Just a year after a crowd of anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown campaigners filled the front lawns of New Parliament House in Canberra, the dregs of the freedom movement have held a poorly attended anniversary protest in the nation’s capital.
The protest’s dismal turnout, which was hyped on social media and foreshadowed on Ben Fordham’s 2GB radio program, shows how the energy from the convoying, protesting and camping wing of Australia’s anti-vaccine movement is at its nadir.
Over the weekend, a small crowd of loosely packed, red ensign flag-waving and placard-holding protesters assembled and marched across a campsite, the governor-general’s residence and outside of Parliament House.
Speakers shouted into a megaphone with the usual false claims and conspiracies — everything from the sovereign citizen-inspired belief that Australia’s federal Parliament is illegitimate, to the dangers of COVID-19 vaccination. While people led chants about mRNA vaccines, children ran around and some participants sat under marquees to shield themselves from the harsh Canberra summer sun.
Some of the freedom movement’s most fringe figures made an appearance, including David “Guru” Graham and Riccardo Bosi. But the low energy and small number of attendees — even among those figures who have now dedicated their lives to the anti-vaccine movement — was a far cry from the triumphant return to the nation’s capital that was promised.
Those involved blamed the poor turnout on lack of promotion: “I’ve just been notified that no one even knows about the reunion,” one participant who drove from Coffs Harbour for the event said in a video posted online.
The excitement expressed by last year’s Convoy to Canberra participants soon gave way to disappointment as the promised resignations of politicians never happened. The campaigners were sick, fractured and disenchanted with allegations flying around that donations for the movement had been pocketed by some of its leaders.
While the protesting part of the anti-vaccine movement has fizzled, some of its ideology has inserted itself into the political mainstream. Coalition Senators Alex Antic and Gerard Rennick spout anti-vaccine rhetoric. The United Australia Party is filling venues with people seeing anti-vaccine touring doctor Dr Peter McCullough.
The anti-vaccine movement doesn’t need to protest outside Parliament anymore. It’s already inside.
What do they actually want?
They don’t know.
But they know it’s your fault they can’t have it!
More to the point, the antivax movement has won. The only significant policy measures on vaccination (or on any kind of attempt to reduce the Covid death toll) still in place are the prohibitions on vaccination imposed by ATAGI (most odiously for children under 5). These guys can take their victory lap over the graves of those dying every day.
Is the winner anti-vax lunacy or just a combo of time plus apathy?
Yes.
The great Australian apathy coupled with a complete failure of public health administrators to promote vaccinations consistently & clearly has seen the objective of the cookers achieved.
I was waiting in hope for a publicity campaign appealing to our better selves, self-interest and common sense, along the lines of the ‘life be in it’ and ‘slip slop slap’ campaigns – pretty effective, and all without law enforcement backup.
I don’t think it was an anti vax victory. The Victorian election showed how little traction the movement had generally. I just think the evidence points to this reason: “Because Business”.
Hang on John. I feel you’ve overlooked some key data.
Our Chief Medical Officer, Dr Paul Kelly, when announcing last week that the government was rolling out a 5th vaccination / 3rd booster shot, agreed with data from the UK which showed that in the age bracket of 70 and above, 800 ppl required vaccinating to prevent a single hospitalisation.
In the younger brackets, this number increases dramatically. For example, to save a single hospitalisation due to Covid-19 for people in their 40’s, 92,000 vaccinations must occur.
If the vaccines were 100% safe, that’d be fine, but they’re not. A peer-reviewed study of the data from Pfizer and Moderna’s original randomised control trials, show that in those original trials, 1 in every 800 people suffered from a serious adverse reaction, above the baseline set by the placebo.
Pfizer was slightly safer, but the number was still more than 1-in-1000.
To force any age bracket under 70 to take these vaccines, you’ll be creating more illness and long lasting health problems than you save.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X22010283
Got news for you, JAR, there isn’t a vaccination ever produced that’s 100% safe. 1 in 800 or 1000 are pretty good odds as against dying. In my last four jabs I’ve had a head ache once and a sore arm once. I’ll take it.
I’m very glad to hear you’ve had no issues bref, and I’m happy for you to look at the numbers and make your own decision.
But I make a different one, based on the numbers. I’m in my 40’s, and I’m fit and healthy. The numbers show 92,000 people need to be vaccinated to prevent a single person my age from being hospitalised from Covid-19. Yet somewhere between 92-115 of them will likely suffer from a serious adverse event because of those vaccines.
Serious adverse events are not trivial, and should not be downplayed, in the same manner that Covid-19 shouldn’t.
It could be that people who suffer prolonged concern and anxiety about vaccines could suffer the long term consequences of elevated cortisol which is a known risk factor for a number of serious health conditions.
Long Covid offers far more complications. Fitness does not prevent infection
Silly! There is no medical procedure which is 100% safe. 99.9% safety is a good bet.
Long Covid is a real life problem which causes more grief & disability than any reactions to the vaccines.
You picked a poor example to illustrate your point. That article, one of the authors of which was the infamous Peter Doshi, has been thoroughly laughed at and debunked by the scientific community. It’s a crock.
See: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/peer-review-fail-vaccine-publishes-antivax-propaganda/
Hi Craig,
You may be correct. I am unaware of who Peter Doshi is & his infamy.
But, your evidence is essentially an opinion piece by a science journalist, against a peer-reviewed paper in a reputable journal.
One is more robust than the other
Hey John. I get what you’re saying re: the easing requirements and restrictions. I still reckon the fact that 97.1% of Australians 16+ having received at least one jab shows that, by and large, the public wasn’t scared out of getting vaccinated.
“The anti-vaccine movement doesn’t need to protest outside Parliament anymore. It’s already inside.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
As a Canberran I am glad to see this failure. Last year the group closed the Lifeline Bookfair on the first day of its annual, February, three day sale.
I hardly seem to watch a TV program these days which does not advise viewers that if they are upset by some aspect they can contact Lifeline on the numbers provided. The Bookfair raises valuable funds to support Lifeline’s activities and it is a much loved biannual Canberra event. Many of us donated to help make up the loss of two and a half days of sales.
I was distressed too, by the attempt to meld with the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
You must watch a lot of TV programs about mental health and/or suicide, MJM. That’s where they post the Lifeline contacts. Or maybe there are just more shows on these subjects on TV now?
They seem to appear during episodes of The Drum, the 7 pm news, 7:30 … not particularly on mental health or suicide issues but on topics dealing with past events that may trigger emotional upset for some viewers.
Having grown up in Indonesia, I remember well the explanations from my parents as to the importance of vaccinations. I remember as a young man still needing a yellow vaccination card to travel from Australia to Europe in the early 70s and thinking nothing of it. Maybe it’s time for our govt to do a campaign similar to the early 90s Aids campaign, showing the horrors of measles, hepatitis, tuberculosis, polio, etc. There are several generations of kids who have no idea of the ramifications of contracting these diseases.
It was a rite of passage for an overseas trip when I was young, part of the excitement of travel.
Going to Malaysian Borneo a few years ago for jungle adventures required a full bunch of vaccinations.