vaccines and modern medicine. It is disrespecting science and the many great outcomes and many people across the world, thousands and thousands of people, who have been saved as a result of life-saving vaccines. Up until the 1950s thousands of Australian children died every year from infectious diseases such as diphtheria, smallpox, measles and polio. We know that public immunisation programs have controlled and in some cases wiped out these diseases in Victoria and in Australia.

So the point I am getting to is that I think we have to be really, really careful about the signals that we send when in effect we are discrediting some of the, for want of a better word, marvels of modern science for the betterment of the whole community for the sake of the ‘Me, me, me, I, I, I—I’ll just worry about me and not worry about my impact on others or the fact that I live in a community or my relatives, my friends or otherwise’. I know myself when I had vaccines and the booster I did not only do it for myself. Yes, absolutely, I wanted to prevent the worst possible outcome from getting COVID-19. I did it for my mum, I did it for my cousins and I did it for people in my community. I was thinking of others. That does not make me a better human being. I know that there are so many Victorians—and we can see by the statistics—who have done it for the sake of fellow Victorians. This is a wonderful thing and something that should be encouraged, and the risks that we have in this kind of debate, drawing it down to the minutiae, is that for the sake of the ‘Me, me, me, I, I, I—don’t care about anyone else’ motto we risk deterring people from taking positive action that can provide one of the best preventions from getting critically ill.

That is the risk I see. I do not know, maybe I am out on a limb with that, but I fear that we do not send a positive signal. It is not reinforcing modern medicine and scientists and doctors and the medical experts who guide us so carefully and diligently. It is just encouraging a fairly introspective focus that I would argue at its worst could actually put people at risk. I wonder if that is really the best possible outcome from a day in Parliament.

Is that what we really want to achieve here? I personally do not want to do that. I do not consider myself to be a medical expert, and I am happy to defer to those who know far better than me, who have years and years of professional experience with vaccines and other medications. I fear that these kinds of debates can grossly distort the very sound, well-studied and well-practised mechanisms and tools that our public hospitals and our medical and healthcare professionals have to keep Victorians safe. That is the risk when you go down this kind of fairly strange rabbit hole—‘Me, me, me, I, I, I, my rights, my rights’—and are not thinking about the greater good and public benefit in the short term and the long run, on all accounts. We have been here many times. I think that it was quite rightly said by my colleague Ms Terpstra that we have been here so many times, and I am not sure that it is kicking goals at the end of the day.

I fear that yet again it perhaps raises suspicion and unfounded concern about modern medicine in a way that I do not think enhances or is to the betterment of our wonderful Victorian community. I am being very candid in expressing that, but this is something I feel very deeply about. Everyone here, the collective, has been through the pandemic. We know how difficult it has been for everyone across the globe. It is only through the wonders of modern medicine that we have a number of mechanisms and tools in place, which have unfortunately been the subject of much, can I say, unfair conjecture that is not helpful for the purpose of goodness knows what. At the end of the day, what does that really achieve? Not a lot, I think. Sometimes we do not want to overstate the importance of ourselves as individuals in this chamber other than for furthering the best interests of the community as a whole, and this is something we can do as a collective. We have that power. We have the honour of representing our community, and I feel that in that regard we have a responsibility to put the best interests of our community forward.

A testament to Victorians, who I think on the whole see value in modern medicine and in our healthcare professionals, is that we know that Victorians have done an amazing job in getting vaccinated to slow the spread of COVID. After all, wasn’t that the purpose: to protect vulnerable Victorians and prevent our health system from being overwhelmed? In fact almost 6.3 million vaccinations had been administered through the state-run system—outstanding—as of 19 July 2022. We know that the vaccination mandates for first and second doses across a range of sectors, including health care, aged care and construction, were implemented in 2021 and have played a significant role in getting Victoria’s vaccination uptake to these high rates. I think that is another point that can get sullied in the chamber—literally sullied. What has been the purpose underlying these measures that were taken during the pandemic to get vaccination rates up high rapidly? Because otherwise it would have taken so much longer to get that protection across the community.

