Experts rubbish claims COVID-19 vaccines are linked to a fall in ...
This week, CheckMate asks the experts about a fall in the number of NSW public hospital births and whether there is any evidence linking it to COVID-19 vaccines.
We also debunk a claim from a former federal politician that the Voice to Parliament would mean Indigenous people could "opt out" of Australian laws and bring you the facts on the Voice and the High Court.
Are vaccines to blame for a fall in birth numbers?A story published in the Sydney Morning Herald detailing a fall in births recorded by NSW public hospitals has been seized upon as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are to blame.
As the article explains, the number of these hospital births peaked at roughly 19,100 in the June 2021 quarter before steadily falling to reach 15,700 in the March 2023 quarter, their lowest ebb since 2010.
"Dramatic drop off in births in NSW and globally, since a certain not-so-safe, effective or necessary vaccine was forced upon the elderly, pregnant mums and even children," wrote one Twitter user.
And United Australia Party national director Craig Kelly tweeted: "The birth data for NSW has finally been released and tragically as expected the number of babies born has plunged as the vaccine was rolled out."
So, what's it got to do with vaccines?
Edith Gray, a professor of demography at the Australian National University, told CheckMate that rather than COVID-19 jabs being the cause of falling births, "the opposite is likely".
"[W]hen the vaccine started to become available [in 2021] and lockdowns stopped there was an increase in births," she said.
Peter McDonald, a professor of demography at the University of Melbourne, told CheckMate that even if a specific event had led to a fall in births, there was "no direct evidence" to say it was the result of vaccines.
Notably, both experts said the available data was incomplete and subject to change, meaning more information was needed before conclusions could be drawn about what, if anything, was happening in NSW.
"There is great variability in births over short time periods, and these data only account for births in public hospitals," Professor Gray said.
"While they are useful as an indication of trends, they really need to be treated with caution."
Professor McDonald, meanwhile, said processing lags meant the number of births registered by hospitals or registrars was "not a reliable estimate" of births, with monthly and quarterly data more prone to errors.
Notwithstanding these caveats, annual data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that the number of births registered in NSW was only 0.8 per cent lower in 2022 than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
By contrast, Queensland and South Australia recorded increases of 1.7 and 2.4 per cent while Western Australia saw a drop of 5.9 per cent. That's despite all states recording similarly high first-dose vaccination rates by the end of 2021.
But if NSW is indeed experiencing a sizable decline in births, there are plenty of reasons to consider other than vaccines.
According to Professor McDonald, a "new trend" in global fertility rates began from around 2016, which has seen rates in many countries falling below replacement levels.
Australia's fertility rate was also trending down well before COVID-19 vaccines arrived, with that trend expected to continue until the early 2030s.
In the shorter term, though, Professor McDonald said it was "very difficult" to interpret what was happening, because "events [such as the pandemic] come along and people delay births", which can have a "quite substantial" effect on the numbers.
These types of delayed decisions have long been linked to times of economic uncertainty, both experts told CheckMate.
"All quality research points to the same issues: in times of uncertainty or disruption, fertility tends to decline," Professor Gray said.
"We saw this at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when fertility declined, only to be followed by a small boom as people caught up with births [that had been] delayed."
Indeed, there were more births registered in 2021 than in each of the four years to 2020, according to the ABS data. This may be one factor playing into the 2022 numbers.
As Professor McDonland explained: "Births are usually two or three years apart. So, if a lot of them occurred at once, then, for the next two or three years, you won't get quite so many."
The pandemic-era fertility pattern — of a bust in 2020, a boom in 2021 then a "downturn" in 2022 — has been observed in a number of other high-income countries.
The authors of that study posit three possible reasons, including: a return to pre-pandemic fertility trends, the resumption of busier life after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and the fear of vaccine side-effects that may cause some people to delay pregnancy.
Professor Gray pointed out, however, that fertility "tends to be associated with local conditions, so if we are seeing a decline in NSW, it may be that the conditions there are having a larger impact on childbearing".
