Claire Harvey: What’s the remedy to NRL anti-vaxxers? Cold hard cash
The anti-vaccination movement may be flourishing amid COVID-19, but it seems there’s one thing even more powerful than their pseudo scientific ethics, and that’s income, writes Claire Harvey.
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In case anyone was wondering what the love-language of anti-vaccinators was, now we know.
It’s money. Of course it is. They are all about conspiracies and values and misspelt Instagram posts, until they realise there’s not a viable revenue stream.
I’m eagerly anticipating the day when the anti-vax rugby league WAGs realise the manufacturers of vitamin powder and cheesecloth muu-muus are unwilling to “sponsor” their posts if they aren’t actually rugby league WAGs any more.
Nothing like blowing up your husband’s career to bring your priorities into sharp relief: it’s not easy to fund an Insta-life on the wage of an apprentice ditch-digger.
If coronavirus has given us anything, it’s an instant insight into what life was like before vaccination – when mothers lived in terror of polio and perfectly healthy adults died of diphtheria.
It has also freed us from Pete Evans. Channel 7 liberated itself from the enormous salary of the former pizza restaurateur, thus liberating @chefpeteevans from his obligation to keep his freak-flag at least partially furled.
No doubt feeling enormously relieved to be rid of the stultifying check on his freedom that his $800,000 My Kitchen Rules co-hosting salary imposed, Evans has turned his Instagram page into Konspiracy Korner, with posts about “machine elves”, “secret code words”, “secret trials” for people who test positive to COVID-19 and some rainbow emojis.
It’s adorably reminiscent of the league-WAG formula: A Nelson Mandela quote in giant letters plus my thigh-gap in mini shorts and someone being breastfed = invitation to my $15,000 Wellness FearlessBabe Workshop, Afterpay accepted.
The big lesson of the No Jab No Pay reforms, which resulted from a campaign we led, is that “vaccine hesitancy” diminishes very rapidly when someone in authority makes it clear that vaccination is safe.
The clearest and most succinct expression of that sentiment is the phrase: “Childcare rebate”.
And, in the case of the National Rugby League, which demonstrated itself once again incapable of standing up to the small number of players who consistently make the game look selfish, stupid and out-of-touch, it took the Queensland Government to show the way: just turn off the cash tap.
No flu jab, no play. It’s simple but so effective – a bit like vaccination itself.
And lo, most of the anti-vax players said they weren’t really anti-vax but were still getting around to it, and the remainder – Bryce Cartwright and a small number of others – exited stage left to contemplate their future.
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for the novelty of Newstart to wear off.
Cartwright’s teammate on the Gold Coast Titans, Brian Kelly, immediately got over his objection to having a flu shot when he was told it would cost him $450,000.
Several others are still refusing so far to get the shot, but Cartwright revealed he’d been sitting on some big news – he’s remembered he once had a bad reaction to a flu shot.
Bryce’s GP and the Queensland Government accepted this explanation and have allowed him to play.
So now it’s time for Bryce and his wife Shanelle to choose: are they ethically opposed to vaccination, or are they allergic to it? Can’t go both ways. Of course I’m not suggesting Cartwright has fabricated his reaction. That would be unethical.
As Shanelle herself has said on Instagram, this whole issue is a test of values, of ethics, of manhood. “I can’t believe they’re not standing up for their mate that might lose his livelihood,” she wrote.
“It would only take 5-8 players in each team to stand up against it and the whole NRL would be f***** I (sic) have no choice but to scrap the no jab no play.
“Besides Bryce and the other … Where the real men at!?”
Claire Harvey is the deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph.