The destruction of voluntary informed consent via mandatory COVID-19 vaccination

"A political decision, not a health decision"

Something shocking happened in Australia in 2021…

On 4 June 2021, the ABC announced that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was going to lobby State and Territory leaders to overrule Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly’s and the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee’s (AHPPC) advice against making COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for aged care workers.

This was a scheme which would lead to the breaking of the principle of ‘voluntary informed consent’ for vaccination, leading to a cascade of vaccination mandates around the country.

The freedom to accept or deny a medical intervention without penalty was stolen from the Australian people, epitomised by then Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ decree in September 2021:

"There is going to be a vaccinated economy, and you get to participate in that if you are vaccinated."

People who refused to submit to the Covid-19 vaccinations were going to be punished by being excluded from society. As well as being at risk of losing their livelihoods, they were to be discriminated against and removed from other facets of everyday life, as summarised by then Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan in January 2022:

“Life will be very difficult for the unvaccinated from January 31. No pub, no bottle shop, no gym, no yoga class, no gig, no dancefloors, no hospital visits.”

How did this happen?

How did we end up with the Australian population being subjected to coercive and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination?

See below a timeline of key events.

I’m going to expand upon this timeline in future articles, but please carefully consider the significance of the events listed below.

• 4 June 2021: The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), led by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, states it “does not recommend compulsory COVID-19 vaccines for aged care workers”.

• 4 June 2021: An ABC headline announces: “Scott Morrison to use National Cabinet to lobby state governments to go against health advice on COVID vaccination.” The ABC reported: “The Prime Minister will lobby state and territory leaders to overrule medical experts’ advice and force aged care workers to get the coronavirus vaccine… The panel of health experts, chaired by the Chief Medical Officer, has advised for a second time against making the coronavirus vaccine compulsory.”

• 4 June 2021: The ABC article notes: “A union representing Victoria’s aged care workforce, the Health Workers Union (HWU), has argued against the decision of the Prime Minister… Union state secretary Diana Asmar said the HWU had strongly encouraged workers to get the jab but did not believe it should be compulsory. “We live in a free country and not Communist China,” Ms Asmar said”.

• 28 June 2021: A National Cabinet Statement, on the Liberal Party NSW website, announces that the “National Cabinet agreed that COVID-19 vaccinations are to be mandated for residential aged care workers as a condition of working in an aged care facility through shared state, territory and Commonwealth authorities and compliance measures.”

• 28 June 2021: Scott Morrison personally announces on TV (from 3:22): “Now to the further decisions that were taken tonight, by the National Cabinet. The first I would note is that we have agreed to mandate vaccination, to have at least one dose by September, mid September 2021, of all residential aged care workforce against COVID-19, as a condition of working in a residential aged care facility. Now that will be implemented in a partnership between the Commonwealth and the States, preferably using the same system that is used for having mandatory vaccinations for the flu for aged care workers. That is traditionally done through State public health orders, but the Commonwealth will work together with the States, to ensure compliance with those orders, because we have those direct relationships, and reporting relationships with the aged care providers…”

• 29 June 2021: The AHPPC, led by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, “recommends to National Cabinet that the residential aged care workforce be vaccinated against COVID-19, as a condition of working in a residential aged care facility…”

• 29 June 2021: The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is concerned that mandating vaccinations for the aged care workforce could be a ‘political decision, not a health decision’.

_________

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation was indeed correct… This was a “political decision, not a health decision”.

On 4 June 2021 it was announced by the ABC that Scott Morrison was going to “lobby state and territory leaders to overrule medical experts’ advice and force aged care workers to get the coronavirus vaccine…”

How remarkable that the ABC was given advance notice of this scheme. Did the ABC provide critical analysis of Scott Morrison’s plan to overrule the medical experts’ advice against compulsory vaccination? Not as far as I’m aware.

Then on 28 June 2021, National Cabinet agrees that “COVID-19 vaccinations are to be mandated for residential aged care workers as a condition of working in an aged care facility through shared state, territory and Commonwealth authorities and compliance measures”.

It’s all personally confirmed by Scott Morrison on TV - Morrison and the Premiers and Chief Ministers in National Cabinet stitched this up, the decision to mandate vaccination for the residential aged care workers, pre-empting the rubber stamp ‘recommendation’ of Paul Kelly and the AHPPC, which is published a day later on 29 June 2021.

It was Morrison and co calling the shots, and Kelly and the AHPPC went along with it.

As medical practitioners, Paul Kelly and other members of the AHPPC should have been aware of the requirement for voluntary informed consent for vaccination - why did they forsake their ethical duty and collaborate with a plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for residential aged care workers, (and subsequently other workers), to make people submit to vaccination without voluntary informed consent?

Paul Kelly and the AHPPC trashed voluntary informed consent for COVID-19 vaccination when they reneged on their earlier advice against compulsory vaccination for aged care workers, and capitulated to the demands of Scott Morrison and the Premiers and Chief Ministers in National Cabinet.

This was a political decision, not a health decision, which broke the principle of voluntary informed consent for vaccination, and precipitated a cascade of COVID-19 vaccination mandates around the country.

See my formal complaint about Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly’s violation of voluntary informed consent in my notification about him to AHPRA, the regulator of practitioners, 16 June 2023.

I’m pursuing this matter on a number of fronts.