Literally expediting the uptake of vaccinations to protect as many Victorians as possible as expediently as possible—what is wrong with that? When we think of the underlying rationale, how terrible to want to protect as many Victorians as possible as expediently as possible. When you think about it that way, I do wonder why we are having this debate today, to be honest with you. I do not mind having a debate on any of the topics that come into the chamber; that is a healthy thing per se. But if we look in a nutshell at the underlying premise of what has been driving the various measures that were undertaken from the outset of the pandemic, it was to protect as many Victorians as possible as expediently as possible against a pretty virulent and pretty profound pandemic which impacted the globe. So trying to sully that—I use that word, and it seems a pretty potent and perhaps cheeky word to use to some extent, but really the reason is—

Members interjecting.

Ms TAYLOR: Well, I would take exception to that because I do not think it is stupid to be protecting the welfare of fellow Victorians. So I do take exception to that inference, because at the end of the day that is what we are here to do, isn’t it? We are here to do the best that we can to keep our fellow Victorians as safe as possible during some of the most difficult times in history, and I commend all Victorians who played their part in helping to protect each other through the pandemic, which is not over, which is continuing and against which we have to all be very vigilant in our behaviour in terms of managing our way forward and through. On that note we are opposing this motion.

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (17:11): Firstly can I congratulate Ms Taylor on her new role as Parliamentary Secretary for Health. This is right in her wheelhouse, and she will do an outstanding job in that new role.

Ms Taylor is right to be cynical about the motion before the house today and the motives behind it. Mr Limbrick when introducing the motion talked and talked and talked about his commitment to democracy and in fact how committed his party is to democracy. ‘We even put it in our name’, I think is what he said. But of course Mr Limbrick is so committed to democracy that it was only a few short weeks ago that Mr Limbrick decided to absent himself from this place and deny his constituents a vote in this place so that he could go and try and get office in another place. How cynical was he in the whole exercise? He would not allow his party to fill his position behind him, because he knew he was going to lose, but he still did it anyway. That is how committed this bloke is to democracy. He denied his constituents a vote for about three times the length of time he was actually out of this place for not getting vaccinated—three times the length. He denied his own constituents himself. That is how committed to democracy this bloke is, so I think we are right to be cynical about the reason behind Mr Limbrick’s motion here today.

What it is about is playing to his base. That is all that this is about, playing to his base. It is the same song on repeat. He must not have the premium version of Spotify, because he just keeps playing the same song again and again and again and again and again. Ms Taylor is absolutely right: what we ought to be doing is congratulating the people of Victoria for their outstanding commitment to beating this awful, awful, awful virus, for going out and getting vaccinated, rolling up their sleeves and doing their bit for public health in Victoria.

I find a bit amazing the people who walk in here and talk about vaccination mandates, how horrible they are and how they should not be a feature of the public health system. And yet in my time in here, which is drawing to a close—I am not coming back, you know, Mr Limbrick. I am not coming back. I am not asking the people of my constituency to have their vote denied for a period of time so I can come back. In all of my time I have not heard one member of Parliament stand up and say, ‘Let’s reverse the vax mandate for our children’. We have had a vax mandate for our children for a very long time here in this state: no jab, no play. If you want your child to be able to participate readily in society, unless there is a good medical reason why they should not be vaccinated, then they have got to get vaccinated. But you hear crickets on this stuff. I have not heard the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) walk in here and say, ‘Let’s reverse this vaccination mandate for our children’. And again we are in here talking about ourselves.

The reasons for the vaccination mandates were very good scientific, public health reasons. That has been well established—very good public health, scientifically based reasons. And not just here—not just in this state, not just in this country—but indeed across the globe. All governments, certainly in First World countries where they had the means available, asked people to go out and get vaccinated, particularly those in some of our most vulnerable areas. Because we knew—Ms Taylor touched on it, and I think Ms Terpstra did as well in her contribution—that if we were not vaccinated then those who were compromised with other health issues or were of a certain age group were at greater risk than us and it could rip through those parts of the community. Alas, we have seen example after example, both domestically and internationally, of where that has occurred.

So I am cynical about the motion that Mr Limbrick has brought forward today. I do not accept the guff about democracy and how this is an attack on democracy. Well, you should have practised what you preached, mate. You should have practised what you preached. If you wanted to go and be in another place, then you should not have denied your own constituents a vote for so long in this place to satisfy your own political ego. That is all you did.

