This missive was dropped into our letterbox the other day.
It is over the signatures of George Christensen (Federal LNP Member for Dawson) and Craig Kelly (Federal Liberal Member for Hughes). This is passing strange, given that I am a constituent in the Federal electorate of Groom.
What is stranger is that this is an open letter addressed to a Queensland state public servant, a couple of weeks before a state election.
Under the Westminster system, federal members (especially those from interstate) have no business writing to state public servants. If either Kelly or Christensen were senators for Queensland, there may have been some justification for the letter, but the process is actually a reversal of Westminster protocols, in that public servants are expected to advise politicians, rather than the other way around.
But it gets stranger. I emailed both Christensen and Kelly. The latter replied to my email (Christensen was prepared only to acknowledge it) and Kelly claimed to have no knowledge of the letter, despite that it was over his signature.
The staffer in Christensen's office in Mackay said much the same thing when I phoned to ask why there was no acknowledgement to my email. She claimed to have reported it to the electoral commission.
This begs a couple of questions. The first is the origin of the letter. It did not stem from the office of either of the signatories, so has to be a forgery. Where did it come from, and who disseminated it? It was a glossy pamphlet, offset printed, and had the Commonwealth coat of arms on both sides. Getting it circulated (setup and distribution) would not have been cheap.
As election material produced in a lead-up to a poll, it did not carry the required political party authorisation, which is a breach of the act.
There is one very wealthy and fairly large Queensland businessman prone to disruptive stunts. Perhaps I am cynical, but I can see his grubby hands all over this one. The content is classic snake-oil material, typical of this individual who is reported to have bought large quantities of the chemical referred to in the letter, only to find that no doctors anywhere in the country will use it.
Remember how he was going to build a Titanic replica, and how that sunk without trace?
Update -
By the way, if you're in Queensland, and tired of getting unsolicited SMS messages from Mineralogy about the state election, here's a remedy - email admin@unitedaustraliaparty.org.au and request that they remove your personal details from their database. Send a copy to ecq@ecq.qld.gov.au (Queensland Electoral Commission).
Alternatively, you can phone 08 9324 2227 (Mineralogy Perth - the only number that is answered) and make the same request.
Comments closed.
30 comments:
So what you are saying is that Clive Palmer committed forgery?
John Grey.
Great to see President Trump obliterate his opponent at the last Presidential debate.
John Grey
Good to see Tony Abbott making the effort to share Mass with Cardinal Pell.
Two wonderful Australians.
John Grey.
I understand war with China is not inconceivable.
Looks like a Vietnam-style conscription initiative is on the table again.
John Grey
So what you are saying is that Clive Palmer committed forgery?
Now where did I mention Clive Palmer?
Great to see President Trump obliterate his opponent at the last Presidential debate.
You must have watched a different debate from everyone else.
Joe Biden did a better job in the final debate on Thursday, according to a CNN Instant Poll of debate watchers. Overall, 53% of voters who watched the debate said that Biden won the matchup, while 39% said that President Donald Trump did.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/22/politics/cnn-poll-final-presidential-debate/index.html
"Now where did I mention Clive Palmer?"
Several times:
1. There is one very wealthy and fairly large Queensland businessman prone to disruptive stunts
2. typical of this individual who is reported to have bought large quantities of the chemical referred to in the letter,
3. he was going to build a Titanic replica
So yes, you did mention Clive Palmer. But don't worry about legal action, he only goes after people with deep pockets.
Or does he?
Just here to help.
John Grey
"only to find that no doctors anywhere in the country will use it."
More bullshit from the blogger.
As he well knows, many doctors are keen to prescribe it especially in conjunction with zinc for treatment in the early stages of the Chinese Flu.
The doctors are not ALLOWED to use it. Governments have unbelievably banned its use for Chinese Flu.
Still, it's his blog and he's allowed to lie.
John Grey
Very brave of the blogger to insinuate that the most litigious individual in Australia is responsible for forgery.
Still, the echo chamber of this vanity blog means his accusations won't see the light of day and thus protect him from a law suit.
John Grey.
As he well knows, many doctors are keen to prescribe it especially in conjunction with zinc for treatment in the early stages of the Chinese Flu.
Name one in Oz.
We got one of those letters also (Southside Brisbane). Bloody ridiculous.
Blackbeard.
"Name one in Oz."
Very funny. As if individual doctors will have their patients' confidentiality compromised.
Now if you had been more sensible and asked what studies have supported the use of hydroxychloroquine, then I would have given you results from France, Ghana, Spain, America, Italy, Belgium and the Philippines.
