As you would all be aware the Australian immunisation policy and social welfare world is abuzz with the recent changes being made to the immunisation allowance and child care payments. I’m not going to discuss those here. To be honest I still haven’t got my head around it. I will, however, be highlighting the behaviour of anti-vaccinationists to the news of the revocation of the conscientious objection section of the legislation which should never have been in place anyway. It is a hangover from times past when some people in Federal parliament thought Meryl Dorey was a fit and proper person to allow into their offices to conduct the nefarious business of the anti-vaccine fundamentalist group, the Australian Vaccination Network.
Anyway, the CO section is gone. This leaves medical exemptions, as is right and proper. And it also leaves, inexplicably, the religious exemption. The only religion currently exempted by the government, from immunisation, is Christian Science.
So, we contacted Christian Science to ask them if the church has any objections to immunisation. This is the reply:
Thank you for your email and inquiry about whether there is a Christian Science church policy on vaccination. The answer is that members of a Christian Science church are free to make their own healthcare decisions/choices, including vaccinations. There is no church policy regarding vaccinations.
So that’s it. The only religion which is recognised by government as having an objection to immunisation does not have any objection to immunisation.
The religious exemption must, therefore, be removed.
As I stated above, this post will contain examples of anti-vaccinationist responses to the forthcoming changes. You will see that these people stand for nothing. These people think nothing of committing fraud, lying about their beliefs – and in doing so denigrating the beliefs of the religions which they propose to dishonestly join – expecting medical personnel to commit fraud, and committing tax fraud. Anti-vaccinationism is a cult, and they’ll go faith-shopping until they find a religion into which their cult will fit.
The following examples come from the Facebook group, Vaccine Free Australia.
The lists begin:
Astonishingly, and without a hint of irony, one commenter speaks of remaining “true to our beliefs and knowledge”:
Here is the first of many mentions of the fake church set up by anti-vaccine businessperson, Stephanie Messenger:
The AVN’s resident protected troll, Johanna Holland/Nicole Johnson recommends Scientology:
This person needs to be told which religion she needs to join:
This commenter advocates that people join a religion in a hurry as the new changes smell of a CDC conspiracy. I suppose if you think about it hard enough, doesn’t everything?
“I would do whatever it takes,” includes lying about your deeply held beliefs so as to access government benefits:
In response to an article about the “fake” Church of Conscious Living, a commenter wants to join:
An atheist will “pretend to believe whatever it takes” to join a religion:
Conspiracy theorist Everson plans to preach the bible at a medical practitioner. AVN stalwart and dog breeder Anita Bugges is all too aware that their group is commonly known to be anything but private; she has read the stream of deceit from those planning to lie to obtain benefits:
Having not yet submitted a CO form, this person wonders if she should just change it to a religious objection:
Another vote for Messenger’s fake church:
This person just wants to know how to join a church. Belief means nothing, unless it’s anti-vaccine belief:
You can tell how strongly held a religion’s beliefs are when those wanting to join it don’t understand it isn’t a religion:
How easily, and quickly, one can change their beliefs when they subsist on deceit:
This commenter advocates for Christian Science:
It’s always good to see the Jews get a mention without the obligatory conspiracy theories about the new world order. It’s also good to see an anti-vaccinationist heap scorn on a belief system they are about to pretend to share:
Buddhism!
Islam!
Amish!
The Taliban! Scientology! Messenger’s fake church! I think this text comes from the South Australian anti-vaccine fundamentalist, Kathy Scarborough:
Whatever religion it is, just become religious:
This commenter should be dashing the hopes of Messenger’s fake church by noting that it not registered as a religion. We’ll see:
This person will become a JW faster than you could say, “Lol”:
Look. I don’t know what this is. But if it’s anything like a human caterpillar I’m out:
I don’t know about you, but, End Time Ministries actually sound like they enjoy a laugh, once the serious business of sandwich-board-making is over for the day:
“Become that religion”. It really is that easy. Personal belief really is something to be abused as a tool to defraud the Commonwealth:
More votes for the JWs, Scientologists, and Messenger’s fake church:
Registered nurse Libby Gregg likes giving advice against immunisation. She is always wrong. Just like she is with this bad advice:
This commenter wants the flock to create their own religion. More votes are given for Messenger’s fake church, whilst the poor old Buddhists are lumped in amongst this lot, where they do not deserve to be:
From the same thread the Seventh Day Adventists get a mention, along with some more poor advice that objectors don’t need to note down their religion:
The Taliban gets another mention, which is appropriate given they hate vaccines so much they literally murder health staff who provide vaccines. Again this is the text from the South Australian anti-vaccine grunt, Kathy Scarborough:
This anti-vaccinationist states that her intention is to join Christian Science, then, simply leave after six months. Or maybe Buddhism. Easy! No disrespect to the church I’m sure. It’s just business after all. Anti-vaccine business:
Okay, we’re almost there. I promise. I have a few extra screenshots of other dishonest plans being hatched by anti-vaccinationists.
