LIBERAL backbencher Craig Kelly has endured heavy backlash from political opponents for his wary stance of the government’s immediate COVID-19 vaccination plans and his sharing information on potential vaccine supplements.
The outspoken Liberal member of parliament for Hughes said he is not an anti-vaxxer but he prefers a “wait to see” approach to learn from other vaccination trials before throwing his support behind the government’s move to vaccinate as many Australians as possible.
- Craig Kelly says he wants to expand coronavirus treatments – not limit them.
- Provides evidence showing that, of 38 studies, banned treatments had 82% success.
- Left calls Kelly 'conspiracy Craig' & demands PM denounce him as 'dangerous'.
“I want to expand coronavirus treatments, not limit them,” he told The Australian newspaper. “On getting a vaccine, I’m going to tell people to make up their own mind. The government has not made it mandatory.”
In an interview with The Guardian Australia, Mr Kelly said he would be “one of the last people on the list” to receive the vaccine as Australia currently has low infection rates compared to other nations.
“That gives us the option to sit back and see if there are any issues that crop up with the vaccines,” he said.
But following a private meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Mr Kelly agreed to support the government’s A$6 billion vaccine strategy.
“I agreed to support the government’s vaccine rollout which has been endorsed by medical experts,” Mr Kelly said in a statement. “I believe that the spread of misinformation can damage the success of our public health response during the pandemic.”
On his Facebook page, which has more than 90,000 followers, the MP has shared articles and studies about drugs like hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin, which are currently not recommended by governing health bodies “outside of randomised trials with appropriate ethical approval”.
In his latest post, Kelly shared a Herald-Sun report that said some of Melbourne’s top doctors had suggested the two drugs have been effective treatments against coronavirus when taken in the early stages of the disease.
The Liberal MP also posted a screenshot of a COVID-19 study, which found that out of 38 studies, 82 per cent found positive results from HCQ use.
LEFT BACKLASH
The Australian Labor Party proposed a motion in Parliament on February 2, calling on the prime minister to denounce Mr Kelly’s Facebook posts as “dangerous and irresponsible”.
“We’re spending $24m on a campaign to tell people to get vaccinated and we’ve got a taxpayer-funded nong running around telling people not to,” Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said.
She engaged in a heated discussion with Kelly in the corridors of Parliament on February 3 over the matter, while branding his ideas as “crazy conspiracy theories”.
The following day, The Guardian Australia’s editorial team labelled Mr Kelly “conspiracy Craig” and called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “slap down” the independently-minded politician.
And ABC Media Watch said Mr Kelly “should not be encouraged to spout his maverick views” on COVID-19, like with his views on climate change, saying it would “smear” the government.
Mr Kelly also came under fire for accusing the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce for not being across the latest studies. The government body had said that HCQ use against COVID-19 is “potentially harmful”.
“Catch up with the evidence. Yes, you looked at three studies. Go and look at the other 32 studies and come back,” Mr Kelly told reporters.
SUPPORT
Despite government health bodies and Labor downplaying the effectiveness of both drugs, some medical professionals have voiced their support for HCQ, echoing the information shared by Mr Kelly to his constituents, saying the drug is an effective and inexpensive treatment against COVID-19.
Immunologist and Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy from the University of Newcastle told 6PR: “I have never met Craig Kelly, I don’t know Craig Kelly, and a lot of his views I don’t understand … The data is crystal clear … ivermectin and HCQ are of significant benefit when used early in the disease.”
He also told ABC radio: “I base my comments on science.”
In an opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, Clancy said ivermectin and HCQ were a “safe, cheap, available and effective” treatments that should be paired with vaccines.
He said the two medications have been used as antimicrobials for “half a century with impeccable safety records” but were overlooked by authorities due to anti-Trump “political noise.”
The anti-malarial medication received heavy scrutiny after former US President Donald Trump said he had been taking them as COVID-19 treatments.
“Both drugs are used extensively in many countries, with dramatic reductions in COVID-19 deaths,” Clancy wrote.