To sum up - Countries that used hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19 saw a 73% lower fatality rate.
Anyone who supports a ban on doctors using this drug is a totalitarian. That would be you, blogger.
John Grey
"Name one in Oz." as opposed to "name one".
A direct admission that doctors around the world want to use hydroxychloroquine.
Made my point for me.
The bottom line is that if the blogger and his family don't want to use it, that is their freedom of choice in our democracy.
But supporting the ban on others using it when there is ample evidence of its efficiency is simply "rule by decree" politics, i.e. totalitarian.
Our country should have freedom of choice, not iron fisted governments ruling in a feudal manner.
John Grey.
The letter above shows that Clive Palmer has already donated large quantities of hydroxychloroquin to the nation. That looks like a generous contribution, and not the workings of a snake oil salesman.
John Grey.
But supporting the ban on others using it when there is ample evidence of its efficiency is simply "rule by decree" politics, i.e. totalitarian.
Provide this "ample evidence".
then I would have given you results from France, Ghana, Spain, America, Italy, Belgium and the Philippines.
Don't be shy.
Provide them anyway.
Still desperately searching for a gotcha, eh blogger? It's not going to happen.
Here is a link to a meta analysis of 118 studies.
The final analysis - HCQ is effective when used early.
118 studies!!!!!
Over to you to debunk all of the studies which have found that HCQ works.
A full scientific review is required of course.
John Grey.
"then I would have given you results from France, Ghana, Spain, America, Italy, Belgium and the Philippines.
Don't be shy.
Provide them anyway."
Not shy. Just go to Clive Palmer's web site. All the studies are there.
Simply read each one, provided scientific rebuttal, and the world will be your oyster.
John Grey.
“Two recent, large, early-use clinical trials have been conducted by the Henry Ford Health System and at Mount Sinai showing a 51% and 47% lower mortality, respectively, in hospitalized patients given hydroxychloroquine. A recent study from Spain published on July 29, two days before Margaret Sullivan’s strafing of ‘fringe doctors,’ shows a 66% reduction in COVID mortality in patients taking hydroxychloroquine. No serious side effects were reported in these studies and no epidemic of heartbeat abnormalities.”
More proof that HDC works.
John Grey.
Here is a case study. HDC was working in Switzerland; got banned; deaths went up; HDC was re-introduced and deaths dropped.
“Looking at the evolution curve of this index for Switzerland,” explain Michel Jullian and Xavier Azalbert for FranceSoir, “we note a ‘wave of excess lethality’ of two weeks from June 9th to 22nd, with a lag of a dozen days compared to the period of suspension of the use of hydroxychloroquine by WHO. This demonstrates, without possible rebuttal, the effect of stopping the delivery and use of this drug in Switzerland (country which follows the recommendations of the WHO, based in Geneva). During the weeks preceding the ban, the nrCFR index fluctuated between 3% and 5%. Some 13 days after the start of the prohibition, the nrCFR index increases considerably to be between 10 and 15% for 2 weeks. Some 12 days after the end of the prohibition, the lethality falls back to a lower level.”
John Grey.
You forget that the blogger experienced "freedom of choice" in 1970. Is that the "freedom of choice" you're on about?
Jeannie
Jeannie, the blogger had the freedom in 1970 to choose one of 4 options.
1. take his chances with the birthday lottery.
2. join the CMF and get exempted from National Service.
3. become a conscientious objector and get permission to avoid conscription
4. become a draft resister and illegally avoid conscription
He chose to gamble on not being balloted into the Army.
He lost that gamble.
He did use his status as a university student to delay his Army experience through deferment (as a young Donald Trump also did).
The blogger legally didn't have to go to Vietnam. That could have been avoided by choosing options 2 or 3.
Additionally, he could have been one of the lucky conscripts who didn't go to Vietnam after being offered that option by senior brass.
"63,000 were conscripted by the ballot. From 1965 to 1972, 15,381 national servicemen served in the Vietnam War," (State Library of South Australia) If I am reading these numbers correctly, 75% of conscripts took the opportunity of not going to Vietnam. The blogger must have been very unlucky to miss the opportunity to not go to Vietnam.
To sum up Jeannie, the blogger had freedom which he is now denying to doctors.
John Grey.
The blogger legally didn't have to go to Vietnam.