This person is planning on committing tax fraud as a payback:
These people are counting on some medical fraud and related bribery:
This is a very common tactic discussed by anti-vaccinationists. They attend a doctor’s appointment so as to have a discussion about having their CO form signed. Then, when the doctor refuses to sign, as is the doctor’s right if they do not believe the parent really does understand the risks and benefits of refusing immunisation, the anti-vaccinationist leaves without paying for the consultation. Stealing means nothing to these people:
This person recommends forging CO forms:
This person advocates refusing to pay tax, as some form of payback:
Veteran AVN member and former Facebook admin Christine Phethean wants us to take into account the Nuremberg Code. Because why not, really:
And proving me wrong about the previous mention of the Jews, here is anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Stuart Everson, with his tongue hanging out, whilst shaking his fists at Ken McLeod and his Freemason cabal:
This final comment from protected AVN troll Holland/Johnson has nineteen likes. Anti-vaccinationists are delightful:
If you made it this far, thank you.
Scott Morrison, the Federal Minister was apparently on Channel 9 this morning & was asked about this issue & specifically the religious exemption. He apparently stated that there is only one religion that has registered an objection with the government. He refused to name the religion, no matter how hard they pushed for the answer. I think the reason for his refusal is well demonstrated in your blog post. He doesn’t want these lunatics ‘joining’ this religion under false pretenses. I think they are all going to be disappointed. Because even if they do join these religions they name, you have to get the exemption signed by the minister of your church. And any minister would be taking his or her responsibility very seriously & would be questioning the personnabout their committment to the faith before they would sign what would have the same force in law as a Statutory Declaration. The penalty for making a false declaration is Purjury & can result in a gaol sentence. Just ask the former Supreme Court Justice who did a false Stat Dec about who was driving his car……
Why would a wacky cult, fundamentally against immunisation, be restricting any new member from the exemption. If the Catholic religion were exempt, anyone who was a catholic could not realistically be prevented from being exempt.
Whether of not you hold a faith position is rather different to whether or not you were driving a specified car at a specified time. The former is largely subjective while the latter is wholly objective.
And, depending on the church, the minister may have little concern beyond how much loose change s/he finds in the weekend collection tray. It’s not like organised religions have shown themselves to be largely trustworthy and honourable institutions of late.
I read the lot!…I only had to go to the loo once, and that was to throw up, lol!
Religion roulette.
What next?
Vaccination roulette? Ah, no that came first.
If ever there was a reason to remove the exemption for religious belief, this is it. It’s a pity that the genuine believers have to suffer because of the dishonesty of this lot.
Their advice on law is about as accurate as their advice in immunology
This is a closed and private group and you have violated their privacy by posting these screen shots publicly. I would get yourself ready for some legal action
I’ll play. It is a ‘private’ Facebook group comprised of 2900 members, many of whom were personally invited in by the founder Courtney Hebberman, then posting as Phoolan Devi, on the Stop the AVN Facebook page. Many more were already members. All of the images published are published in the public interest: crimes are being planned against the Commonwealth of Australia. Good luck.
better call bucky –
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bucky-Goldman-And-Associates-Interweb-Attorneys/1487231718187441?fref=ts
I love it when twat waffles get all butt hurt about privacy when they post stupid crap openly in the public domain
LOL, good luck with that Lissa.
Nope, the sanctity of facebook groups don’t exist, legally anyway, this was perfectly legal, as is passing on all the posts and names to both Centerlink and the police.
@lissa I suggest you read the facebook terms. On Facebook, there is no such thing as privacy. You are not the user of Facebook, you are the product that Facebook sells.
Nothing on the internet is private.
There is no right to privacy in the Australian Constitution.
The Australian Privacy Act doesn’t cover the privacy of activities on Facebook.
So now you know.
Reporting on potential frauds will get you legal action? It’s a bold move, let’s see if it pans out…
Hello, let me get right into it! I do believe this article is infringing on the privacy of the people mentioned in this article.
This website has tried to cover themselves by copying and pasting sections of the Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968 and the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities subsection: Sharing your content and information which clearly states ***4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).***
This group is a private invitation based group who’s content is strictly exclusive to the page, therefore, all posts are private and do not fall under these guidelines, therefore, copyright.
The author of this article can be charged with culpability along with the website as they have allowed this to be published. This article is also vexatious which in itself holds grounds for legal action.
