Unvaccinated health and education staff to return to work ‘shortly’: Premier
The Premier has urged bureaucrats “once again” to allow unvaccinated teachers to return to work, following revelations they’ve been told to stay home on full pay. Have your say.
Education
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Unvaccinated teachers should be allowed to go back to work, Premier Dominic Perrottet says.
Responding to revelations in The Daily Telegraph that unvaccinated teachers are being forced to stay at home while on their full salary, Mr Perrottet said he expected the Health and Education departments to get staff back to work “shortly”.
“I’ve made it very clear that we are ending vaccine mandates,” he said.
Mr Perrottet praised the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Treasury department for lifting mandates but said Health and Education had more “complex” issues to work through.
He said he met with top bureaucrats and “once again asked them” to remove vaccine mandates from their workforce.
“They are working through those risk based assessments and I expect them to come back to me shortly,” he said.
“I expect them to implement my direction.”
Despite the direction, a range of government departments are still requiring new staff to be fully vaccinated.
After vaccination mandates were scrapped on April 22, government departments began working on individual “risk-based assessments” to determine whether unvaccinated staff would be allowed to come back to the office.
More than six weeks after those “risk-base assessments” were called for, on Tuesday Mr Perrottet said he expected the Education and Health departments to finalise those policies “shortly”.
Searches of the government’s jobs board on Tuesday revealed Covid vaccination was a requirement for roles in the Departments of Customer Service, Transport, Planning and Environment, and Enterprise, Investment and Trade.
The comments came as an Education Department spokeswoman said unvaccinated teachers were “relying on the common sense of others to protect their own safety”.
Around 370 teachers subject to Professional and Ethical Standards (PES) investigation for failing to be vaccinated have been put on “alternative duties” at home.
Despite teachers being told that they would “not be expected to undertake work” while on alternative duties at home, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell on Tuesday said working arrangements were being determined on a “case-by-case basis” this week.
She said that the department was working on individual assessments to determine whether staff to be vaccinated as “a matter of priority”.
Ms Mitchell did not give a time frame for when the assessments would be completed.
The Daily Telegraph previously revealed unvaccinated teachers are being paid their full salary to sit at home on gardening leave despite staff shortages plaguing public schools.
One teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity had been told the risk assessment would not be implemented until next term, which starts in mid-July.
The teacher said he was directed to just “stay at home” and look after himself until the department finishes its assessment.
The policy applies to teachers under investigation by the Professional and Ethical Standards directorate (PES) for failing to comply with vaccination mandates, according to the email.
The Telegraph understands that the “alternative duties” directive applies to a little more than 330 teachers subject to a PES case for Covid noncompliance.
“PES investigations into staff noncompliance with Covid-19 vaccination requirements have been paused while the Department undertakes a risk assessment regarding its systemic response to Covid-19 compliance,” the email said.
“Further information will be disseminated once the risk assessment has been completed and the Department has finalised a policy position on any vaccine mandates that may be applied for the workforce.”
One Nation MP Mark Latham, a staunch critic of vaccination mandates for teachers, said the policy did not make sense.
“It seems incredible that the Government would be paying qualified teachers to stay at home in the middle of a teacher shortage crisis when so many students are without teachers,” he said.
“The mandates should end and these funded teachers should return to the classroom. No more gardening leave.”
In Question Time Mr Latham doubled down on his demand to get the unvaccinated teachers into classooms.
“How can teachers be doing nothing on full pay during during a time of acute teacher shortages?” he said.
“Minister will you now bring these teachers back into their classrooms so that thousands of New South Wales students each day are no longer left unattended in the playground?
“Multiple classes are not collapsed together.
“Schools are no longer forced to close early and also to tell whole year groups to stay home and not come to school.”
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