"I was wrong": Pauline Hanson apologises for vaccination claims

Pauline Hanson has apologised for incorrectly claiming on Sunday that parents could conduct their own tests to evaluate vaccination safety.

“Yes, I do apologise,” she said. “As far as having tests done, OK, I admit I was wrong with that.”

Senator Hanson has been criticised by the Australian Medical Association and others for giving the incorrect impression that vaccines were not safe.

“All I’m saying to people that are concerned about it – you go and do your research, go ask questions of your doctor,” she told Channel Seven on Thursday.

Pauline Hanson voiced criticism of the government’s vaccination rules on the ABC’s Insiders program last week, sparking furious condemnation from health and medical groups.

She advised parents to test their children before vaccinations because some parents, she claimed, had reported problems with vaccines.

Hanson also argued that successive governments had “blackmailed” people into having their children vaccinated because of the policy of withholding childcare fee rebates and welfare payments from parents who don’t have their children fully immunised.

“What I don’t like about it is the blackmailing that’s happening with the government,” Hanson said. “Don’t do that to people. That’s a dictatorship. I think people have a right to investigate themselves.”

She later defended her comments saying they were her “personal opinion” and she acknowledged she had vaccinated her own children.

Hanson’s comments were also condemned by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

“If parents choose not to vaccinate their children, they are putting their children’s health at risk and every other person’s children’s health at risk too,” Turnbull said.

The president of the Australian Medical Association, Michael Gannon, told the ABC that Hanson needed to take responsibility for her position on vaccination.

“She needs to realise that she’s a serious player in Australian politics now,” he said. “You know, with 8, 9, 10% of Australians indicating an intention to vote for One Nation, she can no longer make fringe statements that are dangerous to the health of the whole community.”

“We know in medical science that we’re never going to reach that 1 or 2% of rusted-on flat-earthers who don’t accept the science of vaccination.

“But what we worry about a lot about is that about 8% of the population are so-called vaccine-hesitant, and they’re looking for any information that might lead them away from what is, with the exception of clean water, probably the most significant health measure we’ve got.

“It is absolutely essential that we have accurate information, and this fatuous idea that parents can spend half an hour on Wikipedia and come to a greater understanding of the issues than their doctor and the accumulated wisdom of all the world’s medical scientists is ludicrous.”

"I was wrong": Pauline Hanson apologises for vaccination claims

Living to 90 and beyond? No thanks | Michele Hanson

Worrying news for people in developed countries who will be born in 2030. A new study suggests their life expectancy will exceed 90. Only last year the World Health Organisation told us that, globally, “babies born in 2015 [could] expect to live to 71.4 years”, so that’s quite a jump we see here (although only for specific countries, most notably South Korea, which boasts the greatest longevity).

I dread to think what next year’s estimate will be, because life in your 90s is not always much fun. My mother lived to 98. It was difficult and frustrating for her from 90 to 95, losing her independence, and hellish after her stroke in her mid-90s – by which time she was longing to die, often begging me and the hospital consultants to finish her off. “We can’t help you with that, I’m afraid,” said one consultant, and I had to look the other way and have a little cry.

But my mother’s despair was understandable. Because, as the WHO pointed out last year, that “healthy life expectancy falls a good deal short of life expectancy”. And that’s the big problem. It would be lovely to live into your 90s if you were fit and healthy, could live free of discomfort, and carry on doing the things you loved – dancing, cooking, chatting, getting about – but you usually can’t.

Life is not much fun if, like my mother and her peers, you can barely move or talk, everything hurts, you’re terrified of incontinence and dementia, someone else has to wipe your bottom, you feel like a useless burden, and most of your friends are dead. Or if they’re still around, you can’t get to see them. Who’s going to take you to meet your remaining old chums and look after you? As the lead author of this year’s report points out: “We will need to strengthen our health and social care systems … [to] support the growing older population.”

I would laugh if it wasn’t so serious. In the UK, our health and social care setups are going down the pan already. What state are they going to be in after 2030? I imagine 70- and 80-year-old children tottering around caring for their ancient parents. Unless they’re still working, because who can afford to be retired for 25-30 years?

I am frightened of death, but becoming almost more frightened of living to a very old age in this country. But perhaps I won’t have to. There are always caveats to these reports: climate change, natural disasters, new and uncontrollable diseases or gigantic wars may wipe out millions of us. I don’t like to sound too dismal, but I no longer know which is the worse option.

