Australian Politics
Friday, August 19, 2022
Vaccine mandates no longer justified
For almost three years, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stubbornly refused to admit that infection with Sars-CoV-2 provides robust immunity which is broader and more enduring than vaccine-acquired immunity, even though this had been demonstrated in numerous studies.
It meant that people who had infection-acquired immunity – often healthcare workers – were still forced to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. Sometimes the consequences were disastrous. Bobby Bolin who had recovered from Covid was on a list for a double-lung transplant but was forced to be double vaccinated, and developed a pulmonary embolism and atrial fibrillation after his second Moderna shot which killed him.
On 11 August, with no explanation or apology, the CDC quietly made the long-overdue reversal and also belatedly recognised that vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, saying that in its recommendations, it would no longer distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Combined these policy changes should spell the immediate end of vaccine mandates.
It was clear in 2020 that Covid is primarily a serious disease for the sick and the elderly. Data from NSW Health which, between 28 May and 30 July, was the first jurisdiction in Australia to provide some deaths by age, vaccination, and health status showed that only three people out of the 1,108 who died (0.3 per cent) over the nine week period were aged under 65 and healthy, and only 11 people who died (1 per cent) were aged under 65 and unvaccinated (all almost certainly seriously ill).
Hardly the pandemic of the unvaccinated that Gladys Berejiklian conjured up to scare the impressionable into getting vaccinated. As for being a burden and overwhelming the health system, only 11 out of 6,481 people hospitalised (0.17 per cent) and only eight of 591 people in ICU (1.3 per cent) were unvaccinated.
With such a tiny fraction of healthy, unvaccinated people of working age dying of Covid in Australia’s most populous state, during the worst three months of the pandemic, how is it possible that vaccine mandates are still in force in so many workplaces? Former Australian deputy chief health officer Dr Nick Coatsworth wrote in mid-July that there is ‘no longer a public health rationale for businesses terminating employees for failing to be vaccinated’. Yet some of the nation’s biggest employers –Coles, Woolworths, Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank and SPC – are still forcing workers to get vaccinated or boosted.
In Ceduna, up to fifteen teachers at the Crossways Lutheran school are prepared to strike rather than get a booster or wear a mask all day and be tested daily. They want to know why they are being pressured to be triple-vaccinated when protection from boosters lasts only 20 weeks, you can still catch and transmit Covid, and vaccine injuries can be permanent or fatal. Who will compensate them or their families if they are injured or die, they ask.
It’s a good question. In Hobart, a police officer who was incapacitated with myocarditis after his Pfizer booster in November is fighting for compensation because the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management claims it isn’t liable even though it told staff they should get vaccinated, claimed the vaccines were safe, and made vaccination mandatory a month after the officer was injured.
With the CDC no longer distinguishing between vaccinated and unvaccinated, why are service members still being kicked out for not taking an ‘ineffective and dangerous experimental jab,’ tweeted Lt. Col. Dr Theresa Long this week, one of the top flight surgeons in the US Armed Forces. Dr Long is one of three military doctors who testified under oath that there was a massive increase in vaccine injuries in the Defence Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) in 2021 showing, for example, a 269 per cent increase in myocardial infarction and a 467 per cent increase in pulmonary embolisms.
If Dr Long’s conclusions are correct, they would explain why excess mortality is so high in Australia and other highly vaccinated countries. In the first four months of 2022, there was an increase in excess mortality of between 6,800 deaths (13 per cent) according to the AI and 8,500 deaths (17 per cent) , according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Either way it’s alarming. Excess deaths for the whole of 2021 were 3,400, yet just for the first third of 2022 excess deaths have increased by up to 150 per cent .
It’s going to get worse. More people died of Covid in July than at any point in the pandemic yet Covid deaths represent only somewhere between 43 per cent and 53 per cent of excess deaths in the first four months of 2022. What is causing the other deaths? Here’s a clue. Deaths from heart disease are up 11 per cent (1,400) and have been above the predicted baseline almost every week since March 2021, a week after the vaccine rollout started on 22 February. Deaths from other unspecified diseases are up by 11 per cent (1,390), continuing a trend observed since April 2021, a month after the vaccine rollout. There was also an increase of 10 per cent in coroner-referred deaths (+680) as well as increases of between five and 11 per cent in diabetes, dementia, and cerebrovascular disease.