The opinion piece ended with a disclaimer by The Sydney Morning Herald saying that the Task Force “strongly” opposed patients using the drugs.
But another group of senior Australian physicians, the COVID Medical Network who are concerned about the impact of lockdown measures to contain the virus, have also challenged the government Task Force’s recommendations about the drugs.
“The National Covid-19 Clinical Evidence Task Force cites only a hand full of HCQ Studies as references to its decision to recommend a blanket recommendation that HCQ not be used in the treatment of COVID-19,” according to a report by the network.
The physicians challenged the logic that HCQ is only “unsafe” when it is prescribed for COVID-19.
One newspaper, The Courier Mail, backed Mr Kelly’s decision to share the information he had learned with the Australian public. The Courier Mail argued that “all views must be heard” and there should be more transparency in the COVID-19 vaccination debate.
“Kelly is doing what every backbencher should be doing – offering and challenging ideas to keep the government honest, of which he is a member,” the article said.PC
Craig Kelly is very clearly a member of parliament who has integrity, &who places this above instructions from his party leader. He is forced to resign in honour because of this. What a very great pity for this country that too many members of the parliament know, or have, not either personal attribute.
Craig Kelly is being destroyed by the left within his own party, The ABC, The Guardian and most other left wing MSM groups
“Left calls Kelly ‘conspiracy Craig’ & demands PM denounce him as ‘dangerous’.”
They knew how to do things in the good old days in the Soviet Union – those who were “denounced” were sent to the Gulag, or met a painful and protracted end in the basement of Lubyanka. I’m sure the Left are quite envious that they can’t do that here in Australia – at least, not yet…
Craig Kelly is a champion! He has done the research and he is correct on the safety risks of experimental Covid vaccines, efficacy of Covid treatments and climate change alarmism. If only more politicians and journalists had guts, intellect and integrity like Craig Kelly.
It’s a sad day for Australia when one politician calls for the views of another to be effectively censored. Surely, we are all entitled to the freedom to respectfully agree or disagree with the views of anyone, but for Opposition MP Mark Butler to call for the Coalition backbencher Craig Kelly to be “denounced” because of his views and “facebook” following is verging on draconian.
Fortunately, the member for Hughes is a conviction politician who regularly challenges “group think” … perhaps Mr Kelly’s real misdemeanour is his conservative view on many matters, including climate and COVID? But surely, public debate should always be a contest of ideas not ideology?
Well said Bob – though I don’t see Craig’s stance in the climate “debate” as “conservative”, as this is intrinsically a debate about science – reproducibility and disprovability of hypotheses. This should have never descended into an absurd “left v right” contest, and it only did so because the left are willing subscribers to the groupthink of which you speak, and the end game for this movement was wealth redistribution. The climate “debate” was/is merely the vehicle for the wealth redistribution they crave.
By going against this, and actually reading, understanding, and questioning the scientific hypotheses, Craig, like no other MP, is himself behaving as a scientist. This behaviour is to be commended, not lampooned and cancelled. The courage of Craig Kelly in the face of this onslaught is an inspiration. Craig turns to the sceptics, as all scientists should be by nature, to properly test the reliability of assertions constantly drip-fed to the public by the “climate change research industry”. If the “science is settled”, the world’s “climate change research industry” should come out tomorrow and call a halt to further public funding of “climate research”. This would buy them credibility by putting their money where their mouth is.
Craig, like Tony Abbott, is simply saying it is BS to suggest the science is settled, and that in Australia’s circumstance, efforts to cut emissions at least cost would be greatly aided by a progressive transition to HELE. And all dispassionate, disinterested scientists agree.
Craig Kelly is one of the best MPs in the Coalition :
He works for all of us, he tells the truth, the proven scientific facts, most notably about the now well-documented, hugely successful use of Ivermectin by hundreds of millions of people worldwide AND the shocking fabrications of the global ‘climate’ alarmists and disgraceful lies of the ‘renewables’ squillionaires.
How I wish we had a pragmatic, Conservative MP of Kelly’s calibre representing us here in Warringah!