One such explanation offered by Professor McDonald was the cost of housing. On that point, ABS data shows that median house prices are higher in NSW than any other state.
CheckMate has previously addressed claims about falling births in Australia and Germany, along with unsubstantiated claims linking COVID-19 jabs to miscarriage.
The Australian government makes clear that vaccines approved for use in Australia do not cause infertility, while the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists advises that they are safe and effective for pregnant women.
No, a UN declaration does not support creating a separate Indigenous nation within AustraliaFormer Liberal MP Nicolle Flint has used a television interview to wrongly assert that the articles of a UN declaration, currently under consideration by a federal parliamentary committee, "suggest there should be a separate Indigenous nation" within Australia.
Arguing that such a nation could have its own "government … economy, rules, law and institutions", Ms Flint told Sky News Australia that the declaration "essentially says that Indigenous Australians could choose whether they want to opt in or out of Australian society under the federal government or state government".
However, RMIT FactLab has found her claim to be false, with legal experts variously describing it as "absolute nonsense" and "manifestly false".
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is a non-legally binding international instrument that provides global standards on how governments should engage and protect the rights of indigenous people. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 and endorsed by Australia in 2009.
Dr Amy Maguire, an associate professor in international law and human rights at the University of Newcastle, told FactLab via email that there was "nothing" in the declaration that proposed creating a separate Indigenous nation.
In addition, she said the suggestion that First Nations people could "opt out" of society was a misrepresentation of the declaration's Article 5, which states:
"Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the state."
As Dr Maguire explained, the point of Article 5 is to acknowledge that "First Nations peoples never ceded sovereignty or the right to their distinct political systems, laws or ways of life".
"They are entitled to maintain engagement in both their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural structures and practices, AND in Australian political and social life," she wrote.
Similarly, Kate Galloway, an associate professor at Griffith University's Law School, said indigenous people could not opt out of governance by their respective nation states, noting that the declaration itself "affirms state sovereignty and territorial integrity … and affirms that UNDRIP rights must be read subject to this overriding principle and the UN Charter".
This meant that "First Nations may, should they choose, express themselves as communities but they may do so within the framework of the existing nation state".
The Voice, the High Court and the factsMisleading memes, social media commentary and statements made by some federal politicians have all claimed that the Voice to Parliament, should it be established, could overturn government decisions via the High Court.
But as FactLab's CrossCheck unit recently found, such claims have no legal basis and misrepresent a nuanced legal argument about the powers of the Voice in making representations to executive government.
Among CrossCheck's findings were that despite online narratives to the contrary, the Voice — as it is currently proposed — could not make binding demands of the government, nor would it have the power to veto legislation.
Those were the unanimous findings of the Constitutional Expert Group appointed by the government to provide advice on questions of constitutional law.
A member of that group, Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), said: "The power and function of the Voice is to make representations. It cannot dictate, demand or veto."
Independent of the experts appointed by the government, the Australian Law Council and other constitutional law academics have reached the same conclusion.
As such, claims on social media that the Voice could use the High Court to force policy outcomes, alter the content of laws or change a government decision — to allow, for example, land grabs or forced reparations payments — have no legal basis.
On the matter of whether the inclusion of the "executive government" in the proposed wording of the constitutional change required to establish the Voice could present an opportunity for exploitation, CrossCheck noted that legal experts were divided on the matter.
While some experts have argued that including the phrase could lead to an increase in High Court cases, others have labelled suggestions that the courts would be jammed with litigation over decisions large and small as "too silly for words".
Ultimately, as CrossCheck noted, legal arguments are exactly that — arguments. How the High Court might rule in the future cannot be conclusively determined by anyone.
Interestingly, some of the aforementioned critics have said they would nevertheless support the Yes case, despite their concerns.
More broadly, CrossCheck's research found that the tenor of debate and misleading claims circulating online illustrated the willingness of certain groups and actors to make mileage out of the politics of division.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
Got a fact that needs checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or send us an email at [email protected]
