Thousands have gathered outside Queensland Parliament to protest vaccine mandates
Pauline Hanson, Robbie Katter and George Christensen have walked alongside thousands of protesters in the Brisbane CBD to rally against vaccine mandates. SEE THE PICS
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Thousands of people across two protests have marched through the CBD to rally for “freedom over fear”.
Many of the protesters were rallying against Covid vaccine mandates which left them out of work after refusing to get the jab.
A former teacher who addressed the crowd said he had worked for Education Queensland – “the guys behind me” – for 23 years before he was fired.
“Hand-in-hand, that’s how our country will go forward,” he said.
A second protest marched from King George Square to Queensland Parliament.
That protest was led by firefighters and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson who said she was walking with “me and my friends”.
Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter was also at the protest to rally for the end of mandates.
“It’s a position we have had from the start – I think it’s important for people to get a voice and put their side of the argument forward,” Mr Katter said.
As the crowd marched through the streets of Brisbane’s CBD, people chanted “my body, my choice”, “end the segregation” and “freedom to work”.
Rogue Coalition backbencher George Christensen, who has come under fire for his anti-vaccination rhetoric, was among the crowd at Queensland Parliament.
But Mr Christensen said “I’m more anti-mandate than anything else”.
“It should be peoples’ choice as to whether they take a vaccination or not, but what we are opposing here is a continuation of the state of emergency powers, people who come from the health sector, emergency services and other sectors who have lost their jobs or face losing their jobs,” he said.
“They (emergency powers) need to go so people can be reinstated.”
Mr Christensen said the “mandates have a lot of peoples’ noses out of joint” and “not just people who are anti-vaccine”.
“Of course there are a lot of people who are anti-vaccine but there are many people here who have been vaccinated, but are opposed to the mandates because someone they know is out of a job – it’s nonsensical now,” he said.
“We are dealing with Omicron, Omicron is like nature’s vaccine … we don’t need these mandates and people say they’re not mandates but if someone points a metaphorical gun to your head and says ‘get vaccinated or you’ll lose your job’ what are you going to do? … but unfortunately there are people here who have made that choice and as a result they have lost their job or face losing their job.”
Ellona Lahn said she had been organising anti-vaccine protests since 2015 but this was “the great awakening”.
“It wasn’t until early 2022, when individuals started to really suffer because of mandates that this awakening progressed,” she said.
Ms Lahn said she predicted this “biowarfare” in early 2020 but now “there has been an explosion in people questioning everything”.
“When Covid took over in 2020 I posted on Facebook that the elderly and vulnerable should be isolated while the rest of us should be left to obtain herd immunity,” Ms Lahn said.
Ms Lahn said the thing that hurt her most was that the government was raising a generation that was “so scared” and “psychologically damaged” they are worried of getting something as “normal” as the flu.
“But it’s such a relief to see people finally questioning the narrative because for too long people have followed and trusted the doctors, government and experts,” she said.
Research from top medical publication the British Medical Journal found that when compared with seasonal flu, Covid-19 carried greater risk of organ failure, death, and left victims five times more likely to end up in intensive care.
Another man in the crowd was wearing a shirt that read “No jab, no job, no fifo, F U ScoMo”.
A woman was holding a sign which read “freedom of choice – mandate that”.
The song ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ by Bob Marley was being blasted through the speakers.
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