Detained Senator Alex Antic insists he’s not an anti-vaxxer, but won’t say if he’s had a Covid vaccine
Detained in a medi-hotel, Senator Alex Antic is insisting he’s not an anti-vaxxer – but refuses to declare if he’s had a Covid vaccine.
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Detained Liberal senator Alex Antic is insisting he is “not an anti-vaxxer” and believes in medical science but is refusing to declare whether he has been inoculated for Covid or intends to in the future.
Writing from the Adelaide medi-hotel to which he was escorted by police last Thursday, Senator Antic declared his “strongly-held view that important medical decisions must always be an individual’s choice” and decried freedoms “sacrificed at the altar of Covid paranoia”.
He refused to respond to questions from The Advertiser about whether his stance would encourage vaccine hesitancy, if he was waiting for the Novavax or Adelaide-made COVVAX-19 jab to become available, or if he would become a “false prophet” to anti-vaxxers if he was inoculated.
Former Liberal and Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi also declined to answer The Advertiser’s questions. He has condemned the “disgraceful” decision by “a bunch of medical tyrants” to detain Senator Antic “without charge” and questioned how “any government can endorse the coercive pressure to have an experimental vaccine”.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham on Monday said Queensland LNP Senator Gerard Rennick was unvaccinated and, commenting on Senator Antic’s detention, declared: “There are consequences that we all have from our choices.”
It is not known whether Queensland LNP MP and anti-vaccine mandate campaigner George Christensen is inoculated.
Senator Antic was granted an exemption to enter SA typically reserved for unvaccinated travellers, raising questions for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has denied he misled the public by claiming his colleague was double-vaccinated.
In a column submitted to The Advertiser, Senator Antic says he seeks to represent all South Australians, not just those who have made a particular medical choice.
“Covid politics has become toxic, and the following statement demonstrates just how toxic it has become, but I need to be clear, I am not an anti-vaxxer,” he says.
“I believe in medical science, but I also believe in the preservation of our most basic and fundamental freedoms such as freedom of speech, thought, association and freedom of choice.”
Senator Antic says many South Australians “are suffering due to job losses, border restrictions, vaccine mandates and the social isolation, which our Covid response has caused”.
“South Australians have been very patient in the last two years, but when the state reached the landmark 80 per cent vaccination rate (in late November), we were told by the bureaucratic class that border closures, contact tracing and medi-hotels were not a thing of the past. How can that be?” he says.
The Advertiser understands Senator Antic applied for an exemption to return to SA but was initially denied.
On appeal, he was granted entry on the condition he complete 14 days quarantine in a medi-hotel.
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Originally published as Detained Senator Alex Antic insists he’s not an anti-vaxxer, but won’t say if he’s had a Covid vaccine
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