“The Hill We Die On”: Vaxxed bus takes a predictable turn

When the police were in Ballina and they were telling us we had to move… I called Aneeta who’s the president of the AVN and I explained to her what the situation was… and she said ‘this is the hill we die on’. And that’s what I think too. We can’t be pushed any further, we just can’t. [..] I did not move here to live in a dictatorship… I will live in a free country or I will die.

From “How much further will we be pushed before we push back?” by AVN founder Meryl Dorey, October 20th 2020

In a recent video address to her members an angry, emotional Meryl Dorey blamed the police, politicians and media for interfering with the AVN. Dorey contends they are telling people of their rights and giving them a voice. They are doing work with the vaccine injured that the government should be doing. She has “a huge issue with the intimidation and the bullying that I’m feeling from the government that I pay the salary for”. Nor is the government supporting those “who want to get more information about vaccination”. There “may be millions around the world every year who are being killed and injured by vaccine”.

“These are people who took a bullet… the government wants to pretend you don’t exist”. Dorey wants to know how long before people start pushing back. Angrily she announces, “I’m sick of it, I’ve had a gut full, I really have”. Pushing the false notion that Australians have had basic rights to consent removed and people with children injured by vaccines are being “thrown in the garbage” she urges, “You need to stand up for yourselves, stop being bullied, being afraid, being suppressed. How much further are you going to take this before you start pushing back, before you stand up and say I do not consent and I never will consent? I will not take this COVID vaccine, I will not be forced to take any vaccine… any government that tells me that I have to do this is illegitimate and does not deserve my support my tax dollars my anything”.

Australia is seen, “as a laughing stock, as a dictatorship around the world”. Meryl Dorey tells us she did not move here to live in a dictatorship and she will not. She will die. She has drawn the line. Her voice breaking Dorey continues, “I will not consent to this bullshit. And that’s what it is… we have to take whatever actions are required to protect ourselves”. She also has a direct message for the police. Dorey tells them that they have become tools of a dictatorship (using the word freely now). She advises Australia’s police, “You have no obligation to obey an order that goes against the constitution of Australia… You are here to protect us not to bully us, not to suppress us, not to take away our rights and you need to stop being tools of these fascist dictators”.

Police are told that under the Australian constitution the police don’t work for “dictator Dan or any other idiot in parliament”. Dorey goes on to argue the government does not deserve our respect, obedience or consent. This government is harming us and is thus illegitimate. We do not need to obey what it is the government says, which is wrong and evil. Dictator Dan, Scott Morrison, Annastacia Palaszczuk and [OLD Chief Health Officer] Jeannette Young are feeding us “pure evil”. They are “power hungry idiots… we need to stop obeying idiots… we really and truly need to get rid of them and start over…”.

Dorey also contends that if listeners don’t stand up for their rights they may wish they weren’t here. The Vaxxed II bus has gone dark as it were. Only those who register will know its location. The full speech was over 23 minutes. The comments above have been taken from a 7.5 minute highlights outtake. I wish to stress this is an edit in chronological sequence. Care was taken to not present false impressions by running phrases together. This resulted in two re-edits. Please feel free to consult the full audio file or visit the AVN Facebook video permalink. Concerns and criticisms are welcome as a comment.

Highlights: How much further will we be pushed before we push back?

HCCC Public Health Warning about the AVN

Part 1: Meryl Dorey’s rhetoric in context

We need to consider what Meryl Dorey hopes to achieve with such anti-authoritarian rhetoric. If she is genuinely upset by councils opposing the presence of the Vaxxed II bus it is not for the reasons stated. Dorey wants the public to believe she is only motivated by the opportunity to give the vaccine injured a voice. Yet the real purpose of the Vaxxed II bus tour is far more predictable. Profit and status from the realisation of a larger plan is what Dorey sees being interfered with. I’ll be expanding on that in the next post. Nonetheless we should examine her historic use of this rhetoric, opposition to the tour and how the AVN have reacted to it.

Her skill at evoking anger and frustration in members by convincing them their rights are being eroded has been honed over 25 years. Dorey has been presenting the spectre of imminent mandatory vaccination for decades. In the audio above she urges listeners to stand up and refuse to take the COVID vaccine and not be “forced” to take any vaccine. But no vaccine available to the general public in Australia is mandatory. Scott Morrison has retracted his rash claim of a mandatory COVID vaccine. Yet in an AVN video Aneeta Hafemeister warns “we always knew this was coming”.

