When Covid came to Australia’s anti-vaccination capital | New South Wales

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Benny Zabel has lived in Nimbien on and off since 1973, when he arrived in town for the Aquarius Festival – the event that planted counterculture and escape lifestyles in the northern rivers of New South Wales.

The 75-year-old artist and activist is a well-known figure in this part of Australia, now a bastion of alternative health and wellness, and notorious for its low immunization rates. He was also the first person from Nimbin to appear to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

“I had people — they were really bad, really bad, and they stuck with me,” Zabel says. “There are all kinds of surrogates, and a lot of them throughout their life history don’t trust the system, myself included.

Benny Zable, 75, faced hostility from the Nimbin community after sharing a photo of him receiving a Covid vaccine on social media. Photography: David Morris Smith / Okoli

“A lot of people don’t trust any of it. A lot of people have been disappointed with the government. My friends who stick with me because I got vax you can have to think about it not getting anywhere, they’re so clingy.

“I’m not 100% on these vaccines either. But the thing is, the nurses and the doctors give you information, you read it through. What they give you won’t make you sick. So you have to trust that and think about future generations.”

Child vaccination rates in northern rivers are the lowest in Australia. In Byronshire, 68.2% of 1-year-olds are fully immunized, compared to 94.9% nationwide.

In the remote town of Mulmbembe, locals say they have been banned from cafes over fears that staff are not wearing masks. Companies have put up signs on storefronts asking vaccinated customers not to enter under the misconception that they may be clearing the virus.

“The epidemic has always made its way into the northern rivers,” says Mark Swivel, who runs a community legal clinic in Mullumbimbe.

Covid arrived last week disguised as real estate speculators from Sydney. The man and his teenage son have since been accused of breaching NSW public health orders.

get rid of power

Swivel says compliance with the restrictions in the area “has actually been very high” and that this downturn has eased significantly.

A sign at Edens Landing in Molombembe tells customers that they are free to enter without a mask. Photography: David Morris Smith / Okoli

“I think the problems here are real but exaggerated,” he says. There is a vocal minority staunchly against vaccinations and Covid restrictions. There is a huge range of opinions from legitimate indecision to paranoid delusion. “

He believes that this opposition to rules and vaccines is “primarily an expression of fear”.

There is a huge range of opinions from legitimate indecision to paranoid delusion.

“There is a huge sense of threat among a lot of people who have chosen certain alternative lifestyles,” he says. “Everyone here is anti-authoritarian.

“There is a fat streak of non-conformity across society, whether you are poor or rich or whatever you think. What you see in the anti-Covid action is a certain stress – the intended picture – of this powerful subject.

“The fear expressed by many opponents of vaccines and Covid restrictions comes from a sense of encroachment on the haven of heaven in the northern rivers.”

This encroachment was so big years ago that Byron Bay and its surroundings became a playground for celebrities and wealthy tree-creators. The median home price in Mullumbimbi has risen to over $1 million.

“It’s a very wealthy city now,” says Swivel.

Liz Elliott, a former physician in the emergency department in Mollum, says that a “strong component” in the community – estimated at between 40% and 50% – is “suspicious of the full orthodox response to Covid”. She is one of them.

“We don’t have much doubt about authority, but rather that authority has shown itself incapable of dealing with the challenges of this century over and over again,” Elliott says.

People always refer to opponents as if we are the problem. The problem is that we don’t look at the long term of our society. Covid has been used as a massive generation of fear [mechanism] …as with 9/11.”

The town of Mullumbimbe in New South Wales’ Northern Rivers region is divided between supporters and opponents of vaccination in the fight against Covid-19. Photography: David Morris Smith / Okoli

Elliott says constant media messages in support of vaccination have caused a kind of “mass psychosis” about vaccination and that she will consider the vaccine when more is known about its long-term effects.

She says her concerns include that there has been little public discussion of “vaccine alternatives” and cites ivermectin (while trials are still ongoing, ivermectin has not been approved for use as a treatment for Covid in Australia and current scientific evidence does not support its use).

“We actually get a little crazy, and a lot of that is insisting on talking about punching, punching, punching, punching,” Elliott says. “I’m skeptical about the whole situation.”

She says the “sheep and goat argument” is starting to get unpleasant.

