Australian Senator Calls for COVID-19 Royal Commission

Senator Pauline Hanson in the Senate at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on July 4, 2019.(Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

One Nation party leader Senator Pauline Hanson will submit a petition signed by more than 41,000 Australians to the Senate calling on the federal government to establish a Royal Commission, or major public hearing, into the country’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today I will be submitting this petition, signed by 41,079 Aussies, calling on the federal government to establish a broad Royal Commission into the true facts and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic by Australia’s state and federal governments, to the Senate,” Hanson wrote on Facebook on March 29.

“Thank you to the tens of thousands of Australians who took the time to add their voices to mine.

“One Nation will continue to fight for transparency and honesty and we will do everything in our power to ensure those responsible for denying Australians their rights are freedoms are held responsible,” she said.

One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson shared a photo on social media of her petition signed by more than 41,000 people, obtained by The Epoch Times on March 29, 2022. (Senator Pauline Hanson)

In the text of the petition, Hanson writes that as a result of the federal and state governments’ responses to the pandemic, people have died; the economy, schools, and entire cities were shut down; and borders were closed.

Further, the petition states that vast quantities of taxpayers’ money were “expended,” thousands lost their jobs, businesses were closed (some permanently), individual rights and freedoms were curtailed, military personnel were deployed, and “unelected bureaucrats have wielded extraordinary power.”

“Only a Royal Commission is likely to have the power necessary to compel the expert health advice Australian governments relied on to justify and implement pandemic measures—much of this advice has been hidden from the Australian people,” the petition reads.

“We need a Royal Commission because this inquiry must be completely transparent to the Australian public.

“We need a Royal Commission because those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.”

COVID-19 Under Question

The call for the Royal Commission comes as Australia seeks to recover from the impacts of almost two years of rolling lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions, with Queensland One Nation federal Senator Malcolm Roberts leading the charge to hold the federal and state governments accountable for their pandemic measures.

On March 23, Roberts hosted a “non-political” cross-party inquiry with fellow parliamentarians in a bid to gather empirical data into the federal and state governments’ responses to the pandemic which he said the federal government failed to provide.

In his opening remarks at the COVID Under Question inquiry, Roberts said that in the early stages of the pandemic he stood up in Parliament and called on the federal government to provide data and a comprehensive plan for how it would handle the pandemic.

“We did not get the data. We have still not seen a comprehensive plan,” he said.

“We have seen people die needlessly.

Liberal MP George Christensen (L) with One Nation Sen. Malcolm Roberts, chair of the Cross Party Inquiry into the Australian Government's Response to COVID-19, on March 23, 2022. (George Christensen/Supplied)

“So when the government won’t provide the empirical data that we as MPs need to fulfil our roles serving the people, we'll [expletive]-well go out and get the data, and we will get it from the best independent, international and Australian experts that are free from conflicts of interest,” Roberts said.

He also compared Australia’s response to COVID-19 with Taiwan’s, which despite being on China’s doorstep, and closer to the epicentre of the pandemic, “never locked down.”

“[Taiwan] has done a spectacular job with managing the virus, whereas Australia has done a lousy job. Taiwan never locked down and they kept going normally at work. But they protected the vulnerable and the sick,” Roberts said.

Pedestrians wear protective masks after a new wave of COVID-19 pandemic occurred in New Taipei city on May 15, 2021. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

The inquiry, which was not a formal parliamentary hearing, was attended by One Nation Queensland state MP Stephen Andrew, Nationals federal MP George Christensen, Liberal federal MP Gerard Rennick, Liberal federal Senator Alex Antic, and United Australia Party leader MP Craig Kelly.

The parliamentarians heard from a range of doctors, experts, economists and everyday people about how the governments’ response to COVID-19 has affected them.

The guests spoke across a range of issues, organised under the topics such as the costs of ignoring science in favour of prevailing narratives against treating COVID-19 with certain drugs, the costs of the governments’ measures on businesses and professionals, vaccine injuries, the legal questions surrounding vaccine mandates, and on the alleged failings of Australia’s regulatory bodies.