This is a standard AVN line. In July 2009 during the “swine flu” pandemic Meryl Dorey claimed “It is happening just as we said it would”. In an “Action Alert” email she contended that a global pandemic would allow the government to use emergency powers to enforce compulsory H1N1 vaccination that was “just around the corner”. The following paragraph from over 11 years ago is indistinguishable in tone, terminology and intent from her presentation just 11 days ago.

…there is no time to sit back and wait to see what happens. We need to take action now to let our elected representatives and the media know what we feel about any form of forced medication.

Influenza vaccination is a requirement of healthcare workers engaged in certain roles. In March 2008 at a forum in Inverell Dorey used this to mislead her audience into believing mandatory vaccination was imminent. On presentation slides she asks “Who will be next?”, then answers: “You and your family!”. The title of her talk was Compulsory Vaccination – it’s Here! These tactics work well at motivating individuals to support the AVN cause. The claim of impending mandatory vaccination is often accompanied by requests for donations. This was the case in April 2012 when Dorey tweeted that donations to the AVN “help support freedom of vaccination choice and oppose compulsory vaccination in Australia!” (See slides below).

Of course, there is still no compulsory vaccination of the public in Australia. Following COVID-19, influenza vaccination has become mandatory for aged care workers. Australian states and territories have specific requirements for vaccination of healthcare workers and visitors to aged care facilities (see below). If a person so chooses they may, albeit unwisely, refuse vaccination for themselves and their children. They may choose to vaccinate selectively or to accept their child’s vaccine schedule at a slower pace. Legislation introduced in 2015 linked childcare rebates and supplements to immunisation as a financial incentive to improve immunisation rates. This does not constitute mandatory vaccination.

Consider the wording of the second slide. Once nurses are vaccinated to protect patients, the patients are vaccinated to protect nurses. Then teachers will be vaccinated to “protect vulnerable vaccinated students”. Then students are vaccinated (again and superfluously) to protect teachers. Firstly, in the intervening years teachers have not been requested to vaccinate. But the contention at play here is that vaccines do not work and actually make the vaccinated more vulnerable to infection with the disease they were vaccinated against. These baseless claims are supposedly steps toward a “logical conclusion”.

I could continue with more examples but there is little point. March 2008, July 2009, April 2012 and today. The message is the same. Your rights are being eroded by a misguided government. You will be forced to have dangerous vaccines. The appalling manufactured case of “death from compulsory vaccination” is typical of the AVN. The details may defy a genuine diagnosis but the heading will stay with audience members as is no doubt the intention.

In a recent paper Distrust, danger and confidence: A content analysis of the Australian Vaccination-risks Network Blog, Thomas Aechtner identifies the “persuasion attributes” of the techniques noted above. We can add our examples in parentheses. Aechtner has identified the Scarcity Principle (reduced vaccination choice, removal of democratic/health rights), Arousal of Fear (harm associated with forced vaccination, “pure evil” in government), Asking Questions (rhetorical: how much more will you take?), Source Cues (claimed scientific credibility of vaccine injury & death, account of a nurses suffering), the Contrast Principle (contrasting the selflessness of the AVN with attempts by corrupt forces to suppress them) and Negativity Effect (the negativity in Dorey’s rhetoric effectively creates attitudes). The paper goes into depth examining these and other persuasion attributes on the AVN blog. Suffice it to say these techniques are recognised in academia and can be applied to understand how the AVN manipulates an unwary audience.

The backbone of this Vaxxed II bus tour is not just vaccine injury and death but as we heard in the audio the AVN stepping in to do the work of the government in giving the victims a voice. The “evil fascist dictatorship” government is corrupted by pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies the AVN falsely claim never conduct research into the safety and efficacy of vaccines. We can compare the AVN to these companies in reporting Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) over the period 2000 – 2002.

Looking at the text under Table 1 in this Department of Health Surveillance of AEFI entry there’s a footnote on unreported or unclear jurisdiction. It goes on to explain that in this sub-category pharmaceutical companies reported 143 AEFI’s and the AVN reported 11. Put another way this entry captures a snapshot in time in which the AVN managed to report 7.7% of the vaccine injuries that pharmaceutical companies did. Although unlikely it may indeed mean that the AVN are just more diligent in reporting AEFI jurisdiction. The important point however is that this refutes their claim that pharmaceutical companies suppress information of adverse reactions to vaccines.

Part 2: Objection to the presence of the Vaxxed II bus

Both Vaxxed films are pseudoscientific constructs. The first directed by Andrew Wakefield casts him as the victim of an elaborate conspiracy hiding the truth about vaccines and autism. This is supposedly backed by a thoroughly debunked claim that the CDC have suppressed data, suddenly revealed by a whistleblower. Vaxxed II is a collection of vaccine injury stories of which Wakefield is presented as an authority.