Dr Bach talked about the electorate wanting hope and wanting optimism, and they do. When you look at the 6.3 million vaccinations that have been administered through this state, I think the majority of people in Victoria are very grateful that we have had in place a system that has required people to go and get vaccinated—that we have provided the resources to enable that to occur. At the core of this was keeping people safe. It was a public health initiative, and people have rolled up their sleeves. I do not like going to get needles. I do not know too many people that do. You know, they are not particularly pleasant things to receive, but we knew at the end of the day that that 2 seconds of uncomfortableness may well have a very, very real impact on the rest of our community. That is why we did it—not to deny liberty, not to infringe on human rights. Where are my human rights? Where are the human rights of people in my electorate to have decent public health policies in this state? Where is their right to actually go about their business and know that the people they are mixing with are also doing their bit—that they are not vulnerable, that they are not being put at risk by people who want to be fundamentally selfish?

Mr Limbrick and Mr Quilty and Dr Cumming—they did not have to not be in this place. They did not have to be in their nightclub while the rest of us were in here working. They did not have to do that; they could have been here. But it was a political stunt. It was a political stunt, because shortly after they were out of the nightclub, what did they do? They went and got the jab to come into this place. If they were fair dinkum that it was such an outrage to their human rights, if they were so offended by this piece of public policy, they would still not be here today. But instead what we have got is a cynical proposition being brought forward by the LDP for no other reason than a bit of dog whistling to their base.

I want to congratulate the 96 per cent of Victorians aged 16 and over who have received a first dose, and the 94.5 per cent who have received their second dose. A total of 73.2 per cent of Victoria’s eligible 16-and-over population have received three or more doses—contrast that with 68.5 per cent in New South Wales and 64 per cent in Queensland. This is I think one of the most impressive figures of all: of our five- to 11-year-olds here in Victoria, 60.6 per cent have rolled up their sleeves and received their first dose—it is less than 50 per cent in other parts of the country. Of those kids, another 45.5 per cent have gone on and got a second dose. They have done a magnificent job for this state, as have all of our healthcare workers, as have all of the people in this state who have voluntarily rolled up their sleeves and got their jab for the betterment of their fellow community members. I reject the proposition from Mr Limbrick.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:21): I cannot say I am pleased to speak on this motion, but I am compelled to. This morning I second read a bill that was something really important—and it was really important to the majority of people in Victoria—around access to reproductive health from public health providers. I take my time in this chamber very seriously. I feel incredibly privileged to be here to represent my community, and every moment, including those precious 90 minutes that I get on a general business day—I get them twice a year—is precious. I think long and hard about what I am doing. I plan for them. I go out and speak to stakeholders. I take a lot of time.

This motion I do not think took a lot of time. I do not think it took a lot of thought. And I wonder what the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are going to tell their grandkids about their time in Parliament. What did they achieve? Well, they did get to go to Parliament from a nightclub. Now, that is kind of cool, and you could tell your grandkids that. Of course no-one else was at the nightclub. The music was not playing. The lights were going, so there were some lovely red and blue flashes on their faces as they joined Parliament from that nightclub. They could tell their grandkids that they drew a turd on the map of Victoria and called it Rexit. Interesting. Again, my grandkids would probably find that funny. But what did they do here?

It is a silly motion to ask us to say that we will not request people to be vaccinated in the future. Mr Gepp read out those numbers; that is impressive. The vast majority of Victorians very much believe in vaccination. In fact I would ask the question: do we ever want to elect someone into this chamber that does not believe in vaccinations? Yes, this is a democratic place and everyone has the right to be here—everyone, including the people over 70 and the immunocompromised that visit this place. I wear a mask today. I have the constitution of an ox. I do not get sick. I do not wear a mask to protect myself, although I think I should, but I wear a mask to protect others. I wear a mask because I do not want to harm someone else. I get vaccinated for that reason as well. I would be surprised if any of us did not think the same way. I also get vaccinated so that people who are immunocompromised can come to this chamber, so that people who are immunocompromised or older and more susceptible to various viruses and diseases can visit this Parliament, can take part in the parliamentary process and can give evidence face to face in our committees—that is why I do it—and so that people who work here are not at risk when they come here. Those are the reasons why I choose to get vaccinated, why I believe we all have a responsibility to be vaccinated. It is a great privilege to be in this chamber. It is a great privilege to represent our communities. I do not think that we should even consider not doing what we can to protect our community, and getting vaccinated is one of those things.