Thank you kindly for reviewing my complaint and I do hope for a peaceful outcome.
Thank you for your explanatory message, anonymous person who uses the google email address “PJDlegalchambers”. Your Admonitions will be afforded the appropriate diligence.
Please see the reply to the other commenter who provided similar warnings.
A. Bright what? definitely not a bright person and absolutely not a bright legal representative. Admittedly this is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.
Lawyers can usually spell. Just sayin.
A “peaceful” outcome?! As opposed to what? War?
Clearly someone doesn’t comprehend the ‘Doctrine of Clean Hands’. You cannot go to court, asking for relief from the court if you yourself has done something wrong. Your hands must be clean before the court can help you. As these people are all planning to purpartate a fraud against teh Australian government, I think that would meet the definition of not having ‘clean hands’.
Hmmm, I’m torn.
Religion is a purely philosophical position. There is (or should be) no legal restriction to people picking and choosing a religion (or no religion) to follow.
How many criminals “find God” while in prison, and find their stay somewhat shorter as a result? No one is surprised when this happens – it’s expected and even applauded.
By allowing this special-case philosophical exemption, the government has opened the door for exactly what we see happening here. Is it that much different to corporations legally taking advantage of known tax loopholes, or workers doing a few less hours so as not to lose the Health Care Card by earning too much?
While I disagree with the fundamental tenets of the anti-vax cause, and while I’m amused by their antics in scrambling to find an acceptable religion (which will no doubt come with a raft of other impositions on their personal and private lives), I am not especially offended that someone would seek to take advantage of a loophole which is there for no other reason than to be exploited by people who choose not to vaccinate for philosophical reasons.
After all, is Ms “Johnson’s” misinformed, dangerous but deeply held belief that vaccines cause autism any less deeply held than some random Christian Scientist’s misinformed and dangerous belief that God will save their kid from whooping cough? If there’s a distinction, I’m not seeing it.
Let them know that Amish is the only religion that exempts the vaccinations. Then they can join and remove themselves from the internet. After all, they don’t want chemicals, how can they be OK with a Cathode Ray Tube or a Diode that emits light beaming lasers into their child’s face?
If governments did not creat discriminatory laws then then you would have no arguement.
You know, I kind of find it offensive that anti-vaccination liars bleat “discrimination”. You poor things. You poor mistreated minority.
Seriously.
How is being asked to do the same thing as the rest of the community “discriminatory”? No really, how?
It’s funny when people don’t actually know the meanings of the words they use.
A Secret group which you arent a part of is not public settings.
As you nor your friends here belong to the group using a real profile you’ve obtained personal information without consent.
Oops.
Should of checked the settings Hank.
As for accusing people of being criminals and planning crime you’d want to have more than just chat from a fb group,accusing people of committing major crimes without evidence is defamation.
Where is the crime?
Defrauding the Commonwealth of what,joining a church for its beliefs lmao
You really are sad,as you see the group agrees with me about your Sociopathic nature.
See,you were invited and banned,youre still on the ban list mate so again how did you obtain information from a secret fb group youre not part of?
Your group cannot be considered private. It has been known for over a year that screenshots from your group – a group with almost 3000 members no less – were being shared all over Facebook. You then sent an invitation to more of your group’s critics, on your critics’ Facebook page, almost one year ago, to join your group. Yet you steadfastly refused to make this knowledge common knowledge amongst your members:
http://i.imgur.com/b21q8Ly.jpg
You noted again in December 2014 that there were what you call “fake trolls” in your group, from the very beginning! Yet you still steadfastly refused to make this knowledge common knowledge amongst your members:
http://i.imgur.com/KEaEOZO.jpg
And only the other day you tell your members “be wary of what you post” because “nothing is private”. Nothing is private. Your words. Finally you tell your members!
http://i.imgur.com/xLB2uas.jpg
As for this, “you’ve obtained personal information without consent”. Rubbish. I have obtained no personal information, and I object to the accusation that I would obtain and share “personal information”.
If you think I have committed defamation, by stating that people are planning to defraud the Commonwealth Government of benefits to which they are not entitled, planning on refusing to pay tax, planning on bribing or having medical administrative staff fraudulently file forms, and even planning on forging a CO form – this is not to mention the popular plan of stealing from a medical practice by refusing to pay for a consultation – whilst presenting evidence that all of this has happened, then I say go for it.
Do you honestly think I’m going to tell you my source for the collection of your group’s planned illegal activities?
You are pissed off because you all got caught out planning a rort. And your group has you to thank for it, Ms Hebberman.
I can’t take anyone seriously when they use grammar such as ‘Should of checked the settings Hank.’
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man you people are hilarious. I’ve never been to this blog before but for the love of God tell me you ant-vaccine people aren’t all this dumb.
