The United Australia Party candidate for Calare has compared the Australian vaccine mandate to that of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan alongside party leader Craig Kelly during a visit to Orange.
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Mr Kelly has long said that if the UAP is elected to government, it would scrap any and all vaccine mandates that prevent unvaccinated people from working in certain sectors - such as hospitals or schools - a point he emphasised once again at Robertson Park on Wednesday, April 20.
"We've spoken extensively how the mandates have damaged this country and we will remove them if we are elected to government," Mr Kelly said.
"There is no longer any emergency. Yes, it's a serious illness for the elderly and we have to protect the elderly, but for the average person, this emergency is over and we've got to get the economy firing up again.
"People have lost their jobs because they wanted to exercise their freedom of choice about what substances and what medical interventions they undergo. It should not be up to your employer to undergo a medical intervention against your free will." This point was then met with applause from a crowd of around 20 people who turned up to the press conference.
Wellington's Adam Jannis is hoping to dethrone incumbent Calare representative and National Party member Andrew Gee and gave his thoughts on the mandates.
"Individual civil liberties and fundamental rights were severely under threat these past two years. We all got to see that first hand." Mr Jannis said.
"Craig made the point that if you can't make the simple decision of what you want to get injected into your body or not, and if you're going to have that coerced upon you whether you want to keep your job or feed your family or keep a roof over your head, you no longer can really call yourself a free country.
"The last I checked, that's the sort of thing that was happening in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan when they experimented on people and took their freedoms of choice away."
During the event, Mr Kelly also announced a string of policies that he said the UAP would implement if they were to be voted into power.
The first was introducing a 20 per cent tax deduction on income tax and company tax for those who live 200km - which was later noted by the party leader as an "arbitrary line" - away from major capital cities. This would include Orange and Bathurst.
"That will turbo charge this area, it will attract new businesses into Orange and it will give an option for young Australians growing up in our capital cities that have to pay over a million dollars just to get on the housing market for a small unit, an opportunity to move to regional areas such as Orange where jobs can be created by the private sector because of the tax deductions," Mr Kelly said.
"We are proposing a 15 per cent export license fee on one commodity and one commodity only, and that is iron ore. We will quarantine that revenue to pay off the debt.
"(There will also be) pension increases of $180 a fortnight to make sure people living on the pension get to live with dignity and respect rather than poverty."
Mr Jannis ended the event by discussing why it was he decided to make a run for the seat of Calare under the UAP banner.
"We've actually been very lucky in Australia to live in such a great country for such a long time. We've actually had the luxury of not having to pay too close attention to politics because everything was always working," he said.
"I'm a health and fitness coach by trade and these last two years was a perfect example of what you don't do to help people get healthy, both physically and mentally.
"You don't lock people down in their homes in social isolation, that's not good for people's mental health. You don't shut down the gyms and keep the bottle-o open."
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