CheckMate is a weekly publication from RMIT FactLab which recaps the newest in the world of truth checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate June 10, 2022
Good morning,
This week, CheckMate tackles a One Nation senator’s false declare that Australia stays at threat of getting its well being measures dictated by overseas entities.
We additionally examine whether or not final month’s election noticed the Liberal Party obtain its lowest-ever feminine vote, and set the file straight on a doctored information report.
Malcolm Roberts’s WHO declare falls flat with consultants
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has continued to push the baseless declare that Australia was — and should be — at threat of being pressured to undertake restrictive well being measures by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The WHO has quietly pulled the amendments to International Health Regulations that would have decimated sovereignty,” reads one recent tweet.
“They will be back to try it another way, we will continue to monitor and defend against foreign incursions to our way of life.”
The tweet additionally linked to an article by which Senator Roberts claimed the adjustments may have seen lockdowns and obligatory vaccination “forced on all Australians”.
So, what’s he speaking about?
The US just lately proposed a variety of amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005), which present the authorized framework masking states’ rights and obligations for dealing with public well being occasions with the potential for worldwide unfold.
These current guidelines require signatories to take care of their capability to detect and reply to rising threats, and to report them to the WHO.
They additionally set the standards for declaring a “public health emergency of international concern”, throughout which the WHO can develop and suggest well being measures.
The US amendments have been on the agenda of final month’s assembly of the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making physique, and so they triggered a wave of misinformation about the organisation’s capacity to meddle in the affairs of states.
However, the rules can not dictate home well being coverage.
That’s as a result of, as AAP Fact Check and FactCheck.org have defined, the WHO can merely make suggestions and has no powers to implement these or the guidelines — and the proposed amendments wouldn’t change that.
In an e mail to truth checkers at Associated Press, one skilled labelled ideas to the opposite as “utterly untrue”, noting the adjustments “would ask countries to promptly and truthfully report infectious disease outbreaks” and permit the WHO to “offer assistance”.
Meanwhile, a US-government spokesperson advised FactCheck.org the adjustments “would strengthen WHO’s ability to use publicly available information” to evaluate potential threats, “inform all nations of the threat in a timely manner, and provide recommendations, not mandates, on how to safely and effectively respond”.
Sara Davies, a professor of worldwide relations at Griffith University, advised CheckMate the amendments “never addressed lockdowns or vaccine mandates” and that, since nationwide laws was required to adjust to the rules, “there was no risk to sovereignty”.
Similar claims regarding sovereignty have circulated — and been debunked — concerning a separate course of by the WHO to develop a pandemic treaty by 2024.
As for whether or not the US proposal was “quietly pulled”, there’s little proof to help this, with delegates at the current summit agreeing that a devoted working group would now “work exclusively” on updating the well being rules earlier than presenting “a package of targeted amendments” to the meeting in 2024.
Professor Davies stated the meeting had “adopted a resolution that set up a process and timeline” for altering the guidelines, and that the amendments put ahead by the US can be thought of alongside these of different states, which have to be submitted by September 2022.
And whereas the May summit thought of and adopted simply one among the US amendments, it was a important one: halving the time for future adjustments to take impact, from 24 to 12 months.
Reuters has beforehand reported that this modification was “seen as a first step in a broader IHR reform process”, whereas Professor Davies stated the change “gets the ball rolling when the additional amendments are discussed by the working group”, and will arguably be seen as a strategic transfer by the US.
Getting liberal with the info on feminine voting
As the mud settles on the federal election, Twitter customers have steered that a traditionally low variety of ladies voted for former prime minister Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party.
“Morrison won the lowest percentage of female votes in the history of the Liberal Party,” one person steered, pointing to a weblog publish by which former Labor politician Barry Jones made an equivalent declare.
But is that proper?
Of course, solely voters in Mr Morrison’s citizens of Cook had the alternative to vote for him instantly. However, the weblog publish and subsequent tweets refer extra broadly to the variety of first choice votes solid by ladies for Liberal Party decrease home candidates.
Due to the nature of nameless voting in Australia, we will not know for positive how ladies voted in 2022 or in every other election.
Experts, nevertheless, pointed to low general vote tallies for the Coalition — of which the Liberal social gathering is only one associate — in 2022 as a sign that help could have fallen to historic lows amongst all voters, together with ladies.
Political analyst Murray Goot, an emeritus professor at Macquarie University, advised CheckMate in an e mail: “Since support for the Coalition in 2022 was… lower than at any other post-war election, it is likely that support for the Coalition among both men and women was lower in 2022 than at any other post-war election.”
