Catherine Hughes is the director of The Immunisation Foundation Australia and founder of Light for Riley, an awareness campaign launched in memory of her newborn son who died of whooping cough in 2015. He was just 32 days old.
After widespread condemnation from health experts and advocates around the country, Senator Pauline Hanson has today apologised for her remarks on vaccination.
While it takes courage to admit when you’ve made a mistake, I wonder about the damage that her statements may have already caused.
Vaccine-hesitant parents are sensitive to the concerns spread about vaccination by people in respected positions.
Is her apology a case of too little, too late?
A quick refresher of Senator Hanson’s stance on vaccination: Within the last year or so, she has highlighted her concerns that vaccines might be linked with autism (a theory that has been thoroughly studied, and found to be entirely untrue).
She has said she would “think twice” about vaccinating her own children, and has encouraged parents to do their “own research” on the issue.
She labelled the ‘No Jab No Policy’ as blackmail, and likened the situation to a “dictatorship”.
I can tell you this without any seed of doubt: Senator Hanson has been targeted. She has been bombarded with emails and letters, social media comments and phone calls from anti-vaccine lobby groups.
Top Comments
In the WA Election, One Nation received less than 5% of the primary votes. One Nation won 0 Lower House seats and only 1 token Upper House seat.
The majority of Australians do not like, listen to, or vote for extremists like Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party.
I just don't get you guys, you slam Pauline Hanson endlessly and you praise Larissa Waters!!
At least Pauline Hanson loves her country which is more than you can say for Waters; she is hell bent on destroying this country and our way of life.
Waters knows that Australia's contribution to climate change is virtually nil; she knows the Great Barrier Reef is still evolving and will continue to evolve, but she wants to destroy people's jobs, the tourist industry, make pensioners go without vital electricity because of high power bills.
Give me Pauline any day.
Where is the evidence Pauline loves this country? I see evidence to the contrary. She 'loved' it so much see peed off to England when she failed to get a place in NSW Senate once. And only came back to run for another, as her money was running out. I see evidence of selfish greedy opportunism, I don't see any love for Australia from Hanson. On the contrary! But then again, I'm not a fangirl who wears rose-coloured glasses. Oh, and I remind you of her voting history since last year. Proves she cares nought for pensioners or Aussie workers who she voted to be allowed to be sacked before foreign workers. Look at the evidence. The hard evidence clearly PROVES she does not love anyone but herself. Time for a reality check.
For someone who supposedly "loves Australia" Hanson sure does seem to hate a lot of Australians who simply do not look, worship or in some other way act like her.
And for someone who argues that people should be free to pose a significant public health risk to want to limit freedom of religion is just too much.