AUSTRALIA

Message to members of the House and Senate

Dear Senators and MP’s,

I write this letter, to bring your attention to the seriousness of the proposed changes to the World Health Assembly’s (WHA’s) International Health Regulations (IHR) and a proposed ‘pandemic treaty’  implied under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Should these proposals be adopted, Australian sovereignty, and freedom will be removed and subordinated to unelected international bodies. If these proposals are adopted, fundamental human and democratic rights of all Australians will be further eroded and completely removed. These proposals on many occasions have been previously discussed and are currently being negotiated without appropriate transparency, knowledge, and input of the Australian people.

I, draw your attention to proposed amendments to the IHR:

• https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/pdf_files/wgihr1/WGIHR_Compilation-en.pdf
• https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/index.html

… and the proposed ‘pandemic treaty

• https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb3/A_INB3_3-en.pdf
• https://inb.who.int

These proposals, mentioned above, followed a consensus reached by World Health Assembly in December 2021 to ‘kickstart a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen global pandemic prevention, preparedness and response’.

The intent of both proposals, will be considered for adoption under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, or other provisions of the constitution as may be deemed appropriate by the INB at the 76th WHA being held from 21 May 2023.

Adoption by the WHA requires only a simple majority among its member states and would be legally binding on all member states including Australia.

The proposals have strong potential to produce several outcomes detrimental to human rights and Australian sovereignty:

• changing the nature of the WHO from an advisory organisation which makes recommendations to a governing body which makes legally binding and enforceable proclamations

• significantly expanding the scope of the IHR, further removing inherent rights and freedoms of all individuals by inclusion of ‘new text’ that will provide unlimited creation of ‘scenarios’ that will be detrimental to individual human rights and freedoms, will have an almost certain risk of negative impact on public health, instead of a benefit to and in the best interest of public health;

• amending principles of the IHR outlined in Article 3 to remove ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of persons’, therefore no longer require that human rights and fundamental freedoms, will be considered by the W.H.A, W.H.O or their member states – it must be acknowledged that a number of basic human rights and freedoms such as freedom of assembly, travel, association, religion, speech and privacy and bodily autonomy were all to some degree compromised or contravened by Australian, state and territory governments during the COVID-19 pandemic in the name of protecting public health;

• giving the Director-General of the WHO unprecedented control over national means of production by enabling the office to direct the manufacture and supply of pandemic response products by developed member states (Article 13A) thereby also directing unspecified billions of dollars worth of member states’ public funds to private manufacturers without the appropriate public accountability;

• giving the WHO unprecedented authority to require medical examinations and treatments, and for individuals to provide proof of such for the purposes of quarantine and contact tracing (Article 18) in contravention of human rights to privacy and bodily autonomy;

• instituting a system of health certifications including test, vaccination, prophylaxis and recovery certifications as well as passenger locator forms and traveller health declarations (articles 18, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 35, 36 and 44 and annexes 6, 7, and 8) in contravention of human rights to privacy and bodily autonomy;

• allowing the public disclosure of personal health data in contravention of human rights to privacy and bodily autonomy (Article 45);

• expanding the WHO’s capacity to censor what it considers to be mis- or disinformation (Annex 1); and

• creating an obligation on member states to build, provide for and maintain IHR infrastructure at points of entry (Annex 10).

It should be noted that according to the existing IHR, adoption and imposition of these proposals would not require ratification in Australia’s Parliament, or even the signature of our Prime Minister. They will simply take effect, imposing rules and requirements on Australia which the people had no say in developing or rejecting.

These proposals, and the way they may be adopted, implemented, and enforced, run contrary to the fundamental principles of Australian democracy: transparency, accountability, the fundamental rights of the individual not being subordinated to the interests of the state, and laws being made by representatives fairly and freely elected by the people. This is effectively a blatant grab for power without accountability by the WHO, and it is not something Australia – a free representative democracy with a proud history of opposing authoritarianism and tyranny – should tolerate in principle or in practice.

Australia has unique health challenges and only Australians should be ultimately determining the health policies which meet these challenges.

I look forward to your considered response about how you will address these serious matters. I seek your specific positions on the ‘pandemic treaty’ and IHR proposals, what actions you are taking to ensure that it is ultimately the Australian people who determine the laws under which Australians’  live, and what actions you are taking to ensure the WHO remains strictly an advisory body which makes only non-binding and non-enforceable recommendations that Australia is completely within its right to determine if they are suitable for our unique purposes.

I ask you to advocate for the people of Australia, reject the international power grab, reject the proposed IHR amendments and withdraw Australia from the World Health Organization.

Yours sincerely