I recently, in fact just this weekend, went to Malaysia, where they are still asking for vaccination status when you go into a shopping mall. When you go to Malaysia you actually have to give them evidence of your three vaccinations, and they are very strict about it. They want to know the batch number. It was kind of over the top, and I have to say I spent a lot of time at check-in completing the documents that I had not done before I got there. However, the rest of the world understands the seriousness of this. I understand the seriousness of COVID. I understand the seriousness of viruses. I understand that this will not be our last virus. I understand that this probably will not be our last pandemic. As we are seeing, pandemics are becoming more regular.

I am actually stunned to hear that the LNP would support this motion, that they would say, ‘If we’re elected, we won’t ask members of Parliament to be vaccinated’. Who else are they not going to ask? That to me is treading down a very dangerous path. We are considered leaders in our community, and we should lead. I suspect there are reasons why Mr Limbrick and the LDP have brought forward this motion—well, they are suspicions. But this is serious. COVID is serious. I take the job here seriously, and I do not think this is a serious motion. I do not support it.

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:27): I have listened with interest this afternoon to the debate on Mr Limbrick’s motion. On one side, on the government benches and indeed with Ms Patten, we have just heard a level of heightened drama about this motion that I actually do not read and do not see. We heard also from Ms Terpstra in her contribution about the level of optimism, and that is an interesting word in the context of a pandemic and the effects that COVID has had on Victoria and the effects of the Andrews government’s decisions in relation to the Victorian population. She mentioned that the community—paraphrasing her—would want parliamentarians to be optimistic and to receive a level of optimism from them. Well, it is an interesting notion that in this state, in Victoria, which was globally known as the most locked down state in the world, many people, if they were in the city, sat at home for up to 23 hours a day with 1 hour off to go and exercise or do a 5-kilometre walk within a 5-kilometre radius. For various Victorians in regional Victoria we had a slightly longer leash, but certainly it was absolutely devastating. The ramifications of that lockdown are still being felt and will continue to be felt. For some people, in terms of small business, they lost their small business; it was crushed with the lockdown. Again I go to rural and regional Victoria: some of the effects really put people under such pressure that they could not sustain their business or there was no business for them to go to. So it is sometimes a little bit galling when you hear they expect a level of optimism from parliamentarians when Daniel Andrews was actually the archetype of the dark days.

The government will say, ‘It was all important. It was all worth it’. Well, I think that a measured approach is certainly worth it, and we saw a measured approach in other parts of our country. We saw a measured approach in New South Wales. Indeed my son lives in Sydney, and he is a nurse there. We spoke a lot, particularly over the phone, naturally, about the differences during that pandemic lockdown period. I remember, with irony now, that Daniel Andrews, the Premier, sat there on doughnut day with some doughnuts sitting on his desk and he was going to go off and have a special celebration. Well, we know that doughnut day is long gone into the distance and will never be again. Indeed I will quote some figures about our levels of coronavirus in the population—that is, the recorded levels, because we know now many people are not even bothering to go through the process of registering. Whether that is good or bad, that is a personal choice that they are making, and that is fine.

We have seen families dislocated. We have seen the hassle and the pain that those Victorian border lockdowns created in twin towns, the drama between those, with people working on one side and living on another and kilometres of roads and waiting in line. It was very, very distressing. We have seen schools closed and remote learning, and some of the children just have not recovered from that. No, I will not go and prosecute in my remaining time or go through each and every facet of it, but I think it is worth noting that those on the government benches talk about how we need optimism. Yes, we do. We absolutely do. Certainly we need a plan and a future, and it is important that we all look to that. But do not then give us hyperbole about the state of the nation and condemn Mr Limbrick for moving this motion when people have absolutely struggled throughout this pandemic and throughout the lockdowns caused by the Andrews government.