A disturbing rise in excess mortality is occurring in many heavily vaccinated countries such as Portugal, experiencing its highest excess mortality in 100 years, Chile, and the US. Up to now doctors in Australia could not criticise any aspect of government management of the pandemic without putting their careers on the line. But in mid-July the left-leaning Victorian Branch of the Australian Medical Association called for a Royal Commission into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and its muzzling of medical freedom of speech. This week the centre-right Australian Medical Professionals’ Society also called for medical free speech, consideration of scientific data in relation to vaccine mandates and legislative reform to protect the practitioner-patient relationship. With voices across the political spectrum calling for change perhaps an end to the tyranny of bureaucrats is at last in sight.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/tyranny-of-bureaucrats/ .
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Year 1 colouring-in posters saying 'white Australia has a black history' are slammed as 'indoctrination' and 'propaganda' by Mark Latham
When lies about history pass as education
Mark Latham has slammed colouring-in posters done by Year 1 pupils accusing Australians of genocide, as 'indoctrination' and 'propaganda'.
The posters were part of the Indigenous culture NAIDOC Week at a primary school in central west New South Wales and displayed in the school hall.
They show raised fists and say: 'White Australia has a Blak History, No Pride in Genocide, Stop the Lies! Stop Stealing Our Kids, Blak Lives Matter!'
'I just think it's wrong to be teaching six-year-olds to hate Australia,' the One Nation MP in the NSW upper house told Daily Mail Australia.
The content of the posters led to a complaint by a concerned father. 'He's very upset that his six-year-old has been subjected to this, and I don't blame him,' said Mr Latham. 'I think any responsible parent would think this is way over the top.'
Though the issue has so far only been reported in one school, Mr Latham thinks it could be a widespread issue across the state.
'It's come to public light because the child took the colourings home, so these are parents that got to see the material,' he said.
'I'm sure in other schools it's been distributed but didn't necessarily make it home. It's a worry that any of this stuff gets into our school system for children so young.'
Mr Latham strongly objects to the content of the exercise. 'There's no historical evidence that we had a policy of genocide ... in Australian colonial history,' he claimed.
'For six-year-olds, can we just give them a break from the political indoctrination.
The One Nation leader in NSW, who is a former leader of the Labor Party, said the posters are 'inappropriate' for children so young. 'Would a six-year-old understand what genocide is ... it's indoctrination and propaganda,' he said. 'These are adult concepts that you might consider in the senior years of high school, but for six-year-olds it's just appalling.'
Mr Latham said Australia has a lot to be proud of and there should be a balanced approach to 'promote achievements and build pride in our country'. 'Why would we want an education system that's got children being told to hate Australia. I just find it disgusting. 'I don't think that's the purpose of our education system, to run Australia down and tell lies about our history.'
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said it is her 'expectation that all schools use age-appropriate resources when teaching'.
But Mr Latham dismissed this as meaningless. 'That's a motherhood statement, without any direct condemnation of what's happened, but I'll be raising it at the budget estimates hearings (in the NSW Parliament) next Tuesday,' he said.
'This material should never have been distributed, it should never have been used as a colouring-in project for six-year-olds and it should never happen again.'
A NSW Department of Education spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that the school concerned received one parental complaint which was responded to on the same day.
'The NAIDOC poster in question ... is available for all schools to use as part of their NAIDOC Week celebrations,' they said. 'We provide Aboriginal cultural education for all staff, and education about Aboriginal Australia for all students.'
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Uproar over festival's plan to hold a talk about 'ZOOSEXUALITY' by professor who calls sex with animals 'society's last taboo'
A Sydney festival has sparked uproar for describing sex with animals as one of society's 'last taboos' in an ad for a renowned professor's talk about the ethics of bestiality.
Historian and author Joanna Bourke plans to discuss the morals behind 'humans loving animals' and 'zoosexuality' at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) next month.
The festival, to be held at Carriageworks in inner-city suburb Redfern next month, has been touted as Australia's original festival of provocateurs with speakers tasked with 'holding uncomfortable ideas up to the light'.
The description of Ms Bourke's controversial session states that while bestiality is 'generally' regarded as abhorrent, the subject is still depicted in a number of books, films, plays, paintings and photographs.
