Jarrod Bleijie doubles down on Annastacia Palaszczuk anti-vax claim
Labor has complained to Twitter and the Opposition Leader about Jarrod Bleijie’s tweets, but he’s not changing his tune.
QLD Politics
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Opposition frontbencher Jarrod Bleijie has doubled down on his claims Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is an anti-vaxxer, after the state’s Health Minister wrote to social media giant Twitter and asked his boss to counsel him.
Yvette D’Ath sent a letter to Opposition Leader David Crisafulli earlier this month where she claimed Mr Bleijie was spreading misinformation about the vaccine rollout.
The Minister, who asked for Mr Bleijie’s tweets to be deleted, wrote that his “public and sustained spreading of misinformation about senior members of the Queensland Government and the vaccine is deliberate, misinformed, and threatens to harm the overall confidence of the vaccine rollout”.
Ms D’Ath, who has written to Twitter regarding the tweets, asked Mr Crisafulli to counsel Mr Bleijie.
But in his reply letter, Mr Bleijie said he stood by his comments and that an anti-vaxxer can be described as someone who preferenced one vaccine over another and pointed to the Premier not receiving AstraZeneca when it became available to her age group.
Ms Palaszczuk insisted in June that she needed Pfizer, which is preferred for younger people, because of her July trip to Tokyo for Brisbane’s Olympics bid.
.@YvetteDAth maybe vaccine hesitancy in Qld started when Chief Health Officer Dr Young told young people they have more chance of dying from the AZ vaccine than Covid-19! Doesn't help that we have an anti-vaxxer Premier @AnnastaciaMP either. #qldpol
— Jarrod Bleijie (@JarrodBleijieMP) August 4, 2021
The Premier was eligible for Pfizer in the 1B vaccine round, but as she is over 50 she was also eligible for AstraZeneca which became available earlier this year.
“It is clear that the Premier did not want to receive the AstraZeneca vaccination and came up with every excuse in the playbook including the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse not to have the AstraZeneca vaccination,” Mr Bleijie wrote.
The frontbencher asked Ms D’Ath whether she had requested he be banned from Twitter, which he regularly uses.
Read related topics:Vaccine rollout
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