Your ignorance of the 1965 National Service Act is breathtaking -https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1965A00052
The CMF option was not available to me when I registered for the 5th ballot on March 10th 1967. At that time, there weren't CMF units in remote and rural locations. At the time I had to make the decision, I had no idea where I would be appointed, but as a boy from the bush, somewhere remote was my likely destination. As as it happened, I ended up four hours from the nearest CMF setup. As for "using my status as a university student" - I was not at university at the time. I was a bonded student teacher in my second year at Kedron Park Teachers' College. I had signed a contract obliging me to teach for three years post graduation. My deferment was automatic, the consequence of an agreement between the Queensland Dept of Education, and the Department of Labour and National Service, which allowed me to complete my course, graduate, and teach for a year prior to enlistment. Contrast that with Trump's situation. His father's money bought him five deferments. My dad didn't have that sort of brass.
As for "being offered an option by senior brass" - I was never given that opportunity. I'm into my second year of research into this issue, and so far, during a course of interviews, have not found one ex-Nasho who was offered this choice. Read Mark Dapin's "Australia's Vietnam - Myth Vs History". (p 41) He did a Ph D on conscription, and thoroughly researched this issue. His findings were the same as mine, so far, but I've got a few hundred more ex-Nashos to interview, pandemic willing. The other tranche of my research looks at men who volunteered for National Service when they had to register at age twenty. There weren't many, and I'm attempting to put a figure on it. They can be identified by comparing their regimental number (second digit "7" if a Nasho, and then identifying those, from the DVA nominal roll. whose birthdays weren't drawn. I'm looking into their motivations, which I'm hypothesising were related to gaining all the post discharge benefits of operational deployment after only two years of service, as opposed to three for regular soldiers. They're a very rare breed. Most twenty year-olds at the time were not inclined to join the army in peacetime to fight overseas in a civil war, whilst the rest of their cohort lived the 1970's free and easy life of surf, booze, and sex. The 75% you refer to were simply soldiers who weren't posted to units that served in Vietnam. It took about ten support troops to keep one fighting soldier at the pointy end. There were only ever about 3000 Australians serving in Vietnam at the peak of our deployment in 1969. In my time in Vietnam, one battalion (8 RAR) was withdrawn and not replaced.
I was unlucky, because at every decision point (birthday ballot. corps allocation, unit allocation etc), I chose a decision which avoided Vietnam, and each time, was denied my choice. I had no freedom at the time, and the "freedom" being denied to doctors is what they sign up to when they practice medicine. It's called Primum non nocere an inviolable ethical principle not subject to politically motivated snake oil.
"the rest of their cohort lived the 1970's free and easy life of surf, booze, and sex"
Now we know the blogger's real, deep seated bitterness towards the LNP. America, and the Vietnam experience.
John Grey.
"I ended up four hours from the nearest CMF setup"
Just a short drive for real country folk. Easily done if you'd wanted to.
John Grey
"I was not at university at the time" vs "allowed me to complete my course, graduate,"
Normally, those two phrases would be mutually exclusive.
Which is it - you were not at uni, or you completed your course?
John Grey
Nothing so far from the blogger as to why he didn't go down the conscientious objector route.
He's probably jealous of the courage of Simon Townsend.
John Grey
Whoops - I made an error.
I thought the blogger went to Uni to study teaching but a closer reading of his tome clearly shows he didn't graduate from uni to be a teacher - it was Teachers College.
John Grey.
Re "First do no harm": it is obvious to many that a product that has been successfully used for 60 years passes the "no harm" threshold.
It is quite clear that the WHO only came out against HDC after President Trump spoke about it - a clear political intervention in a medical issue.
That is unconscionable.
John Grey
It is quite clear that the WHO only came out against HDC after President Trump spoke about it - a clear political intervention in a medical issue.
The WHO (and scores of epidemiologists) have not "come out against HDC". They have simply followed the established practice of not approving a therapy unless it is proven safe and effective.
The most recent (June 2020) review of a series of trials the majority in vitro - not with human subjects) show the following -
1.there is no high quality evidence regarding hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as treatment or prophylaxis of COVID-19.
2. Treatment with HCQ may be associated with no reduction of in-hospital death compared to standard care.
3. High dosages, comorbidities and combinations with macrolides may increase the risk of death and cardiac adverse events.
4. Post-exposure prophylaxis with HCQ probably has no effect on preventing COVID-19-like symptoms.
5. HCQ should not be used outside high-quality RCTs in patients with COVID-19.
(Reference - A systematic review on the efficacy and safety of chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 in the Journal of Critical Care, Volume 59, October 2020, Pages 176-190 - authors - Andrea Cortegiania, Mariachiara Ippolitoa, Giulia Ingogliaa, Pasquale Iozzob, Antonino Giarratanoa & Sharon Einav - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2020.06.019)
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