I remember during the COVID pandemic when the CHO—the chief health officer—would stand out there with Mr Andrews and say, ‘Here’s your next layer of restrictions and regulations’. All of us—I am sure all members of Parliament—were trying to decipher them for our communities. It was really tough, not for us—we should be doing that work—but for people to try and decipher what was in and what was out. And if you got it wrong, quite often you got a hefty fine or a visit from the authorised officers or both. Again, that was really challenging for people.

Tourism was smashed, and some of it has not recovered, particularly in Eastern Victoria Region. We know that there have always been people looking for staff throughout this, and we have seen those empty businesses.

I take on the government’s position, and Mr Gepp was talking about the rate of vaccination. Overwhelmingly the population came and wanted to do the right thing and certainly did do the right thing in terms of reaching a high vaccination status, and we have heard that quoted. Almost 70 per cent of the population have now reached their third dose, and many are going around again for their fourth. We listened on the radio to epidemiologists speaking, and sometimes, in the cloud of crossfire of whatever the Premier was saying and others, it was important to listen to those epidemiologists who then tried to rationalise a very sensible path through.

When it comes to vaccine mandates I think all of those settings that we had have long needed to be gone, except in very high risk settings, and that is the Nationals and Liberals position: aged care and medical settings and people in vulnerable settings.

When we look at moving on and the importance of moving on, there are other significant dangers coming over the parapet. There are significant dangers to our state and to our food supply chains that I think could well be in the order of the pandemic in another realm. I speak of the foot-and-mouth disease potential that is sitting north of us in Indonesia, and there are other countries certainly that also have foot-and-mouth disease prevalent in their cloven-hoofed animals. This is very dangerous territory. Again—and I note the minister is in the room—absolutely everything must be done to ensure from a federal perspective and a border security perspective that another threat does not come through the door and into our communities and onto our farms and to our livestock but also that states absolutely must do the maximum that they can to stop this, because on another level it will be of the same magnitude. It will absolutely decimate our livestock industry, our farms, our downstream, our food—this is not hyperbole, this is real. Again I implore the government to do all that it can in every extreme outcome to stop that threat and make sure that our food supply and our farmers exist.

Back to this motion, I do not see it as being incredibly outrageous. Noting the high level of vaccination status that we have—and congratulations and thank you to all those Victorians who came to the party and completed that—I feel quite sympathetic to Mr Limbrick’s motion.

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (17:36): I shall be brief—or endeavour to be brief, anyway. I support Mr Limbrick’s motion, and I want to make it very, very clear to this house that I will never use my vote to support any mandate for vaccination of the sort we have seen over the last couple of years. I did not vote for the motion which banned Mr Limbrick, Mr Quilty and Dr Cumming from the chamber. I did not vote for that, despite my then party supporting it. I believed that it was wrong. I still believe it is wrong. The fact that 98 per cent of people are vaccinated is great. That is their choice. We hear a lot about choice in this place. We hear people talking about choice all the time. You can choose to do a lot of things. You can even choose to kill your babies, apparently. But you cannot have a choice as to whether you are vaccinated or not.

And it is not as if the vaccination actually does much to prevent the transfer of this Wuhan virus, because it does not stop you passing it on and it does not stop you from getting it. I reckon under those circumstances it is really hard to call it a vaccine at all. I think the federal government passed some law at some stage which legally allowed it to be called a vaccine, but it is not a vaccine. What it is is some sort of mitigation service that it provides for people who are vaccinated. I am vaccinated and I am quite happy to be vaccinated, but those people who for whatever reason do not wish to be vaccinated should not have to be vaccinated. They should not be locked out of society, and I know so many people—great people, good people—who have not been able to pay their mortgage. They have not been able to pay their car payments. They have not been able to get their kids to school because they have been thrown out of society, thrown out of civilisation, because they refuse to be vaccinated. I think it is just totally wrong. As Mr Limbrick said, I think it is a gross violation of human rights.

I remember, sitting over there—it must have been 45 years ago, I reckon—in this chamber when there was a debate on whether patients would have the ability to deny treatment, and that bill was passed. Here, now, all these years later we are telling them that they cannot. They cannot deny treatment. You have got to have your treatment. If Dan says you have to have your treatment, you have got to have your treatment. It is wrong. If people are unvaccinated and people get sick as a result of that, that is up to them. It is their choice, as it should be. It is, I think, one of the most dangerous things that we can do—to force people to be involved in any medical procedure against their will. It is something that I think we would see perhaps in communist China or North Korea, but it should not be happening in Australia. This is a free country and if people say that they do not wish to be vaccinated, if they say they do not wish to be involved in a medical procedure, then they should not be forced to or be punished by the government for holding that view. I think it is just appalling. I think we really hit a new low when this government and a number of other governments around Australia decided that they would punish people for sticking to their principles and sticking to their view that they did not want the medical treatment.

A member interjected.

Mr FINN: A new low indeed. I think it is particularly ridiculous now when we have such high rates of vaccination that we still have mandates. Why do we still have mandates? We have mandates because we have a Premier who loves to tell people what to do, and he will punish those who do not do what he wants them to do and that is what he is doing now. That is what he is doing now. He is punishing those who refuse to be vaccinated. He is telling them that they cannot work. There are a number of places they cannot go; a lot of places they can go. It was only earlier this year that to get into the footy you had to queue up and show your QR code and all the rest of it. These days you just walk through the door, not a problem in the world. But there are still a number of people in a number of industries who are treated as second-class citizens, even third-class citizens, because they have not been vaccinated. I think it is wrong.

As I said before, I support Mr Limbrick’s motion. I do not support mandates for anyone, including members of Parliament. Up to this point we have really not had much say in mandates because they have been dictated, and I use the word advisedly, by the government and by the chief health officer as far as we know. The Parliament has had little say over mandates, over who should be forced to have them and over who should have the right not to have them. I think that in itself is wrong. I think the Parliament should have had more of a say in all of that. As I said right at the beginning, I will not under any circumstances support or vote for a mandated medical procedure where people are forced to involve themselves in a medical procedure against their will. It is wrong. I will not support it. I support in fact Mr Limbrick’s motion this evening.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (17:43): I rise to contribute to the debate on the motion by Mr Limbrick on the removal of vaccine mandates for parliamentary staff and electorate officers. I have been listening to some of the debate just now and unfortunately and sadly some of the arguments are false arguments. First of all, I have to say this motion is not based on any evidence or scientific fact. It is in fact wilfully ignorant, and it is also undermining all that we stand for. It is undermining the medical expert advice, undermining the extensive scientific evidence that supports the effectiveness of vaccinations on public health and also undermining the message you want to send about the protection of the public health of the people, of the system and of life. This is nothing more than political positioning.

People talk about human rights. Sure, human rights are universal. I know that because I come from a communist country. But with human rights go responsibilities. Imagine a society where everyone was out for themselves. What would that society, what would that community be? Imagine if a person with one of the most infectious diseases, not by choice of course, walked around and passed that onto others? This is not about one’s rights; it is about others as well. We have to live in our society and we have to respect others’ rights as well. Imagine a person in a society saying, ‘I have the right to drive. I have the right to ignore traffic. I have the right to ignore traffic rules’. Imagine a society where everyone has the right to carry heavy weapons: bazookas and all sorts of things. We have to respect the rights of other people.

It is more than that. This is very hypocritical of the Liberal-National opposition. Remember that the first time the vaccine mandate was brought into this chamber the opposition supported it, and now they have flip-flopped and want to support the removal of the vaccine mandate for parliamentarians. We are the leaders of this society. We should send the right message and we should protect ourselves and others who come into this place and start working here. This is just a politicising motion, I have to say.

From two centuries ago, when Louis Pasteur, a great scientist, discovered vaccines, until now, we have progressed a long way. Now vaccines are not only based on some of a virus or a weakened virus, but there have been some new discoveries, with mRNA—messenger RNA—being made into a very effective vaccine, as we have seen. In fact the single most life-saving innovation in the history of medicine is the discovery of vaccines and their development with time into new and better vaccines.

The public immunisation program has controlled and in some cases wiped out totally some diseases, not just in Victoria but in Australia and elsewhere in the world. We can talk about iron lungs and leg braces with polio, but thanks to vaccination, we can avoid death, limb amputation and even severe brain damage.

