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senate vote 2021-08-12#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2021-08-13 14:46:48
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Title
Description
- The majority voted in favour of an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2021-08-12.6.1) to paragraph (d) of the [original motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-08-12.5.2), as introduced by SA Senator [Simon Birmingham](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/sa/simon_birmingham) (Liberal), which means the amendment succeeded.
- ### Amendment text
- > *Paragraph (d), omit "condemns [Senator Canavan](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/matthew_canavan)'s and [Senator Rennick](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/gerard_rennick)'s repeated use of their public platforms", substitute "condemns the use of public platforms".*
- ### Original motion text
- > *That the Senate—*
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- > *(a) applauds the sacrifices made by the Australian people to keep each other safe;*
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- > *(b) thanks the heroes of the pandemic—our scientists, doctors, nurses, aged care and disability workers, cleaners and other essential workers;*
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- > *(c) joins the House of Representatives in condemning the comments of the Member for Dawson prior to question time on Tuesday, 10 August 2021 designed to use our national Parliament to spread misinformation and undermine the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;*
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- > *(d) condemns Senator Canavan's and Senator Rennick's repeated use of their public platforms to undermine confidence in public health responses, public health institutions, and the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;*
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- > *(e) rejects statements that 'masks don't work', 'lockdowns don't work', that lockdowns are 'doing much more damage to our love of liberty and our political system, that's the real threat to us now', descriptions of our health professionals as 'dictatorial medical bureaucrats', and that spread misinformation about Therapeutic Goods Administration approved vaccines; and*
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- > *(f) calls on all parliamentarians to refrain from making ill-informed comments at a time when the pandemic represents a serious threat to the health of Australians.*
### Amendment text> *Paragraph (d), omit "condemns [Senator Canavan](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/matthew_canavan)'s and [Senator Rennick](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/gerard_rennick)'s repeated use of their public platforms", substitute "condemns the use of public platforms".*
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senate vote 2021-08-12#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2021-08-13 14:46:24
|
Title
Motions — Covid-19- Motions - Covid-19 - Don't mention Senators Canavan and Rennick by name
Description
<p class="speaker">Penny Wong</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the Senate—</p>- The majority voted in favour of an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2021-08-12.6.1) to paragraph (d) of the [original motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-08-12.5.2), as introduced by SA Senator [Simon Birmingham](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/sa/simon_birmingham) (Liberal), which means the amendment succeeded.
- ### Original motion text
- > *That the Senate—*
- >
- > *(a) applauds the sacrifices made by the Australian people to keep each other safe;*
- >
- > *(b) thanks the heroes of the pandemic—our scientists, doctors, nurses, aged care and disability workers, cleaners and other essential workers;*
- >
- > *(c) joins the House of Representatives in condemning the comments of the Member for Dawson prior to question time on Tuesday, 10 August 2021 designed to use our national Parliament to spread misinformation and undermine the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;*
- >
- > *(d) condemns Senator Canavan's and Senator Rennick's repeated use of their public platforms to undermine confidence in public health responses, public health institutions, and the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;*
- >
- > *(e) rejects statements that 'masks don't work', 'lockdowns don't work', that lockdowns are 'doing much more damage to our love of liberty and our political system, that's the real threat to us now', descriptions of our health professionals as 'dictatorial medical bureaucrats', and that spread misinformation about Therapeutic Goods Administration approved vaccines; and*
- >
- > *(f) calls on all parliamentarians to refrain from making ill-informed comments at a time when the pandemic represents a serious threat to the health of Australians.*
- ### Amendment text
- > *Paragraph (d), omit "condemns [Senator Canavan](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/matthew_canavan)'s and [Senator Rennick](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/gerard_rennick)'s repeated use of their public platforms", substitute "condemns the use of public platforms".*
