Craig Kelly's vaccination conspiracies have been condemned by conservative political leaders, just not in Australia.
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Asked repeatedly to condemn Mr Kelly's health misinformation campaign against vaccination during the first day of Parliament, no member of the Australian government was willing to do so.
This is not normal, but it's also not a problem unique to Australia.
The United Kingdom and United States both have their versions of Mr Kelly: Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne. What's different about them is that their own party leaders have told them to shut up.
In Australia, members of the government employed two approaches when dealing with Mr Kelly.
The first has been to distract with a joke in the style of a daggy dad. Senator Eric Abetz scored some laughs in Parliament on Tuesday by noting Mr Kelly used a double negative. "Therefore Mr Kelly is in fact promoting vaccine," the Tasmanian senator explained straight-faced.
The other, employed by most senior ministers, was simply to reiterate the government's vaccination plan, ignoring the elephant in the party room.
The government has funded a vaccines information campaign and Health Minister Greg Hunt is on the cusp of announcing when the first doses will be distributed. The government needs people to trust in its program.
If Mr Kelly was a politician in London or Washington DC and had said just half the things he has posted on Facebook, he would be rebuked by his own party.
We know this because that is what the UK's Conservative Party and senior Republicans in the US have done in the last week.
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Sir Swayne faces losing his party's whip, in effect expelling him from the party, after giving an anti-vaccination interview and saying figures were "manipulated". He responded by saying he regretted the fuss but being expelled would be like being accused of thought crime.
Congresswoman Greene has spooked both Democrats and Republicans with her conspiracy theories, and faces being forced out of her congressional roles.
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate, called the "loony lies and conspiracy theories" that she has espoused a "cancer for the Republican party".
Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