Before the Vaxxed II tour began it was criticised by health authorities and the media. Former President of the Australian Medical Association Dr. Tony Bartone spoke on radio 2GB in April this year reminding listeners of Australia’s excellent record in vaccination safety. He observed;

Vaccination has saved lives, it’s safe, it’s effective and anyone that tried to create any other discussion against it is really trying to harm the Australian public.

Daily Mail UK described it as “the most dangerous bus in Australia”. They reported;

Doctors and medical experts agree there are no links between immunisations and permanent disabilities and say vaccines are a safe and effective way of protecting the wider community from harmful and communicable diseases. […]

Dr Kean-Seng Lim, a former president of the Australian Medical Association said the tour was ‘concerning’ and ‘irresponsible’. ‘A lot of the anti-vax movement is based on rumours and untruths… any process which increases the misinformation out there is harmful to our society.’

Australian Skeptics published a comprehensive Call To Action for medical professionals, the media and local councils as the bus got under way. Given the widespread criticism and the fact that Australian anti-vaxxers may be vocal but very small in number it was perhaps ambitious to to think the tour would not face criticism. Public opinion of the AVN was not helped by their eager uptake of COVID-19 conspiracies.

The tour also began with a lot of pent up anger on the part of the AVN. Those who know of their antics and the conduct of Meryl Dorey were not surprised to see aggressively toned emails from the AVN to its members. In a July email headed Aussie Parents Vs. The Media Machine Aneeta Hafemeister taunted;

The AVN also wishes to extend an invitation to the Australian media to join us in performing acts of journalism at any time, if and when the Australian media locate their journalistic integrity

On July 31st the next email brought news of the first council action against the Vaxxed II bus. Relevant paragraphs include;

The Blue Mountains Council in NSW has passed a motion apparently regarding the AVN, although the AVN was not named. […]

We are most concerned that the Blue Mountains Council is unable to research even the most basic facts. I have spoken to Mayor Mark Greenhill and his answers to my questions were quite unsatisfactory. We will pursue this matter further.

Blue Mountains Council had met on July 28th and, as a matter of urgency unanimously passed a motion moved by Councillors Christie and Fell prohibiting bookings by the Vaxxed II bus on council land. The motion reinforces a NSW Health order barring mass gatherings due to COVID-19 risk. The minute can be read below along with Councillor Brendan Christie’s Facebook post highlighting AVN recklessness and his personal interest in sound public health decisions.

By August 3rd Councillor Brendan Christie delighted sensible Australians with comments in the Blue Mountains Gazette, which reported;

Liberal Cr Brendan Christie told council that a nation-wide bus ‘listening’ tour of an anti-vaccination group called VAXXED may visit the region and he wanted them officially boycotted by council, as he said they also did not believe in the dangers of coronavirus. […]

He moved an urgency motion to deny the group any booking on council property to “spread their anti vaccination propaganda” through the Mountains vulnerable, elderly community which violated the current public health order.

This is madness. During a global pandemic bus loads of anti-vaxxers want to come in droves to areas whose hospitals can’t cope if COVID-19 breaks out? Vaccinations have saved millions of lives globally and these people want to visit our regions?

Cr Christie went on to make a number of similarly themed comments. However one comment he made above reinforced how well Meryl Dorey has fooled the public with the purpose of the tour. He described it as a “listening” tour. The Vaxxed II bus tour is indeed masquerading as such. Dorey wants the public to believe her aim is to provide for the vaccine injured. But her aim is actually to provide for herself to realise a longer term plan.

On August 14th an AVN email arrived headed Propaganda. The subject was Gutter Journalism: MSM Strikes Again. By now, the AVN had already executed their first hit job on one Angus Booker, the CEO of the BIG4 Caloundra Holiday Park and on the business itself. Back on July 23rd he asked them to leave the park because they were running their business on his property. By now also, anyone who had checked Facebook could see the AVN shirked advice on social distancing, cramming people into their van. This was at odds with the conduct the CEO expected from his own staff.

Dorey urged her members to respond. This resulted in the type of attack on innocent Aussies we have come to expect from the AVN as members filled the Big4 Facebook page with abuse. Their conduct came to the attention of A Current Affair who presented a segment on August 11th. This post covers the initial event and the ACA coverage. To be sure after first sending flying monkeys against Angus Booker and the Big4 Holiday Park the AVN sent them after ACA via the Australian Press Council. At no time did AVN administrators object to the abuse of Angus Booker or advise members to raise concerns politely.