Sillier and sillier.
You think the Privacy Act gives a shit about what you post on FB? You think that FB gives a shit that your private group’s activities have been exposed?
Good luck with that, then.
Oooh, a Secret group! I think you might have gone too far this time Hank. You really shouldn’t expose secrets because then they’re not secrets any more and the Secret group won’t be secret.
What you should be doing is getting your super-secret undercover friend to tell the people in that Secret group that literacy is a thing and that if people see they can’t even string a comprehensible sentence together in simple English, with at least a scattering of primary-school-level grammar, then people might think they’re not qualified to understand super-complex things like the science of immunisation. And they surely wouldn’t want that given that they’re trying to convince people how much smarter than the rest of us they are.
That’s low, don’t you have respect forppeoples privacy?
I have more respect for people who don’t plan on stealing that to which they are not entitled, courageous, anonymous commenter.
How come courageous, anonymous commenter has the same dodgy keyboard, or keyboard “skills”, as Courtney?
People do not deserve respect if they plan to steal, defraud the taxpayer, forge documents, misrepresent themselves to the clergy, and lie. You have been exposed as dishonest and unethical, get over it.
How much respect did Meryl Dorey and her acolytes have for the privacy, grief, feelings or anything else of Dana McCaffrey’s parents, again???
Yeah. Exactly. Pot, kettle, all that stuff.
I Think this is awesome, i think everyone should report frauds, there is a centerlink link for it as well as reporting via the police. great work!
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So if they do go ahead with this religious idea, if they (or their family) ever use the hospital system again, would they get fraud charges ? We could only hope
Well one thing’s for sure. If they actually find and join a church that is fundamentalist enough to oppose vaccination, they won’t be allowed to use or promote high-dose vitamin-C, black salve or homeopathy ever again either.
Even crystal therapy, reiki, kinesiology, TCM, chiropractic or any form of “chakra balancing” or re-aliging of one’s Qi would be seen as blasphemous and lead to immediate ostracisation – so they certainly wouldn’t be able to promote such nonsense on Facebook…unless they do it in a secret group where no one else can see it, of course.
You could at least have the decency to blur out names. You have screen captured my name and publicly posted it. I don’t care that you’ve shared what I said, but you have caused a huge breach in my privacy and you have now risked my son and I’s wellbeing on a very personal level. I will be contacting the police.
You use that profile picture all over Facebook, and your name, publicly. If you don’t want that picture being associated with you, then don’t use it. It’s really not that hard. Your complaint is ridiculous, but, to be expected from the likes of anti-vaccination liars. The names are left in should any government departments want to follow up on any possible illegalities. Give me your local police station and I’ll ring them for you.
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A standout in that pack of liars exposed here is Stuart Everson. He says of me “Call Ken McLeod out on his Freemasonry. He loves it.” For the record, I have never been ‘called out’ on my supposed links to Freemasonry. Further, I have no links to the Freemasons, but I would not be at all offended if I was to be so accused, as I know them to be honourable people who do much commendable charity work.
“…if I were a mason I’d sit at the back and not get in anyone’s way.”
Hank. Well done.
Thankfully, the religious exemption looks like being removed. I joined an internet based anti-vax religion just to show how easy it was to get around the religious exemption. Less than 10 minutes and I’m a member of a religion, complete with certificate, without ever having left the comfort of my own home. All I had to do to get my certificate was fill out my name & email address on a website. A copy has been sent to the PM and Health Minister to show how easy it is to abuse the system.
The anti-vax crows are effectively causing the deaths of children. When you’re prepared to kill kids, defrauding the government is only a minor moral breach.
Mr Morrison said the religious exemption was no longer necessary. I wonder on what grounds it was ever deemed to be “necessary” anyway?
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we as parents have the right to choose what to put into our childs body!! i choose not to inject neurotoxins and baby fetal tissue into their bodies . the government has no right to push parents into fear mongering tactics to vaccinate.
The government has every right. As a parent of a newborn, I have the right for your little balls of pustulence not to kill my child before they can get immunised.
Vaccination is a no-brainer. It’s as close to a guarantee of immunity as is possible for a mortal being. Deciding not to immunise because you don’t want to be told what to do is fatal hubris that can not only affect your child, but every child in the community.
Hell, you may have blood on your hands already and not even know it. That’s not fear-mongering, that’s a fact and a potential consequence of your obstinance.
There are no neurotoxins and fetal tissue in vaccines, Grace. Grow up.
By the sounds of not so reasonable hank and various others here, this ought to be called the Adolf Hitler blog.
Congratulations, Klaus. You made it into my testimonials:
https://reasonablehank.com/aboutcommentstestimonials/
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