I am a vaccine-injured Australian, writing under a false name to protect my identity. The reason I do this is because I don’t want my claim to be affected. No one in power wants to believe me, they just want me to curl up and disappear. I am an inconvenience that threatens the narrative. But there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of Australians like me, and we are not going to go gently into the night.

Today, I watched as Gerard Rennick, an LNP Senator for Queensland, moved for an inquiry into the federal COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Claims Scheme. Senator Rennick is one of the only voices that stands up for us. He stands up for us loudly. But his calls for an inquiry were shot down by his colleagues.

According to the parliamentary Hansard, Senator Rennick specifically wanted an inquiry into the scheme’s eligibility criteria, the time in processing claimants’ applications, the differences between the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s assessments and specialists’ assessments reported in vaccine injury claims, the adequacy of the scheme’s compensation of claimant’s injuries, mental health and lost earnings, the risks that inadequate support and compensation for vaccine-related injuries might exacerbate vaccine hesitancy, and other related matters.

In speaking to his motion, Senator Rennick told his colleagues how, in Australia, the government has done a woeful job of acknowledging and compensating those people who it has injured through drugs that it has prescribed. He talked about the victims of thalidomide, and how Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s apology came 60 years too late. He talked about how Australians had suffered in the 1980s when the Red Cross and CSL Limited allegedly infected tens of thousands with AIDS and Hepatitis C. He talked about mesh injuries, and how his uncle had been left blind after taking a sulfa drug. He talked about how the pharmaceutical industry has a history of putting their wallets in front of people’s health. He said that Australians ‘were told the vaccine was safe and effective.’ He asked, ‘If we [politicians] aren’t here to protect the people, what exactly are we here for?’ He said that Australians ‘should not be made to suffer for following the advice of the government that said they would be protected’.

Later in the debate, another senator said that no one else had spent more time talking to vaccine-injured Australians than Senator Rennick. ‘He speaks with a good heart and from a place of deep conviction.’ And that’s right. Senator Rennick does. He talked about and said all the right things. He gave me and all those other vaccine-injured Australians a voice. He was fighting for us, and he was winning.

Then the Albanese government’s chief spokesperson in the chamber, Katy Gallagher, stood up.

Senator Gallagher used her speaking time to gaslight Senator Rennick, describing his views as ‘irresponsible’. She said that the government would consider the recommendations made to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, which advocates for a national no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme. ‘There is no need for another inquiry,’ she finished.

Except that’s exactly what the recommendations made to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee demand: a review of the COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Claims Scheme. How can you conduct a review if you can’t have another inquiry? How, Senator Gallagher, how? She said that the government had only received the report earlier this week, and implied that decisions were being rushed. No, Senator Rennick was just getting on with the job, fighting the good fight. Fighting for us.

When Rennick’s motion went to a vote, a division was required. The bells were rung. Coalition senators rocked up to support their colleague, as did Malcolm Roberts from One Nation, but it wasn’t enough. The Labor government, the Greens, Jacquie Lambie’s mob, and Lidia Thorpe all voted against the motion. It was defeated 24 votes to 31.

This is what the government thinks of us. We are the problem that, in their collective mind, deserves no solution. Australians are dying because they were forced to take an experimental drug and were told that if they didn’t, they would lose their jobs, their livelihood. They were ridiculed and shamed into submission. At least the Coalition seems to have the courage to admit it got it wrong, and under Senator Rennick wants to try and repair the damage as best it can. Why, now, is the Labor Government so frightened of uncovering the truth?

And I cannot believe that Senator Rennick won’t be on the LNP’s ticket at the next federal election. One of the last blokes with any real guts in Canberra, prepared to stand up to the powerful, has been, like we have, shoved aside.

This is a dark day for Australia, but it’s just another day in the last four years for me, for all those Australians injured by the Covid vaccines.