The leader of an anti-vaccine political party has headlined an event for the campaign against a Voice to Parliament, telling attendees that COVID-19 vaccine mandates during the pandemic proved the federal government doesn’t care about First Nations peoples.
Last month a group called Multicultural Voices Against the Voice hosted the event “Voice to Parliament forum: why we should vote No?” in the western Sydney suburb of Berala. Hosted by the group’s founder Jamal Daoud, there were three speakers: spokesperson for the No campaign Australians for Unity Nyunggai Warren Mundine; NSW One Nation MLC Tania Mihailuk; and Michael O’Neill, credited as “founder of IMOParty [Informed Medical Options Party]”.
O’Neill’s party, founded as the Involuntary Medication Objections (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party in 2016, is an explicitly anti-vaccine political party that has repeatedly run unsuccessfully in state and federal elections. Its current policies include ending all vaccine mandates, removing fluoride from the water supply and leaving the World Health Organization and United Nations.
Speaking after Mundine and Mihailuk, O’Neill railed against a constitutional Voice to Parliament. The anti-vaccine campaigner argued that the introduction of COVID vaccine mandates, predominantly implemented by state governments during the pandemic, demonstrated that the governments supporting the Yes campaign weren’t legitimately interested in consulting with Indigenous peoples.
“There was an enormous amount of people out [in Kempsey NSW] who lost their jobs and work in Aboriginal departments and federal and state government and regional partners because they made a decision that they would rather stick to traditional ways of dealing and medical protection,” he said.
“They lost their jobs with Aboriginal departments. And did the government of the day care about their voice? No.”
O’Neill made similar remarks in a video from a rally posted by the Multicultural Voices Against the Voice TikTok account in the lead-up to the event: “Their voice was that they did not want to participate in white man’s medicine and they would rather trust their body and their traditional medicine and their voices were counted to nothing. All of this is window-dressing; they’re wringing their hands and saying we care about the Aboriginal Voice. It’s nonsense.”
It’s not the first time the No campaign has featured voices from the anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown freedom movement. Earlier this year, another of Mundine’s anti-Voice groups, Recognise A Better Way, featured a video from well-known conspiracy theorist Joel Jammal.
During the pandemic, anti-vaccine groups targeted Indigenous communities with health misinformation and conspiracy theories. Today, Indigenous COVID vaccination rates still lag behind the general population. While there were initially fears that First Nations peoples would be hit hardest by the pandemic, infection rates among were nearly six times less than non-Indigenous people.
Former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley attributed this to Indigenous representation among government health organisations and argued that this was the “best example” of why the Voice to Parliament was going to help First Nations peoples.
Neither the event organiser, Daoud, nor Mundine responded to a request for comment.
If the “NO” campaign had a legitimate argument to make, it would not need to stoop to co-opting conspiracy theorists to it’s agenda…………..
………..one group of batsh*t crazies promoting another group of batsh*t crazies.
The “No” campaign was already in the depths of conspiracy theories, co-opting more of them is evidence of desperation. Conspiracy theorists will conflate anything to their cause and the followers, who consider themselves “informed” more often than not, blindly follow each other. Very much the “sheep” they accuse any “non-believers” of being.
Australia’s education standards have been dropping for years and it shows.
And our absorption of American stupidity has been growing at the same time…I am so over US culture..!!
I wouldn’t dignify whatever it is the US does by calling it culture…………….
…………. Pavlovian reflex would probably be closer.
I lived and worked in the US and could not reconcile the affluence alongside the desperately sick and poor.
The richest country on earth couldn’t feed its population and we copied their economic strategy.
oh it’s worse than that. Wealthiest country inn the world still hasn’t got rid of lead pipes!
I am trying very hard to blot the US pantomime out. Enough with Trump’s stuffed this time headlines: the Oaf is still swanning around the place dripping vitriol and spite everywhere he goes.
Sheeples I believe is the term used.
Everyone knows that fluoride reduces the potency of a man’s precious bodily fluids.
I thought that was the Commies, Frank. It certainly wasn’t the Coca Cola company.
Ah…General Jack T Ripper (wasn’t Sterling Hayden wonderful in the role), the International Communist Conspiracy….fluoridation of our water….precious bodily fluids. And Keenan Wynne as Major Batt Guano protecting CocaCola rights. Good references Frank and Kathy,
And a Supreme Court that believes by denying inequalities they will disappear.
Sign of desperation to co-opt or be associated with these types promoting BS, junk science and conspiracy, but this is the imported GOP modus operandi now for Anglo right wing conservative causes i.e. bypassing formal politics and even media, in favour of influencers, social media and word of mouth to get at persuadables, along with ageing skips…..
A better collection of scum has rarely been assembled. It is only missing Scummo himself and Dutton to be a world beater. Worthlesss the lot of them including the one who left his wife because she was “too Aboriginal”. My wife used to work with her and unlike her husband she was a decent person.
I couldn’t believe what you wrote (“too aboriginal”) so I looked it up. And by god you’re right. What a POS Mundine is!
“But Sydney University academic Lynette Riley, speaking for the first time about the break-up of their 26-year marriage, said, ”He absolutely said it. It is seared into my brain. I think he has sold out his family and his culture. I think he gave up his good Aboriginal wife and kids so he could do that.”
This POS is the poster boy of the No campaign. These days he is closer to being a mining executive than anything resembling a spokesman for First Nations people and improving their lives. He is simply a scam.
Well even before I read these comments I thought Warren Mundine should hang his head in shame at his betrayal of First Nations people
Not a simple scam, he married Gerard Henderson’s daughter.
He has far too much to lose as the “token aboriginal”, as does Jacinta Price and her mother.
Lordy, Lordy!
What is truly worrying is not that the NO campaign is using loonies like O’Neill, it’s that people are listening to them.
Lots and lots. The YES vote has gone down the drain in every State except Victoria so far, IIRC. Makes you want to punch a wall, doesn’t it? Or Peter Dutton.
These cookers are being amplified by Sky and NewsCorp which gives them credibility to the voting masses, most of whom could not assemble a critical thought if it came flatpacked with a hex wrench and a 4 page instruction booklet.
I would not get too committed about polls for now; so many and so often they have become meaningless yet dominate media narratives seemingly supporting a No vote, but news ‘analysis’ includes pollsters plugging their own polls?
Accordingly, it appears that those who follow legacy (RW) media, less educated, older and skip (?) are more likely to vote No, for now; seems carte blanche NO messaging across right wing media?
No straw is to frail for the No campaign to grasp it and no lie or misinformation too appalling for them to embrace it.
Fruit Loops, all of them. No logical arguments / debating points against voting Yes. Just emotive rubbish.