On September 9th members received an email that opened with The New Fascist Normal. There was plenty of material opposing Victoria’s lockdown and the promotion of Freedom Day. It included an image of Dan Andrews dressed in a black Mao revolutionary uniform. Referring to the arrest of a pregnant anti-lockdown protest organiser in Ballarat readers were told;

This has been an incredible and horrific week in Australia. It is now apparent that Victoria is basically descending into fascism.

The next challenge to the Vaxxed II bus tour was on October 14th from Nuatali Nelmes, Lord Mayor of Newcastle. She was advised by public health professionals about the bogus claims pushed by the AVN. On her Facebook page she posted her intention to ban any anti-vaccination event from being hosted on public land.

The AVN responded the next day with a video from president Aneeta Hafemeister. Rather than cite the reasons presented by the Lord Mayor or even saying diplomatically that she had been misled by health professionals (she hadn’t of course) Hafemeister chose to get personal. Using the same accusation levelled at the CEO of Big4 Holiday Park she said that Nuatali Nelmes was, “not very happy about people with vaccine injury having a voice”. The same type of persecution rhetoric Dorey uses on October 20th.

On the same day members received a “media release” via email. The account of the Lord Mayor’s statement is different to her actual statement;

The Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Nuatali Nelmes, has issued a statement calling for the censorship, suppression and exclusion of families who, in some cases, have already paid the ultimate price for vaccinating their children.

Claiming that the Lord Mayor should be ashamed of herself the media release offered;

Like all petty dictators, she may make the lives of those in her area difficult, but she will not control them.

The angst was for nothing as when the time came the bus was able to park on private residential land in Newcastle owned by a sympathetic AVN supporter. The event went ahead on October 25th.

A week before at Ballina however things did not go so smoothly. The thing to remember about this bus is that when it sets up it is holding an event and requires a permit for doing so. Permits which the AVN has no intention of securing. The AVN has not been overly keen to allow too much focus on their money making marquee canopy stall which is set up everyday at each spot as filming proceeds. Anti-vaccination material is sold and flyers are distributed. Meryl insists “this bus makes no money” because the AVN is a volunteer organisation. This is untrue. The entire purpose of that bus is to make money.

At Ballina the bus devotees were first visited by James. A charming lad representing the council Events Manager he asked the AVN to leave as they had no permit. Turning on her charm Dorey asked what would happen if they refused. Told they would incur an infringement notice and possibly a fine in the thousands she decided she would take the notice. It’s only donor’s money after all one might suppose. He stressed they should remove the power connection as this would incur another infringement. Meryl laughed because, after all, as rate payers “we pay for that power”. James left.

Later the police arrived. Of course the power was still on apparently just charging Meryl’s phone. The police were more firm. The marquee canopy stall had to be removed and they should leave. Meryl debated the meaning of the term “event”. Asked if the canopy stall was open to members of the public Meryl answered dishonestly contending, “It’s open to members of our organisation who have contacted us and come here”. The senior police officer went above and beyond the call of duty as Dorey challenged each item mentioned. Selling goods. Handing out flyers. What James had said. Told she could not hand out flyers Meryl became argumentative;

I would have thought that political free speech which is guaranteed under the High Court of Australia…

The police were not going to argue. They had to pack up. At some time as we’re told in the audio Dorey supposedly rang Hafemeister who told her;

This is the hill we die on.

Thankfully nobody died that day and the accuracy of that dramatic claim Dorey made on October 20th is one I have doubts about.

On October 26th Councillor Linda Scott made a statement posted on Facebook. She had proposed that the City of Sydney approach the State and Federal Government to prevent the Vaxxed II bus from stopping within the city of Sydney Local Government area.

Item 13.16, moved by Councillor Scott and seconded by Councillor Phelps was passed unanimously on October 26th. You can read the Notices of motion here: Anti-Vaccination-Risks Network Bus Tour Ban. Access the full council meeting agenda and minutes for October 26th via this link. Whilst the impromptu name change is much more suitable, the AVN was not happy.

Excellent insight into the importance of protecting public health can be gleaned from audio of the Sydney City Council meeting. You can listen to the audio of this motion being passed below. Councillor Scott moved a procedural motion to have the matter debated earlier than tabled. Lord Mayor Clover Moore put it to council the item should be considered as a matter of urgency. This procedural motion was also passed unanimously. The council meeting’s original full webcast may be streamed here. The procedural motion begins at 1.23.10.

City of Sydney Council meeting. Item 13.16, 26th Oct. 2020

Or download MP3 file [4.3MB]

The AVN pounced. An Urgent Action Alert email sent to members on the same day warned that Sydney City Council wanted to ban the bus in NSW and nationally. It described the motion as a comedy of errors because it did not get the AVN name right. Anyone reading the email was urged to write to council members by 9PM that night. That was 3 1/2 hours from when the email arrived. The details of ten councillors were provided for the flying monkeys behind a keyboard.

