Minister for Health
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Attention: Hon Mark Butler MP
Dear Mr Butler

The 77th World Health Assembly, the Pandemic Treaties and Your False and Misleading Representations of Australia’s Support

The 77th World Health Assembly

You recently attended the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA 77) in Geneva, where two significant new pandemic treaty changes were scheduled to be voted on, namely:

1. substantial amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (Amendments to IHRs); and
2. a new Pandemic Treaty or Agreement (Pandemic Agreement),
   (the Pandemic Treaty/ies).

These two legally binding Pandemic Treaty changes are being justified on the basis of readiness for another pandemic, which you have indicated is just around the corner.

Neither of the Pandemic Treaty changes were finalised in time by Friday 24 May 2024, when the mandates to negotiate the texts ended for both the Working Group nor the Intergovernmental Negotiating Bureau (respectively).

At the WHA 77, you made at least two public statements, purportedly on behalf of Australians, expressing Australia’s full support of the Pandemic Treaties. Your statements are here Statement 1 (1h02m) and Statement 2 and summarised in your Media Release. Both of your statements have been transcribed in full in Schedule 1 to this letter.

You made a number of statements at the WHA 77 that Australia was entirely in support of the amendments to the International Health Regulations and the new Pandemic Treaty, such as:

• “Australia remains fully committed to concluding the WHO pandemic agreement.”
• “Australia stands ready to deliver on this ambition. We cannot afford to fail.”

Australia is not committed to the Pandemic Treaties as you state

At the WHA 77 you grossly misrepresented Australia’s position of support in respect of the pandemic treaties. Assuming by Australia, you mean Australians, at the time your statements and representations were made:

1. Over 1.8 million Australians, all members of the Aligned Council of Australia, had called upon you to reject the WHO pandemic treaties;
2. 55,697 Australians signed a government petition in June 2023 that Australia rejects amendments to the 75th WHA/WHO International Health Regulations;
3. 14 Senators and Members of Parliament on 14 May 2024 had called on Prime Minister Albanese to reject the WHO pandemic treaty changes, their letter stated:
   We have received a large volume of correspondence from Australians who are rightly concerned about the IHR Amendments and the WHO Pandemic Treaty, and we share those concerns.
4. Senator Gerard Rennick had written to you on 11 January 2023 letter raising concerns about the legally binding nature of the IHR Amendments;
5. Both Senator Malcolm Roberts and MP Sophia Moermond had signed a letter alongside other politicians of other countries calling upon governments to postpone or reject the WHO pandemic treaty changes;
6. Thousands of letters and emails have been sent directly to you and other MPs and Senators raising significant and real concerns about the Pandemic Treaties - many of these communications from citizens and the voting public have gone unanswered, or received dismissive, rote template replies, that fail to engage with the very real concerns.

On this basis, your statements made at the WHA 77 are clearly made without the support of the Australian people - and that is just the Australians that do know about what is proposed in the Pandemic Treaties - the remainder of Australians are unaware given:

• the mainstream media blackout on the issue;
• the absence of any meaningful public consultation about the proposed changes; and
• the fact that no Australians (outside the WHA 77) were privy to the final content of the IHR Amendments in advance of them being ‘adopted’ on 1 June 2024 (despite Article 55 which required the final version of the amendments to be delivered 4 clear months in advance of when they were due to be voted upon ( WHA 75/9 )).

Australians have fair concerns about the likely consequences of the Pandemic Treaties

We know your everyday, tax paying, contributing Australians do not support:

• more ‘pandemics’ being declared by and at the whim of the WHO Director General;
• rushed 100-day vaccines that are neither trialled nor tested;
• digital vaccine passports;
• lockdowns;
• travel restrictions;
• isolation and/or quarantine;
• censorship.

Australians have good reason to doubt the reliability of the WHO’s public health pronouncements:

• Recently, the WHO retracted a statement it made about a Mexican man who died from bird flu.
• In July 2022, Dr Tedros declared that monkeypox was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

It is noteworthy, that all of the WHO’s identified PHEIC’s have killed less than the number of people who die globally every 15 days with tuberculosis.

The risk of pandemics is so low it does not justify the cost to be pandemic ready

Two peer reviewed studies, recently published by the University of Leeds, confirms that:

• the risk of naturally occurring pandemics is low;
• Covid-19 is an outlier, likely because of its questionable origin; and
• proposed pandemic treaty changes will cost Australians billions of dollars, drawing valuable money and resources from Australians in real need.

You state that the Pandemic Treaties are important documents ‘driven by the commitment to turn the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic into concrete action’.

How can there be any lessons learned for Australia when there has been no commission of inquiry, no findings of what we got right, or what can be improved upon, despite The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Select Committee Report for a Covid-19 Royal Commission outlining the necessity of one, and outlined recommended terms?