The ABC’s resident election skilled Antony Green concurred.
“If the Coalition had a record-low vote, then there is a high likelihood it would be a record-low female vote,” he advised CheckMate.
Indeed, an evaluation of election information relationship again to the inception of the Liberal Party in 1944 reveals that the share of first choice votes for both Coalition associate was decrease in 2022 than in any election since 1946.
The consultants steered the Australian Election Study, performed by the Australian National University since 1987, may very well be used to evaluate patterns of voting behaviour by gender, although the 2022 research was but to be revealed.
That stated, the research accomplished after Mr Morrison’s 2019 election win discovered that whereas 45 per cent of males gave their first choice vote to the Liberal Party, simply 35 per cent of girls did likewise.
“These results show a widening gender gap with men becoming much more likely than women to vote for the Liberal Party,” the 2019 research concluded.
“The relationship has reversed over time; back in the 1990s, women were slightly more likely to vote Liberal than men.”
Pre-election polls additionally present information on social gathering help by gender, however as the chief investigator of the Australian Election Study Sarah Cameron defined, these could not replicate individuals’s precise votes.
Dr Cameron, who’s a political sciences lecturer at the University of Sydney, advised CheckMate: “Asking people about their voting intentions before the election won’t catch everything because many people are still making up their mind.”
CoronaCheck: No, a Canadian information outlet didn’t say the Pfizer jab had ‘a 12 per cent efficacy fee’
(AP: Francisco Seco)
Claims that a Canadian information outlet revealed a headline suggesting Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine had “a 12 per cent efficacy rate” have been debunked by varied truth checkers.
Screenshots circulating extensively on Facebook and Twitter seem to attribute the headline to Global News, however truth checkers at Reuters discovered the picture was digitally altered.
A spokesperson for Global News advised Reuters the community may “confirm that the headline and caption in question were never published on our site”, whereas a complicated Google search by the truth checkers didn’t reveal any such declare being revealed by any media outlet.
As for the supply of the 12 per cent efficacy determine, CheckYourFact reported that the declare appeared to have originated from a publish to the web site Substack by “investigative reporter” Sonia Elijah on April 3, 2022, which discusses a US Food and Drug Administration briefing doc on Pfizer’s vaccine dated December 2020.
According to Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong, that publish miscalculated the efficacy fee of the vaccine through the use of a determine of “suspected but unconfirmed” circumstances fairly than “confirmed” circumstances.
Additionally, truth checkers at AFP identified that the Substack creator writes for Trial Site News, a web site that has promoted unproven COVID-19 therapies.
Meanwhile, a declare that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had stated the firm’s “dream” was to “reduce the number of people in the world by 50 per cent” by 2023 was discovered by truth checkers at Politifact to be based mostly on doctored media.
The quote was derived from a filmed dialog between Bourla and World Economic Forum chief government Klaus Schwab at the discussion board’s annual assembly in Davos, however truth checkers discovered that key phrases have been edited out of their dialog earlier than it was posted on BitChute.
In truth, Dr Bourla stated he wished to “reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50 per cent”.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher incorrect on ‘worst set of books’ declare
As the Labor Party emerged victorious from the election, the new authorities shortly turned its consideration to the state of the financial system.
Six days after being sworn in as the Minister for Finance, Katy Gallagher advised ABC TV’s Insiders: “We have inherited the worst set of budget books.”
But RMIT ABC Fact Check this week discovered that declare to be incorrect.
On two key financial indicators, debt and deficit, earlier incoming governments have inherited worse “budget books”.
The solely truthful method to make historic comparisons is to take into consideration the dimension of the financial system and measure key indicators as a proportion of GDP.
On this foundation, gross debt ranges have been traditionally a lot increased for earlier incoming administrations than the determine confronted by the Albanese Government.
Similarly, the deficit as a proportion of GDP is just not the worst on file.
Ms Gallagher’s declare is acquainted territory for Fact Check, which has debunked close to equivalent claims made by each side of politics over the years.
In 2015, then-Liberal Party deputy chief Julie Bishop was additionally discovered to be incorrect when she claimed the Coalition had been left with the “worst set of financial accounts inherited by any incoming government in Australia’s history”.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell, with due to Ewa Staszewska and Liam McNally
Got a indisputable fact that wants checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or ship us an e mail at [email protected]
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Malcolm Roberts says a rule change at the WHO ‘would have decimated’ Australia’s sovereignty. Is he appropriate? & More Latest News Update
Malcolm Roberts says a rule change at the WHO ‘would have decimated’ Australia’s sovereignty. Is he appropriate? & More Live News
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