Amusingly the email asked, “Does the council have a clue about what it is opposing?” Members were asked to send the council a link to the AVN blog to allow councillors to;

…view some of the hundreds of heartbreaking interviews we have already conducted with the families of those who have been killed or injured by vaccines.

And also;

We also need to ask them to allow the AVN to participate in this meeting which is discussing the rights of the AVN, our members and the people of NSW and Australia who want to protect their own and their children’s basic human rights to bodily integrity.

No doubt a few members did write to council as is their right. However what seemed to take quite a lot of their focus were abusive tweets sent to Councillor Linda Scott. This is what the AVN flying monkeys do best. Attack individuals exercising their rights. Linda was interviewed the next day on 2GB by Deborah Knight about the motion and the abusive tweets. You can tune in here to 2GB or listen below.

We should remember of course that four years ago the then Victorian health minister Jill Hennessy was subject to the same abuse. Which may be why that again there was no word from Meryl Dorey or Aneeta Hafemeister about the inappropriate conduct of members. Nor any attempt to prevent this from happening in future. Linda herself reads out some of the tweets in a video here on Facebook.

Or just hit the audio button to listen to the 2 min MP3 of the video.

On October 29th the AVN sent an open letter to Sydney councillors. It is highly predictable in painting the evidence vacuum of vaccine injury and the apparently selfless role of the AVN. It also drips with criticism such that the reader wonders why it was sent at all;

The most recent objection to the presence of the Vaxxed II bus happened just yesterday, October 30th, at Centennial Park. The AVN were cutting it fine and no doubt hoped to enjoy a geographical smirk at the City of Sydney. That’s because Centennial Park is in itself a suburb split between the local council areas of the City of Sydney and the City of Randwick. Linda Scott’s motion banned the bus from the local council areas of the City of Sydney. Still, without a permit to hold an activity in Randwick the AVN had to move on. Dorey pointed out that the bus makes no money and the AVN is registered as a not for profit organisation. Thus as others were there so should they be.

Initially rangers arrived and chose to be curt with Dorey. This has caused her much distress. Despite the rebellious tone of Dorey’s audio at the beginning of this post, the AVN sought legal advice. They were advised to move on and chose to do so if asked. The police (who she advised in that audio were working under fascist dictators) arrived. Meryl Dorey did not make her stand or remind them they had no obligation to obey these orders that supposedly go against the Australian constitution. They were after all, more than pleasant. They didn’t appear to be bullying, suppressing, or taking away their rights. The sun was out and it was lovely in the shade. Perhaps it just wasn’t a day for overthrowing fascist dictatorships that don’t deserve Meryl’s consent. Dorey urges others to recklessly rebel while she herself consents without even raising her voice.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can see Meryl Dorey’s highly emotive rhetoric as merely the latest manifestation of an old AVN standard. Rather than having reached a point where she is about to choose “to live free or die” her aim is to evoke and nurture attitudes of heightened emotion and recklessness in AVN members. This is also seen in constantly biased and misleading feedback in emails often penned by Aneeta Hafemeister who has brought a new level of anger and alienation to the role of president. The AVN has comfortably embraced COVID-19 conspiracies and this has added an extra dimension to anti-authoritarian rhetoric.

Despite constant messages on the importance of democratic rights the AVN’s refusal to consider the role of public health policy is reflected in the intellectually vicious responses and personal attacks launched against anyone who dares think differently or exercise their democratic rights. Both Dorey and Hafemeister show no regret for the abuse inflicted upon innocent parties. In attributing bizarre and callous mindsets to those who oppose anti-vaccination disinformation they can depersonalise individuals and revel in their distress.

The Vaxxed II bus tour is a scam successfully projecting the mirage that the AVN is a caring entity focused upon the unjustly abandoned vaccine injured and their families. The real aim of this tour is not to provide a voice or a platform for those who have been “thrown in the garbage”. The real aim is to motivate as many people as possible to believe they are victims of a widespread global vaccine injury epidemic. To then “stand up for yourselves, stop being bullied, being afraid, being suppressed”.

The genuine aim is to encourage large numbers to declare their vaccine injury, death and unvaccinated stories on film. In doing so they allow Dorey and Hafemeister to realise the completion of the first stage of a longer plan.

We’ll discuss that plan and the likely form it will take in the next post.

Nov. 1st 2020: Updated to include reference to ‘No Jab No Pay’ legislation, and mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers para 11, and references below.

References: Policies and recommendations for mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers: