AEC Approves Anti-Vaxxer Party name change

3 May 2020

In a move that will surely damage it credibility the Australian Electoral Commission has approved a name change for the ‘Involuntary Medication Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party’ to be called the ‘Informed Medical Options Party’.

Amazingly this was under the Australian Electoral Act, as it did not allow confusion with another party, was not obscene and would not undermine respect for government agencies.  Whaat?  The fact that a political party can call itself exactly what it is not surely will undermine respect for the AEC as a sensible regulator.

The AMA and Health Minister Greg Hunt objected on the obvious grounds that vaccination is necessary to rid the world of several diseases.  The fact that a political party can pretend that it is ‘informed’, when what it is trying to do is against all medical information, is a major weakness in the AEC, and frankly is a case of black-letter law, where the actual words of the law are being used to overcome the spirit and intent of the Australian Electoral Act which is to make political parties names state what they stand for.  As stated above, the credibility of the government agency that is damaged is the AEC itself.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, no one can pretend that viral diseases are not a problem.  SARS, MERS and Ebola are contained but not beaten.  ‘Flu epidemics are annual and kill many people. 

The world was declared smallpox-free after a long campaign and the last naturally occurring case was in Somalia in 1977.  But a virus escaped in a research lab in Birmingham, England in 1978 and infected 3 people, one medical photographer fatally, who was the last person in the world to die from this disease. 

Polio is almost eradicated, but not quite.  It is more than 3 years since the last case was recorded in Nigeria, and only two countries still have polio, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  There were 29 cases in Afghanistan in 2019, and 15 current ones.  In Pakistan there were 146 cases in 2019, and 41 cases this year to April 28^th.  Rotary and Bill Gates are funding worldwide campaigns to distribute oral polio vaccine.  The eradication campaign was set back several years when the US used a fake vaccination campaign to get DNA samples to try to find Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, and several genuine polio vaccination nurses were murdered as a result and the campaign was banned by the Taliban.  (NY Times 9/7/12).  But as long as the virus exists on earth, it will pose a danger to naïve (non-immune) people.

One is to hope that his name approval can be appealed via the Administrative Decisions Review Tribunal. But I am unsure if this is the case or if it will be appealed even if it is possible.  Surely the Dept. of Health will try.

Please write to Federal Health Minster Greg Hunt and ask him to appeal this very bad decision.

www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/vaccination-sceptic-political-party-wins-name-change-despite-heavyweight-objectors-20200501-p54owx.html