“Even in our personal lives, there are friends who don’t talk to me. People equate being obedient to being kind. There’s kind of a moral thing going on and a lot of judgment.

“My personal opinion is that you wear a mask when you are face-to-face with a shop assistant and that’s in August… this is a good idea. Careful management of people’s personal lives is an issue.”

Polarized viewpoints

Some opinions, such as Elliott’s, are logical and mixed. Others seem to have been shaped by blatant internet misinformation and paranoia, in a way similar to the right-wing QAnon plot.

Down the rabbit hole on social media, a picture of organized resistance to Covid restrictions, vaccinations and masks appears in Mullumbimbe, Byron Bay and other parts of the northern rivers.

Anti-vaccination poster in Mullumbimbe, New South Wales. Photography: David Morris Smith / Okoli

A few months ago, an information sheet entitled “Please be aware of the following points” was distributed to residents, advising them that they can get around the mask mandates by demanding a medical exemption. Locals in Mullumbimbi say the content is repeated daily by defectors in the same way that politicians repeat daily talking points.

Some storefronts in Mullumbimby carry signs advising customers to be allowed in without a mask “no questions asked”, presumably to have a medical exemption.

At the other end of the spectrum, the St Vincent de Paul charity store has closed its doors several times when customers have refused requests to wear masks.

Local farmers’ markets could have continued this week with closures as an essential service, but organizers said they decided to close – “the only option” given the difficulties they had in ensuring compliance with public health directives.

Last month, Mandy Nolan, a columnist for the local newspaper Echo, wrote of the Mullum community’s disengagement due to Covid restrictions.

“Covid-19 has torn our rainbow flag in two,” she wrote. Our beliefs have been so polarized that there is no longer a middle ground. Our tolerance for each other has faded. Our mountain has gone out of goodwill.”

She told The Guardian Australia: “It scares me when society loses its empathy and compassion for caring for the vulnerable. This is the most powerful thing we do.

We are talking about a very loud and aggressive minority. I called them sects without chariots.”

A Covid-19 testing center in Byron Bay after the area was closed on Wednesday. Photo: Jason O’Brien/AAP

She hopes that in a year from now, once vaccination rates rise, the conflict becomes a distant memory and “things are on the sidelines again.”

“But the government’s inability to vaccinate people means we have inflated the space for the kind of conversations that I don’t think would exist if they did it quickly,” Nolan says.

“The slow introduction of the vaccine means a quick and prolonged release of the conspiracy. And the more the government goes against the order, the bigger it gets.” [conspiracy] He was allowed to grow.”

calls for cooperation

Time and time again, many locals tell a similar story. Three women who spoke to Guardian Australia said they chose not to vaccinate their children but the Covid pandemic has changed their views.

Perhaps most characteristic of the situation is the way in which the individualism that drew people to the northern rivers also came to foster a kind of groupthink.

Mullumbimbe Main Street. Photography: David Morris Smith / Okoli

“I moved here because everyone was accepted,” said one woman, who asked not to be named. “Increasingly people came to this area thinking it was a new age area, and then this thing became quasi-judicial. What kind of yoga do you do? Do you shop at Woolies or IGA? Like that. It’s nothing new.”

Another said, “I can’t believe the shit about something as innocuous as wearing a mask.”

One of the most prominent advocates of dissent from Covid in Maulum is a man known for his activism as a conservationist. On social media these days, he praised right-wing climate-skeptic politicians Malcolm Roberts and Craig Kelly.

“Funny where the truth comes from these days,” he wrote above a link to a speech by Roberts complaining about restrictions on personal liberties.

Zabel posted a photo of the vaccination appointment on social media. Some people accused him of getting paid for “a shilling for Big Pharma” and that he “sold a whole man”.

He says nothing could be further from the truth. His decision was based on the same set of ideas that supported the Aquarius Festival and transformed these valleys.

“The age of Aquarius, it’s an invention,” he says. “It’s not a universal thing. It means collaboration.

There are these two basic theories in society. The first is that the human race is a cooperative species when push comes to shove. The other is the survival of the fittest.

Every scientist in the world shouts that we have nine years [to deal with climate change]. This is what we should focus on. This is the test. Are we cooperating or are we just participating in it ourselves? “

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