United Australia Party MP Craig Kelly sends out unsolicited texts about Covid-19 vaccine reactions

The controversial United Australia Party MP accused of promoting vaccine hesitancy after sending out unsolicited texts.

Controversial MP Craig Kelly has been slammed for sending out unsolicited texts with a link listing adverse reaction reports after the Covid-19 vaccine.

The texts from the United Australia Party member arrived on Saturday morning just days after his first round of spam messages irritated the nation.

It’s prompted furious responses from other MPs, who have accused the former Liberal of promoting vaccine hesitancy amid growing case numbers.

Craig Kelly has again bombarded Australians with unsolicited texts spruiking reactions to Covid-19 vaccines. But the TGA has issued a warning about the information being misused.

Mr Kelly resigned from the Liberal Party earlier this year over disputes with the Prime Minister about unproven coronavirus cures, including the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

But last week he sensationally announced he was joining Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party to contest the next election.

The text sent out by Craig Kelly.

In the new text, the Hughes MP directs people to a link on the United Australia Party website.

The website appears to list adverse reactions to the vaccines claiming to be from a Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) report in August.

It does not link to the authentic TGA website.

In a statement the TGA said the information was from their publicly available database of adverse event notifications.

“Reporting of an adverse event does not mean that the vaccine caused the event,” a spokeswoman said.

“Information on the database cannot be used to evaluate whether a medicine or vaccine is safe.”

The spokeswoman said she was aware of false information being shared based on the database.

“The TGA is aware that false claims are circulating based on misinterpretation of adverse event information published on the (database) and in similar databases made available by regulators in other countries,” she said.

“We encourage people to rely on credible information sources when making decisions about vaccination.”

Social media users were quick to slam the new message, with Labor MP for Scullin Andrew Giles saying Mr Kelly and Mr Palmer needed to “stop damaging our public health response”.

Just received another dangerous text message from serial pest Clive Palmer and his accomplice Craig Kelly.

They must stop damaging our public health response, and Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce must finally take responsibility for the support they’re getting from George Christensen

— Andrew Giles MP (@andrewjgiles) September 3, 2021

If you thought the first text message was annoying, these charlatans have chosen the day NSW surpassed 1500 cases to spam anti-vaxxer material to the entire country. pic.twitter.com/2lZSiAVcTc

— Chris Bowen (@Bowenchris) September 4, 2021

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman tweeted it was “every Australian politician’s public duty” to promote vaccinations to end illnesses and lockdowns.

“It’s a gross dereliction of that duty, + a menace to public health, to send mass unsolicited SMS inducing vaccine hesitancy,” Mr Speakman said.

💉 It’s every Australian politician’s public duty to promote #COVID19#vaccination, so we can save lives, prevent serious illness + end lockdowns.

💉 It’s a gross dereliction of that duty, + a menace to public health, to send mass unsolicited SMSs inducing #vaccine hesitancy.

— 💉💉Mark Speakman (@MarkSpeakman) September 4, 2021

Mr Kelly also bombarded Australians with another text this week saying they could “never trust the Liberals, Labor or Greens again”.

Mr Kelly and UAP were contacted for comment.