‘No jab, no pay’ a no-brainer

Employers mandating vaccination against COVID-19 is a necessary step towards protecting Australian workers, and those who object should look for another job, writes Kylie Lang.

Before any more wack-jobs accuse the federal government of being a totalitarian dictatorship, understand it is against Commonwealth law to force citizens to be immunised

When a COVID-19 vaccine does arrive, having cleared rigorous clinical trials, the best the Morrison government can do is assist and urge people to take it, and penalise those who won’t.

It should do all of the above.

Employers too should refuse to hire or retain abstainers for non-medical reasons if immunisation against coronavirus becomes part of their workplace policy.

Public health and the wellbeing of the majority is the overarching goal here – not whether a fringe group of defectors claim their human rights are being trampled.

It is against Commonwealth law to force citizens to be immunised. FILE PICTURE

But didn’t the conspiracy theorists and far left go to town this week when the idea was mooted that major employers mandate a COVID-19 vaccine?

In a take on the “no jab, no play” federal initiative that clips welfare payments for unvaccinated kids, “no jab, no pay” policies for staff are being considered by Queensland’s biggest employers, including Domino’s and the RACQ.

It comes after Qantas boss Alan Joyce said sensibly – or outrageously if you’re a civil libertarian zealot – that international passengers would require the vaccine to travel.

“Have I woken up in North Korea, China or some other region?” one reader of The Courier-Mail opined.

“What a tragic state of affairs when a country such as Australia can even entertain such draconian behaviour from employers, airlines etc. Looking forward to being a cray-cray, old-aged anarchist.”

Cray-cray is right.

When we are poised to have vaccines against a virus that has created a global pandemic and changed life as we know it, shouldn’t reasonable people expect to take it?

Renowned immunologist Professor Ian Frazer is all for mandating vaccines for employees most at risk of COVID-19 “in the same way we make safety jackets and helmets mandatory on building sites”.

The former Australian of the Year predicts many employers will insist on the jab, as already happens with other vaccines.

“If you want to work at the University of Queensland with blood, you have to be vaccinated against hepatitis B,” Frazer says.

It’s no different from requiring childcare workers to be inoculated against the flu.

In June, Goodstart Early Learning introduced an infectious diseases policy requiring flu vaccination.

From its 644 childcare centres nationally, two unfair dismissal cases have been filed by people who refused the jab on non-medical grounds.

Professor Ian Frazer says mandating the vaccination in some workplaces is similar to making safety jackets and hard hats mandatory on building sites. File picture

Last month Fair Work Commission deputy president Ingrid Asbury said Goodstart’s policy was “lawful and reasonable in the context of its operations which principally involve the care of children”.

The second case will be heard in January, with that disgruntled ex-employee represented by lawyer Nathan Buckley, the bright spark who told Melburnians they didn’t need to wear masks during the outbreak and launched a crowd-funding campaign to sue governments and remove lockdown restrictions.

A measured appraisal of the issue comes from human rights lawyer Maria O’Sullivan, of Monash University, who says if an employer’s direction to be immunised is reasonable according to the risk in a particular workplace, then employees who can’t abide it should find another job.

It’s pretty simple.

Things get a little muddier when it comes to governments mandating vaccinations.

There are no existing laws allowing nationwide enforcement, although some states and territories can impose vaccinations, according to Melbourne Law School’s Dr Paula O’Brien.

Not Queensland. On this, the Public Health Act 2005 is as weak as it is contradictory.

It states it is illegal to intentionally or recklessly spread an infectious disease yet “a person does not commit an offence by merely refusing, or failing, to be vaccinated against a condition for which there is a recognised and reasonably available vaccine”.

“Cray-cray anarchists” and anti-vaxxers need not fret for their civil rights.

It will be up to the rest of us who rely on science and common sense to act for the good of the majority, and that includes employers.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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