Two weeks ago the Supreme Court of Queensland ruled that some of the Covid vaccine mandates applied by the Queensland Government were unlawful.
In his judgement, Justice Martin, forensically eviscerated the shambolic processes that created the draconian vaccine mandates.
The Queensland Government assured us time and time again that its policies to keep us locked up, to deny sick people from NSW hospital care and to put thousands of Queenslanders out of work if they did not get the vaccine, were based on advice from the experts.
There is now a clear court judgement that this was not the case.
In late 2021, the then Police Commissioner, Katarina Carroll, issued two directives requiring all police officers to get the vaccine.
Under Queensland law, Commissioner Carroll had an obligation to assess whether vaccine mandates limited human rights (the judge found they did) and that she consider, among other things, if the limitations were reasonable and help to achieve their purpose.
The Judge found that “the Commissioner, in making the decisions the subject of contention, failed to give proper consideration to human rights relevant to those decisions.”
Of her evidence he said that “she [the Police Commissioner] was reluctant to commit to having read particular documents, she frequently could not recall how she received information or what the information was, and she frequently evaded these issues by referring in a vague way to briefings, discussions, summaries and the like.”
During cross-examination it become clear that the advice on human rights was only finalised after the Commissioner made her initial decision to impose a mandate.
Despite the Commissioner claiming that she had seen or been briefed on this advice before her decision, the document submitted to the court contained a footnote which referred to a document created after the Commissioner’s decision was made.
The Deputy Commissioner claimed that there were earlier versions of the human rights advice.
But when he called the office no further documents were found.
The Police Commissioner made an update to the vaccine mandate in December 2021, which added a requirement for a booster.
Again, she received the human rights advice on this decision at least four days after she had made the decision.
As Judge Martin concluded “It is more likely than not that the Commissioner did not consider the human rights ramifications.”
Just a few weeks before the Police Commissioner made that uninformed decision, I crossed the floor against my party’s wishes in the Senate to vote for a bill that would have outlawed vaccine mandates.
In the Senate debate I said “Everybody should have the right to work and provide for their family, and no government in this free country that I was born in has the right to take away people’s right to work and provide for their family.”
In my speech, I included real evidence on the ineffectiveness of vaccine mandates in Europe.
The Queensland Supreme Court found that the Police Commissioner relied on a Chief Health Officer’s report for the 2019/20 year, before Covid vaccines were even available.
I was pilloried for putting lives at risk by ignoring expert advice, but I seemed to have done more research than the “experts” making the decisions.
While the Supreme Court has given some justice to those harmed by vaccine mandates it is still unsatisfying. Justice delayed is justice denied.
And no court decision can repair the devastation that has been caused by these unlawful decisions.
Because of legal restrictions, the judge was also prevented from making a substantive decision on whether a mandate was the right policy.
He could only investigate the process of the decision making which was a chaotic mess.
I have only had space to catalogue some of the shortcomings above.
That is why we all deserve a proper inquiry into what happened during Covid.
Before the last election the Prime Minister promised a Royal Commission or similar inquiry into the pandemic.
Since the election he has broken that promise, instead appointing a panel which does not have Royal Commission subpoena powers and is stacked with people that supported lockdowns.
We all deserve much more and this year I will move a bill to establish a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (which has the same powers of a Royal Commission).
This is the least we can do to try to make sure that we do not repeat the many errors that were made during the Covid era.