<p class="italic">(a) applauds the sacrifices made by the Australian people to keep each other safe;</p><p class="italic">(b) thanks the heroes of the pandemic—our scientists, doctors, nurses, aged care and disability workers, cleaners and other essential workers;</p><p class="italic">(c) joins the House of Representatives in condemning the comments of the Member for Dawson prior to question time on Tuesday, 10 August 2021 designed to use our national Parliament to spread misinformation and undermine the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;</p><p class="italic">(d) condemns Senator Canavan's and Senator Rennick's repeated use of their public platforms to undermine confidence in public health responses, public health institutions, and the actions of Australians to defeat COVID-19;</p><p class="italic">(e) rejects statements that 'masks don't work', 'lockdowns don't work', that lockdowns are 'doing much more damage to our love of liberty and our political system, that's the real threat to us now', descriptions of our health professionals as 'dictatorial medical bureaucrats', and that spread misinformation about Therapeutic Goods Administration approved vaccines; and</p><p class="italic">(f) calls on all parliamentarians to refrain from making ill-informed comments at a time when the pandemic represents a serious threat to the health of Australians.</p><p>Paragraph (b) of this motion thanks the heroes of the pandemic—scientists, doctors, nurses, aged-care and disability workers, cleaners and other essential workers. These Australians have shouldered responsibility and taken leadership. If only this Prime Minister could follow their example! If only this Prime Minister could refrain from his consistent pattern of making excuses and ducking and weaving! We know this Prime Minister does that whenever he's asked to take responsibility, and he has done it again when it comes to members of his own party undermining the public health messages in the face of this pandemic.</p><p>There was a very similar motion in the other place—a motion the government didn't have the courage to call a division on. In speaking to the motion our Prime Minister went to every length to avoid referring to the member for Dawson. He said, 'What I'm not going to do is engage in a partisan debate on this.' The only partisan debate is the debate within his own party. He's not willing to have the debate in his own party. The leader of the nation is not willing to take responsibility and say to members of his own party, 'You're wrong and you should stop spreading dangerous misinformation.' He did say, 'I don't support misinformation.' That's like saying you don't support cancer. He can't even be straight with people. Where was the rebuke? Where was the courage to say it was wrong? It is a spinner's way through, isn't it? Rather than the Prime Minister making it clear that what the member for Dawson was saying was dangerous and rather than the Prime Minister saying the member for Dawson should stop making these sorts of comments, we saw the Prime Minister engaging in the same old dance of ducking and weaving.</p><p>When Australia needs leadership and responsibility, Mr Morrison goes missing. He even went so far as to say—and the Leader of the Government in the Senate has said the same thing—'If others want to undermine the public health effort with misinformation, that's a matter for them.' Really—'that's a matter for them'? What weakness! This bloke can't even stare down his own party, let alone stand up for the country.</p><p>But Mr Christensen is not alone in this. We have senators in this place who are prepared to make statements which are demonstrably against the public health advice and demonstrably not in the public interest. Senator Rennick said this about public health officials who are trying to keep Australians safe: 'Our country has become a comedy of errors. Our bureaucrats are the clowns.' They're the clowns! In a Facebook post that he has since removed, he endorsed an article that undermines the TGA approval of vaccines. Remember that, when that lot there stand up and tell us, 'We're doing a great job, because we've got TGA approval for Moderna.' One of their own is undermining the TGA approval process.</p><p>Then we have Senator Canavan, and I'm sure he's waiting for this. Senator Payne, in a speech on disinformation, made this statement:</p><p class="italic">Let's be clear: disinformation during a pandemic will cost lives ...</p><p>Senator Payne would be aware, as foreign minister, of the leadership of Dr Anthony Fauci over many years and through more than one pandemic, and I'm sure she too would have been horrified last year to read that the former chief strategist to President Trump, Steve Bannon, called for Dr Fauci to be beheaded. Mr Bannon was banned from Twitter as a result, but he still has a podcast. A recent guest on that podcast said, 'Coronavirus is doing more damage to our liberties than our health,' and that guest was Senator Canavan—going on a podcast hosted by someone who has called for the beheading of one of the world's leading public health officials. There should be nothing easier than for Senator Payne to rebuke Senator Canavan, and I invite her to do that today. I invite Senator Birmingham to do the same, unequivocally, and not with the weasel words we've heard from the Prime Minister: 'It's a matter for them.'