Craig Kelly puts the gag on … for now

Liberal Party MP Craig Kelly. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The irrepressible member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, has been repressed; gagged amid reports he had been given a dressing down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a 30-minute meeting in the PM’s office early on Wednesday.

The upshot is Kelly has agreed to stop posting COVID information on social media and stick to the government’s message on vaccines and treatments.

It will make for thin reading on Craig Kelly’s Facebook page.

The question is, why now? The colourful Kelly has been prosecuting his meme truth approach to all manner of social causes – climate change where he happily confuses climate with the weather, bushfire prevention and most frequently alternate treatments for Covid-19 which include an enduring advocacy for the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, more recently supplemented with ivermectin, an anti-parasitic most commonly used in the treatment of scabies.

On one Facebook post, Kelly wrote that mask wearing for children “is causing massive physical and psychological harm that can only be defined as child abuse,” to the sounds of crickets from the government with tumbleweeds gently wafting from side to side in the background.

It all seemed to be part of the maverick MP’s routine, one if not admired then vaguely tolerated within the party room.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, the Prime Minister fielded one question from the floor about Craig Kelly, responding with a smirk that “Craig Kelly is not my doctor and he’s not yours.”

While the member for Hughes might have the perfect build for a proctologist, he isn’t a doctor, of course, but his social media forays are widely read. Sifting through data early last year, it was determined Craig Kelly’s Facebook page had more hits than either Morrison’s or Albanese’s.

That gives the backbencher a lot more pull than your average workaday MP and given the numbers in the Lower House, with the government holding a majority of one, a certain laxity might be expected.

Prior to his entry into politics in 2010, Kelly worked for his parents as a salesman at their furniture business DV Kelly Pty Ltd. The firm imported Asian furniture and sold it to retailers, but financial troubles led the company to be wound up by the Australian Taxation Office in 2012, leaving creditors and employees owed over $4 million.

Kelly maintained he was not a director of the company but there were allegations that both he and his brother, Jason, had acted as ‘de facto’ directors. By then in the parliament, Kelly fended off these questions and ultimately the administrator and liquidator, Cor Cordis continued to sift through the wreckage.

It was onwards and upwards for Kelly who has managed to take a Liberal held marginal into more safe territory since his election 11 years ago.

A flip through Craig Kelly’s Facebook page shows the occasional mention of electoral events in the seat in Sydney’s south-west — the sort of guff one might see in almost any MPs social media posts, interspersed with dozens of others advocating for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19.

There are doctors and many of them who agree with Kelly, at least in part. Immunologist Professor Robert Craig is also an advocate for ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 infection but not in the absence of a vaccine.

The fact remains there is currently no known published data from randomised, controlled clinical trials on the efficacy or safety of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19, according to the US National Library of Medicine which publishes reports from clinical trials.

Earlier this morning, Kelly and Labor Deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, ‘clashed’ in the corridors of parliament as Plibersek asked if Kelly agreed with his Prime Minister.

“Listen to the words of our most senior immunologist .... He has said in the Sydney Morning Herald today, Craig Kelly is absolutely right,” Mr Kelly replied in that awful manner of athletes, celebrities and the occasional gormless politician, of referring to themselves in the third person.

When it comes to the roll out of Covid-19 vaccines, Kelly has not yet confirmed that he will roll his sleeve up and take the needle. But that again has provided no call for action from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The ball gag on Kelly’s Covid-19 treatment musing was probably whacked on this morning, nice and tight, after Kelly was interviewed on video by celebrity chef turned conspiracist, Pete Evans.

Evans was banned on Facebook for posting a raft of disinformation about Covid-19, and QAnon posts and until January 20 was peddling the lie that Trump won the US election. He continues to post on Telegram, an alternate version of Facebook but his 1.5 million Facebook followers have been left bereft of the chef’s occasional recipes mingled with alt-Right conspiracies.

On the video, Kelly made it clear he disagrees with Evans on Covid-19 vaccinations and vaccinations in general. For what it’s worth, Evans says he is not anti-vax but a supporter of safe vaccines. It’s just that he’s never met a vaccine he considers safe.

The interview was a step too far for the Prime Minister. Sure, Kelly doesn’t agree with Evans’ bizarre and frankly dangerous nonsense, but it is more about the company you keep. Just in the last week, Evans has posted QAnon rubbish and more drivel that Covid-19 is a deep state ‘plandemic’ and the disease itself is no worse than the common cold.

The stain of association with Pete Evans was, I’d argue, the reason Kelly was pulled up today. I expect the conversation in the Prime Minister’s office would have been pretty much all one way with the word ‘preselection’ featuring prominently.

The government’s fortunes are heavily invested in an efficient and effective roll out of Covid-19 vaccines this year. The chance to go to the people early depends on it.

Having one of his backbenchers buddying up to Pete Evans while remaining on the fence on Covid-19 vaccinations was the breaking point. What will be interesting is how long Craig Kelly keeps the gag on.