Labor has written to Facebook to urge the social media platform to continue to monitor Craig Kelly’s page for harmful content, demanding “appropriate action to protect public health”.
On the day Scott Morrison finally distanced himself from the outspoken MP after Kelly signalled he might not get the Covid vaccine, and confronted the Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek in front of television cameras, the shadow health minister, Mark Butler, wrote to Facebook’s Australian managing director asking the platform to exercise editorial responsibility.
Butler says in the letter that Facebook will be aware the government is conducting public information campaigns about the vaccine rollout – “a crucial public health campaign and one that will be vital in our battle against Covid-19 and the ongoing recovery efforts”.
Butler notes that Kelly, the Liberal member for Hughes, has “continued to make outlandish claims regarding Covid-19 on his page” including “accusing Australia’s chief medical officers of crimes against humanity, and saying hydroxychloroquine was being banned by our regulators as part of an anti-Trump conspiracy, and will be approved after the US election”.
Noting that such claims are not supported by the Department of Health or other experts, Butler says Kelly’s Facebook posts “are getting four times more engagement than the Australian Department of Health”.
“I urge Facebook to continue to monitor the harmful content that Mr Kelly is sharing and take appropriate action to protect public health,” he says.
In January Kelly accused social media companies of attempting to “purge” comments about unproven Covid-19 treatments after he received a warning from Facebook about his claims regarding the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin.
Kelly said he had “received a call from a representative of Facebook ‘requesting’ that I remove a post that contained comments … made by Australia’s Prof Tom Borody commenting about Ivermectin as a treatment [for] Covid – otherwise my Facebook would have ‘restrictions’ placed upon it”.
He said he had removed the post “under protest” and declared the world had “entered a very dark time in human history when scientific debate and freedom of speech is being suppressed”.
Throughout 2020 Kelly also championed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid despite the most reputable global studies finding it was ineffective as a treatment, and could have severe and even deadly side-effects if used inappropriately.
The MP says his claims about the efficacy of therapies – including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin – are endorsed by the immunologist Robert Clancy, an emeritus professor from the University of Newcastle.
Asked why Australia’s chief medical officer expresses a different view, Kelly said on Tuesday: “Because Paul Kelly is relying on advice from the national Covid evidence taskforce and they are months behind in reviewing the latest studies.”
Kelly’s serial interventions have attracted a public rebuke from Prof Paul Kelly and the Australian Medical Association – but Morrison did not distance himself publicly from the MP’s campaign until Wednesday.
The prime minister was asked on Monday whether the government was wasting taxpayers’ money by embarking on a $24m public information campaign to build community confidence in the safety of inoculations when some of his own MPs, including Kelly, were intent on publishing false claims on social media.
Morrison sidestepped, noting that Kelly was “not my doctor and he’s not yours” and arguing that the MP did a “great job” in his Sydney electorate of Hughes. But with a political fracas escalating, by Wednesday Morrison made it clear he did not support Kelly’s views.
The prime minister made two private attempts to constrain Kelly this week before making a public statement after question time distancing himself from the MP’s campaign.
Kelly issued a statement on Wednesday saying he would support the government’s vaccination program but the statement was silent on whether or not he would continue to advocate unproven remedies.
While the MP’s freelancing has irritated some colleagues, conservatives have rallied to his cause. The Queensland National George Christensen declared “lefties and the fake news media” were trying to silence, censor and cancel dissenters.
Christensen’s colleague Matt Canavan said: “Labor wants to silence Craig Kelly. Why don’t they just debate him? I think we need more Craig Kellys willing to say unpopular things because it is only by challenging ideas that we get better ideas.”