What we want:

We the undersigned:

1. do not support either of the Pandemic Treaties, adopted or otherwise;
2. call on you to reject the Amendments to the IHRs immediately, or by no later than March 2025;
3. call on you to vote NO and reject the new Pandemic Agreement when it is due for vote in the coming months/year;
4. make enquiries of the recommended Covid-19 Royal Commission of inquiry into the public health response as recommended by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee in April 2024.

By rejecting these Pandemic Treaties, Australia will be best placed to have Australians make public health decisions on its own accord and make them in the best interests of and for all Australians. We cannot understand how any alternative could be even considered sensible or logical by you.

These are election issues, and the political future of your colleagues and yourself, will be greatly influenced by your response to these pandemic treaties.

Signed,
#### People of Australia
Named in Schedule 2
--------------------------------

Schedule 1

Your Statement 1 (1h02m)

On Tuesday 28 May 2024 you said:

…I want to take this opportunity to reiterate Australia’s deep gratitude to the two bureaus, co-chairs, their support teams and the hard working secretariat team who led and supported our negotiators to get us where we are today.

There are so many people in this room and in our homes that have put their hearts and souls into these critically important processes. They have done so because these processes matter, because the amendments to the International Health Regulations we have just agreed and the proposed Pandemic Agreement, that we will agree, will make the world better, fairer and safer.

They have worked on behalf of all of our people and the people they love, children, parents, grandchildren, families, communities. Driven by the commitment to turn the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic into concrete action.

We came together two years ago to start these negotiations. We are together today as we adopt with great pride the IHR amendments, and we will stay together as we work together to bring the INB process to a successful conclusion, I thank you.

It should be noted that, on the date of your first statement, the amendments to the International Health Regulations HAD NOT been adopted. The Working Group had failed to reach agreement on the wording of the amendments by Friday 24 May 2024 (when their purported mandate ended).

It should also be noted that ‘the text of any amendments proposed amendments’ were to ‘be communicated to all State Parties at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration’ ie by the end of January 2024 in accordance with Article 55.2 of the WHO’s own rules set out in the 2005 IHRs and the WHA Decision WHA75.12.

Further, the amendments to the International Health Regulations were not voted upon but purportedly received a consensus on 1 June 2024.

Your Statement 2

On Wednesday 29 May 2024 you stated:

"...

As I said yesterday in the plenary session, Australia remains fully committed to concluding the WHO pandemic agreement. Together we have come a very long way from where we started just two and a half years ago with a blank page and a shared ambition. An ambition for a set of binding commitments to prevent another pandemic and to be better prepared to respond more effectively and importantly, more equitably when the next pandemic hits.

We knew when we decided to embark upon this process in the height of the pandemic that it would not be easy. But we came together and took the decision, we even called it ‘The World Together’ because this is an historic opportunity and a public health imperative. It is simply our responsibility.

We see now the page is no longer blank. Quite the opposite. The INB, its distinguished bureau, the hard working WHO secretariat team and our negotiators have delivered a draft reflecting initial agreement on many provisions of the agreement and considerable progress on the remainder. This is a very significant achievement.

Now we need to agree [on] a path forward to finish the job. On Friday evening [24 May 2024] as the INB concluded, Dr Tedros urged this assembly, our negotiators to use this Assembly re-energise and recalibrate the process and that is what we intend to do.

That is why Australia worked with a cross-regional group over the weekend and yesterday to table a draft decision reflecting the available options to finalise the agreement.

Based on legal counsel’s advice, the choices for the World Health Assembly according to Minister Butler are: to continue negotiations through the INB or through another body, then to request the outcome be submitted to this 77th session at a resumed meeting, to a special session or to a future regular session. And we need to make these together.

The draft that we have prepared together with colleagues from all regions and circulated through the regional coordinators is a placeholder text reflecting the available options as square bracketed alternatives. It is intended to facilitate the discussions we need to have to agree our next steps.

Recognising and appreciating that the member states of the African region have now come to a clear preference for a particular path forward and that others are still considering the options. We combine the cross regional draft into the Africa group draft so as to avoid having two separate draft resolutions on the table. In conference paper 12 reflects all of those options.

Colleagues, this is critically important decision and one that we need to make together. We very much look forward to finding consensus in the drafting group proposed by the Chair so that the path to finalise the pandemic agreement is clear and we can use the time available this week to finalise and adopt the package of amendments to the IHR - the second critical important negotiating process born out of the Covid pandemic which is very close to conclusion.

Now is the time to redouble our efforts. To resolve the remaining challenges and deliver on this historic opportunity to achieve better health outcomes for all in responding to future pandemics and public health emergencies.

Australia stands ready to deliver on this ambition. We cannot afford to fail.