Lockington shearer Lincoln Munroe considers moving to avoid Covid jab

A regional Victorian shearer 40km from the NSW border has lost most of his staff because they refuse to get vaccinated.

Lincoln Munroe fears he could lose his business because of the vaccine mandate.

A regional Victorian shearer says he could be forced to move his business into NSW because of the vaccine mandate.

Lockington’s Lincoln Munroe and three of his staff cannot enter farms as shearers because they are classed as authorised workers and must get vaccinated but refuse to, citing “freedom of choice”.

In Victoria, authorised workers needed to have their first dose completed or booked in by October 15 and fully vaccinated by November 26.

But in NSW, shearers including Mr Munroe don’t have to be vaccinated to continue working.

Mr Munroe said his business, which stretches from northern Victoria to Gippsland and into NSW, was under serious threat.

“The mandate puts my team in a difficult position,” he said.

“We’ve never had a positive case within our team of 10 and if we did I’m confident would do the right thing and get isolated.

“But his mandate has been slugged on small business and I don’t think it’s fair.

“If I don’t get vaccinated I could lose up to 70 per cent of my business.”

Mr Munroe said he would be “all right” for at least the next two weeks as some of his clients lived in NSW and he lived within the border bubble.

Lincoln Munroe.

“We have some jobs lined up and we will focus on those,” he said.

“But after that I’m going to have to work out what is going to happen because I have a difficult decision to make.

“I’ve had my business for 12 years and now I’m at real risk of losing it.”

Mr Munroe said his workers wouldn’t have trouble finding work if they went across the border to NSW.

“There’s a shearer shortage at the moment and I think a few NSW contractors would take them on,” he said.

“But then there’s the worry for my clients who might not be able to have their sheep sheered. With the wet weather coming and a wet summer predicted they’re going to need it.

“It might be hard for some businesses to employ people going forward if they choose not to be vaccinated.”

Meanwhile, Victoria’s SES services are getting behind the push to get vaccinated with authorities announcing a strong uptake from volunteers across the state.

Chief executive Stephen Griffin revealed about one per cent of the SES’ 5000 members were choosing to not get vaccinated.

“We’ve had to put in place systems to be able to assess whether people are vaccinated or not,” he said.

“We’ve had fantastic feedback from our volunteers about getting the vaccination certificate into data sets we need to tick off whether they are available or not available.”

Mr Griffin said potentially losing volunteers would impact the service, which had recorded high demand especially over the past two years.

“It will have an impact because some of those people are skilled. I haven’t been through the detail but I know because some of them have written to me,” he said.

“But it’s a personal conversation we are having.

“We’re not saying ‘you’re not wanted, you’re being discarded’.

“We’ve been very strong around making sure we treat one another with respect and kindness

“People do have a different view. We’re not here to berate them because they have that different view.

“What we will try and do is have a discussion with them — are they vaccination hesitant or are they saying I’m not going to? And then we’ll be working with them, we won’t be shutting the door and saying we don’t want you.”

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