Living to 90 and beyond? No thanks | Michele Hanson

The emotional life of men: "you"ll be right" isn"t enough anymore | Louis Hanson

I love my father. He’s kind and caring.

He grew up in a rural family of boys. He learnt from his father, who in turn learnt from his father, that expressing emotion didn’t coincide with his maleness. Not only was vulnerability not a choice, it just wasn’t an option. Things were left unsaid. The masculine ego left seemingly fortifiable. They were a generation of men strong and powerful but emotionally detached.

When I was 18, I started to feel tired. It was this unending languor, clouding my emotions, hiding my motivation and affecting my concentration. I felt permanently drunk. At the same time, I started to become uneasy; butterflies in my stomach and panic became the norm.

“You’re in the middle of a major depressive episode,” my psychologist told me during my first appointment. Here, I cried for the first time. At 18, I realised that I had perfected the art of hiding, concealing, and building the perfect facade. As a male, I felt, vulnerability wasn’t an option for me.

“You need to learn how to talk to your parents,” she said. I didn’t know how to do that. At this point, I recognised that I had never properly learnt how to access my sadness, let alone to verbalise this to my family.

It was awkward to tell my father that I wasn’t okay. At first, he struggled to access his own emotions with me. It took a lot of learning, from both sides, to communicate with one another as we’d both been groomed not to speak. When I needed him, though, he was there for me.

A close friend of mine recently told me that he had been feeling sad. We were in my car; I had started taking anti-depressants at this point. “One could say it was depression,” he half-smiled, still unable to confirm it for himself. He seemed tense. He told me that he’d gone through bursts of sadness for years, even though he had no reason to feel this way. It was true; he was well liked, had a large network of friends, had done very well in school and had a promising career. From the outside, his life seemed perfect. Sometimes, though, a reason doesn’t need to exist. Together, in that car, we were silent wanderers, guided by our unknown concerns.

Initially, he told me, he could only talk about the black cloud when he was drunk and refused to think about it when he was sober. He thought the black cloud would pass. He was too embarrassed to talk about his sadness. He never dared to tell his family; it made him feel uncomfortable. Besides, he had a carefree reputation to uphold; to him, weakness was prey.

He told his mates down at the pub after our encounter in the car, about his bursts of sadness. His mates paused. They were visibly awkward. “Oh, that’s weird,” said one of them, before they pushed the conversation aside. This bruised my friend’s confidence. His sadness was merely swept under the rug from then on, and this made him more confused.

It’s not necessarily his friends’ fault, though. We have taught, and are continuing to teach, young boys in Australia that emotion is not okay. We are teaching young boys that intimacy between one another should be feared. They are taught that this would make them seem gay. Subsequently, to combat this inherent homophobia, the thought of two males in a close friendship must be humoured and justified within society in order for masculinity to be maintained. In a society where women value the bonds between each other, why doesn’t the same apply for men?

This mentality ultimately extends into adulthood, perpetuating a culture in which manliness does not seem to correlate with the sharing of emotion. At this point, it is important to note that suicide is roughly three times higher in Australian males than females. Why is it that we wait to speak about a man’s depression until it is too late? Reaching out and valuing our male friendships shouldn’t need to be accompanied by a joke. Alas, we have truly grown up into a society in which males fear sharing emotion with one another.

So, for the boys who are afraid to embrace emotion and for the boys who feel with no tears, let’s rid the fear of talking. For the men who feel silenced and for those who have already succumbed to their black cloud, let’s discuss the importance of emotion. For my friend shunned by fear and for my own 18 year-old self, let’s talk about mental health and anti-depressants. Let’s just talk. To speak of pain is to overcome struggle, and to advocate the truths of those still ostracised by the screaming mask. It’s this open and honest dialogue that is helping so many. It’s helping me.

As someone who takes anti-depressants, I’ve come to realise the importance of emotional vulnerability within such a hyper-masculine culture that prides itself on strength and invincibility. Let’s ask boys and men alike how they are feeling, behind the performance. There is strength in susceptibility, too.

“You’ll be right” isn’t enough anymore. No one deserves a black cloud.

The emotional life of men: "you"ll be right" isn"t enough anymore | Louis Hanson