Thanks to the public of Victoria, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. In fact in our country of Australia, compared to other states we have a very high vaccination for the second dose and even third dose. I myself had all four doses as soon as they became available. The proof that vaccination enables participation in public life is nothing new. It is nothing new in this country and in Victoria. In 2014 we brought in legislation to require children to be fully vaccinated in order for them to attend child care and kindergarten, with some exemptions on medical grounds. That was to protect the child themselves but also the other children, staff, teachers and the community. There is a statistic that almost 6.3 million vaccinations had been administered through the state-run system as of 19 July, about two weeks ago.

It does matter that vaccination has helped to protect us. Look at some of the statistics. The highest rate of death from the virus and its many different mutations is in Peru, with 5.5 per cent of people who got COVID dying. The US and Canada, other advanced countries, have 1 per cent, and Australia has 0.1 per cent—10 times lower. Thanks to what? Thanks to the high rate of vaccination in our country. In fact 95.9 or 96 per cent of Victorians aged 16 and over have received their first dose, and 95 per cent—1 per cent less—have received two doses. Also there are some very impressive statistics of people who have had third and fourth doses, just like me; I have done my part—I have had four doses. Being parliamentarians, we are not know-all experts. We have to rely on the advice of the experts. We have to be guided by the scientific evidence. And there was plenty of extensive evidence as to how effective, how necessary, vaccination would be, and that has been proven to be the case.

I want to take this moment to thank all Victorians who have done the right thing to protect themselves, to protect their loved ones and to protect the community by staying on top of their vaccinations. The best thing that Victorians can do to help protect themselves and our health system is to get their third vaccination dose as soon as they are eligible. We all here and elsewhere wish that COVID was over, but it is not. By encouraging a shared community responsibility to do our bit to look after each other, to look after ourselves, to look after vulnerable people in the community, to show our appreciation and to protect our frontline workers—the nurses, the ambos, the doctors—we need to take up the advice of the experts, to follow the regulations and to take up vaccination, the key strategy to fight pandemics in the past, the present and, as I am sure will be the case, the future. With that, I have to say that we cannot support the motion brought by Mr Limbrick.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (17:52): I would just like to address—and thank you, everyone, today for your contributions to the debate—a few of the things raised during the debate. Ms Terpstra raised the point about getting back to normality, and that is exactly what this motion is seeking to do—to gain some sort of commitment back to normality. I note that when the mandate was first brought into Parliament one of the justifications was to bring Parliament in line with the rest of the community, and I note that no-one has actually addressed the issue of staff, including electorate officers. They are out of line with the rest of the community at the moment. General worker mandates have been removed but they have not been removed from our staff, and I hope that Parliament removes them soon, regardless of whether this motion passes or not.

There was also much talk about science and protecting others. I think it is pretty clear, and I know from my own personal experience after being vaccinated and then contracting COVID, that many people are able to still contract and transmit COVID regardless of their vaccination status, so really it is about the health of the personal individual and whether they want to protect themselves with vaccination or not. I note that many people, including the Medical Journal of Australia, have looked at vaccine ethics. It is very difficult to classify something as ethical when the vaccine itself does not protect against transmission, as we know is the case with the current vaccines for COVID.

I would also like to respond briefly to something that Ms Patten said about, ‘What have the Liberal Democrats done in their time in Parliament?’. I think that one of the main things that we have done, and in fact the thing that our party exists to do, is defend the rights of Victorians. And many times during the pandemic we have been the only people defending their rights against some of the actions that the government has taken. I know that many people want to move on from what has happened during the pandemic, and I agree with Ms Terpstra when she says this, but those people that have been sacked and lost their jobs over these mandates have not forgotten. They do not want to forget. They were upset and they are still upset. There are many people.

The government talks about this high vaccination rate, and it is a very high vaccination rate. It was done through force. This 5 per cent of people that chose not to go along with the government’s actions—they talk about this 5 per cent of the population as if they do not count, as if they do not matter, and I think that they do matter. I do not mind that they are a small number of people. They have rights the same as every one of us, and I think it is very important that their rights are defended as well. So I commend this motion to the house, and thank you to everyone that has spoken on this motion today.

House divided on motion:

Motion negatived.