Anti-vaxxer at No event says Yes camp doesn’t care about First Nations peoples

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.