A ‘controversial’ debate with Armin Wolff

The announced Vaccine skeptic in Gloggnitz resigns after falling out with Greens over coronavirus policy Madeline Petrovich September 29th National Committee Elections one.

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“Why are you going against your own party now?” Armin Wolf Start working with your ZIB 2 studio guest. “A lot has gone wrong in Austria over the past few years,” says Petrovich, who lists issues such as fundamental rights, data protection and environmental protection as her focus. “Now is the time for a new movement.” Yes, she has now left the Green Party.

Looking at his notes, host Wolf immediately quoted the “Liste Petrovic” website: “It doubts that the climate crisis is a serious threat and that it is caused by greenhouse gases. This is a very surprising position for a former Green Party.” Petrovic then elaborated: “We are committed to environmental protection, which, in my opinion, is more than just ‘climate policy’ as it is currently described.”

Humans certainly affect small-scale climate, “and probably large-scale climate as well.” “But your website says something different. It says the debate over CO2 ignores ‘the real issue,'” Wolfe interjected.

Petrovich (“I’m also an animal rights activist!”) replies that we must “consider emissions as a whole, not just CO2”. Otherwise the only strategy is “to buy an electric car”. Wolff does not relent and returns to the “doomsday scenarios” elaborated on Petrovich’s website, to which the 68-year-old tries to give in: they do not deny the impact of the climate crisis on humanity, only that the “conclusions” are “very industry-oriented”. For citizens, cutting down trees in Vienna as a concrete action is easier to understand than reports about rising CO2 levels.

Petrovich on “unconstitutional” coronavirus measures

Wolf then left the environmental topic and moved on to the next big piece: the coronavirus. He used Petrovich’s homepage again and became more pointed with the next question: “The origin of the coronavirus will be covered up, PCR tests will not be appropriate, masks will be useless, lockdowns will be useless, vaccinations will be over.” no Millions of lives were saved… All of this was contradicted by scientific findings. How could a man who had been a serious politician for decades stand for all of this?”

Petrovich did not answer the question, instead accusing ORF of saying that there is no room for “contentious debates” on all these topics on public broadcasting. The 68-year-old also insisted that the measures have caused “a lot of damage.” “Why do you think so many young people are becoming depressed now?” – Wolfe said briefly: “Probably because of the epidemic, the war and the economic crisis.”

Avoiding the question

Wolf also cited Petrovich’s website as saying that the corona measures “violate fundamental rights” and are “unconstitutional.” He then explained: “The Constitutional Court received 900 complaints about the corona measures. About 90% of them were rejected, and only 17 regulations were eventually repealed. So why do you make such a claim?”

Petrovich then noted that her patience had run out; she stressed that she came from a scientific background – the next moment she suddenly questioned the background of the current scientific research on the corona crisis. Moderator Wolf pointed out that she had completely avoided his question. “It is not the research that decides whether a measure is unconstitutional, but the Constitutional Court.” Petrovich did not want to get into this, but went on to criticize the “lack of processing”. And: “Through its measures, the federal government has created a “polarization that continues to this day.”

But then the list candidate suddenly broached the topic of data protection: “I think it is not okay for our data to be on the Internet and accessible to the ministries. In my opinion, this is unconstitutional.”