</p><p>Also, Senator Canavan has written in the <i>Fin Review</i>, saying that using lockdowns in Sydney to save lives was an 'unjustifiable expense'. I would like him to tell us which life saved he thinks is an unjustifiable expense. Who should sacrifice a mother or a father or a daughter or a son because their life shouldn't be saved, because it isn't precious enough to be saved? When people say, 'We should learn to live with the virus,' what they're actually saying to Australians is: 'Be prepared for some of you to die from it.' This government have to stand up to those peddling disinformation and their failure to do so demonstrates the same lack of responsibility the Prime Minister continues to demonstrate. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Simon Birmingham</p><p>We live in the most extraordinary of times—times that none of us would have imagined possible two years ago—but they are times that we have to face as a nation, as indeed the whole world does. Has Australia got absolutely everything right all of the time through the course of managing the COVID-19 pandemic? No, we haven't, nor has any other country on the planet, but we have managed, as a nation, to perform far better than most other countries of the world. Since the start of the pandemic, we have tragically seen at least 4.3 million lives lost across the globe. That's just the recorded numbers of deaths. Here in Australia, sadly, 944 people have lost their lives. Through the course of 2021, 2½ million lives were reported as lost across the globe, and no doubt there were many unreported in many countries. In Australia, 35 have lost their lives. These are all a tragedy, but we should acknowledge the work, as this motion does, of the Australian people: our healthcare workers, our scientists, our advisers—all of them have worked to keep Australians safe.</p><p>On 1 February last year, the very moment when our government made the decision to close Australia's borders to China, and when we made subsequent decisions to close Australia's borders to Korea, Iran and Italy, and then ultimately to the entire world—those decisions were ahead of the declaration by the World Health Organization of a global pandemic. We were acting early and we were acting to protect Australians and to keep COVID at bay. And we have continued to act, in concert with the states and territories wherever possible. This year, the world has been thrown the curve ball of the delta variant. The delta variant has created enormous new challenges to countries. At all stages of the vaccine rollout, it has exacerbated challenges for nations. The reality is that we as a country have to continue to respond sensibly and practically to each of those challenges.</p><p>The responses we all make, though, are not always responses that can be completely uncontested or go without debate or challenge. The opposition routinely challenges the government in relation to policy responses, and, yes, equally, other senators and other individuals across the nation challenge some of those responses. The government urges everyone, if they're challenging responses, to do so in a way that is responsible—to make sure wherever possible that Australians hear consistent messages in relation to respect for public health orders and to the need to get vaccinated.</p><p>We know that there are real debates that exist in this country and elsewhere, and we acknowledge that individuals will use their rights to engage in those debates. In this motion, the opposition acknowledges the heroes of the pandemic, as I said before. It also responds to comments made by the member for Dawson. The House of Representatives already responded to those comments. I heard the Leader of the Opposition in this place say that the government didn't have the guts to call a division on that. That was because the government was accepting the motion. And, in relation to the member for Dawson's comments, we will accept the motion in this place too. I note the desire to focus singly on certain members of the government, rather than acknowledging that indeed debates occur outside of this place as well.</p><p>Debates occur with other candidates—for example, the way Labor's candidate for Higgins has engaged on the question of the AstraZeneca vaccine, or indeed the way in which we have seen the Queensland Premier and the Queensland Chief Health Officer undermine confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine. I can't help but note that it took until 7 June for the Queensland Premier to be vaccinated. The South Australian Premier was vaccinated on 21 February and the Western Australian Premier on 2 May at least. Why on earth don't we see the equivalent approach taken by those opposite in relation to all of those who have acted in these ways? That is why I will move an amendment to the motion by the Labor Party that ensures we send a clear signal to all who use public platforms, to all public officials and to all candidates that all should be held to the same standard to support our health officials, to support our scientists and to support our response to this global pandemic. I seek leave to move amendments to Senator Wong's motion together.</p><p>Leave granted.</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">Paragraph (d), omit "condemns Senator Canavan's and Senator Rennick's repeated use of their public platforms", substitute "condemns the use of public platforms".</p><p class="italic">Paragraph (f), after "parliamentarians", insert ", public officials and candidates".</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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