The historian plans to present a modern history of sex between humans and animals and will invite audience members to look at the 'changing meanings' of bestiality and zoophilia and the ethics of 'animal loving'.
'It is only in very recent years that some people have begun to undermine the absolute prohibition on zoosexuality,' the speaker is quoted on the website. 'Are their arguments dangerous, perverted or simply wrongheaded?'
Outraged Australians took to social media to lash festival organisers for allowing a presentation they argued was intellectualising animal abuse.
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Google scores major win in High Court defamation battle
Google is not legally responsible for defamatory news stories and other material viewed when users click on its non-sponsored search results, the High Court has ruled, in a major victory for the US-based search engine.
On Wednesday the High Court overturned a Victorian Supreme Court decision ordering Google to pay $40,000 in damages to prominent Melbourne criminal lawyer George Defteros for linking to a 2004 article in The Age newspaper.
The Supreme Court, and later the Court of Appeal, had found Google was liable as a “publisher” of the full Age story when users searched for “George Defteros” and clicked on the link to the article.
The majority of the High Court disagreed with that finding and entered judgment in favour of Google. In a joint judgment, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and Justice Jacqueline Gleeson said “it cannot be concluded” that Google published the article.
“The provision of the Search Result, including the hyperlink, has no connection to the creation of the ... article; its creation was in no way approved or encouraged by the appellant [Google]; and the appellant did not participate in it being placed on The Age’s website,” Kiefel and Gleeson said.
“Whilst it may be said that the use of a hyperlink may mean The Age gains a reader, that does not make the appellant something other than a reference provider.”
They noted it was possible that search results “may themselves contain matter which is defamatory” but this was “not this case”.
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Split in rogue union
Fresh hostilities have erupted across the CFMEU after former national secretary Michael O’Connor attacked the union as a “horror story” and revealed its manufacturing division would apply in weeks to split from the “completely dysfunctional” union.
Dave Noonan, the head of the union’s construction division, hit back at Mr O’Connor, accusing him of sabotage and warning that legal action could be taken to retrieve more than $300,000 allegedly owed to the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union by the manufacturing division.
He questioned whether the manufacturing division was solvent and accused Mr O’Connor of engaging in hyperbole to damage the union name, saying it was “sour grapes” after he lost majority support as national secretary.
Mr O’Connor, who remains head of the manufacturing division, said he expected the division along with the Tony Maher-led mining and energy division to be gone from the union by next year after ballots of members were held. “I just want to make sure people understand that we are more determined than ever to get out,” he said.
“We expect our application to be filed in the next few weeks.
“I think there is continual damage to the reputation of the union because of the behaviour of the construction division … if we’re going to continue to advocate for good public policy for the people we represent, any association with the CFMEU is a hindrance.”
He said controversy surrounding the conduct of the construction division, including the operation of the union’s South Australian branch, was detrimental to the manufacturing division’s work to represent members. “We think it’s going to get worse, we think this horror story has got a long way to go,” he said.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has severed ties with the John Setka-led Victorian CFMEU, ordering Labor to repay a $125,000 donation from the union division.
Mr Setka was recently installed as SA state secretary
Mr O’Connor said an election was held for national senior vice-president in the union but no one nominated. “It’s another sign the union at a national level is completely dysfunctional,” he said.
Mr Noonan said Mr O’Connor deliberately decided not to nominate for senior vice-president in an attempt at “sabotage to prove dysfunction”.
He said the manufacturing division was in a “parlous financial state under Michael’s management”, owing more than $300,000 to the construction division and the union’s national office and legal action over the alleged debts “might happen”.
“The first thing Michael O’Connor ought to do is ensure his division is solvent,” he said.
“It’s very hard to see how that would be the case with the level of membership it’s got and low membership income. We reject his exaggerated allegations of dysfunction. From where we sit, most dysfunction sits in the manufacturing division.”
The mining and energy division recently lost an appeal against a Fair Work decision rejecting its bid to split. It sought to rely on laws allowing unions to break away if they had amalgamated between two and five years before a demerger application.
Under a Coalition change, the commission can accept applications made over five years after a merger, but the mining and energy division or the manufacturing division would have to document the construction division’s record of not complying with workplace or safety laws.
Asked if manufacturing would be citing the law-breaking of the construction division, Mr O’Connor said “what we do … and how we are going to run our application we’ll reveal later on”.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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