Grace Bawden, opera singer from Australia’s Got Talent, defends mum Matilda Bawden after health advice ban
A noted singer and supporter of anti-vaxxers is defending her social worker mother, who has been banned from providing health advice for 12 weeks.
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A former finalist on Australia’s Got Talent has defended her social worker mother after she was banned from offering Covid-19 health advice.
Adelaide opera singer Grace Bawden, who starred on the 2008 season of the TV talent show, said her mother, Matilda, was being made an “example to all other anti-vaxxers” following allegations she had excluded clients who had been recently vaccinated from service.
“Media comments have been cut and pasted to skew the real truth behind the original story,” Bawden wrote on social media.
“Mum is never one to take bullies lying down and she is asking other professionals not to be intimidated by her ‘scalping’. She wants others to stand by their patients/clients and do what’s right even if it makes people uncomfortable and afraid.”
On October 13, Matilda Bawden was initially banned for 12 weeks from offering Covid-19 health advice by the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner Grant Davies.
On Wednesday, the ruling was extended and Matilda is now banned from providing all health advice.
Assoc Prof Davies last month said Matilda wrote emails to clients that spread false claims about the effectiveness of Covid vaccines, and said they were not welcome to receive her services for a month after vaccination.
An anti-vax supporter herself, Grace Bawden, 29, wrote in a Facebook post that her mother was “fighting for the rights of her disabled client/s and colleagues to medical freedoms”.
Bawden has posted a number of comments on social media promoting the anti-vaccination “Freedom” rallies held in South Australia.
In other posts, Bawden claimed the “SA Government is forcing every last South Aussie to get their dirty jab.”
“Stuff the ‘gold standard’ of scientific rigour with double-blind, placebo, peer-reviewed research. Never mind that countless thousands are dying,” she said.
In a video posted on social media, Matilda claimed she has never provided health services to clients and was entitled to share alternative treatments and therapies.
Both Matilda and Grace declined to comment when contacted by The Advertiser.
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