Why some Australians are done with Covid vaccination rules

If a bunch of unvaccinated people want to gather together, surely that is a matter for them, writes James Campbell.

The mob that rampaged through the streets of Melbourne for several days last week might have been made up of the bad and sad with deluded views about vaccination which are unbacked by science.

But on one point they are right to be angry.

Australia’s leaders promised us the country’s vaccination program would be voluntary.

Last month Scott Morrison was asked about this and he gave a clear and unambiguous statement which is worth quoting at length.

“The vaccination program in Australia is free and it is not mandatory,” the Prime Minister said.

“That is a very important principle. We are not going to seek to impose a mandatory vaccination program by the Government, by stealth. That is not what we’re going to do” before going on to say: “it is important that Australians know that we are not going to seek to impose a mandatory vaccination program in this country by some other means. There have been some isolated cases which have already been identified - quarantine workers and aged care workers. They are the only areas that any states or territories or the Commonwealth has suggested that we’re providing some statutory or a public health order enforcement of such a mandating.”

Police detain a protester in Melbourne last week. Picture: David Crosling

A month later Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton shut the lunchrooms on Victoria’s building sites and ordered that every worker have at least one jab before being allowed to work.

Now you could argue that wasn’t this wasn’t the Prime Minister’s fault, after all, Sutton does what he likes barely any reference to the Victorian Government, let alone Canberra.

But the fact is that every state and territory and leader who has sat in national cabinet has connived at creating the impression that barring a few industries that dealt with the vulnerable, the rest of us would be given a choice about whether we want to get vaccinated.

And it turns out this is a lie.

In NSW from next month when the double vaxxed rate hits 70 per cent of the eligible population over 16 only those who have vaccinated will be able to go to the pub, eat out, attend public events.

These pleasures will continue to be forbidden to the unvaccinated.

Polling shows the overwhelming majority of Australians want vaccinations. Picture: Alex Coppel

You could argue – unconvincingly I would add – that there is no inherent right to do any of these things and that as they public activities that will bring the unvaccinated into contact to with the vaccinated, the government can, on safety grounds, limit who should be allowed to do them.

But you can’t make the same argument about visiting private houses.

If a bunch of unvaccinated people want to gather together, surely that is a matter for them.

When a government starts dictating that you can only visit a private home if you have been double-jabbed, it is a lie to claim that decision is in any meaningful way voluntary.

Earlier this month, in his usual charming way, the Premier of Victoria made it clear what goes for private houses will soon be the case for going to work when he said “there is going to be a vaccinated economy, and you get to participate in that if you are vaccinated.”

You can make any number of arguments you like about how it would all be for the best that everyone who goes to work should be vaccinated and I would agree with them.

But as I said, it’s hard to square Gladys’s unvaxxed home visit ban and Dan’s no-jab no-start diktat with the statement from Scott Morrison I quoted earlier.

You also have to ask whether it’s really wise.

All the polling shows the overwhelming majority of us are going to get jabbed if we haven’t been already.

But there is also a substantial minority – almost 10 per cent according to the Melbourne Institute - who have no intention of doing so.

Protestors swarm The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Are we really prepared for a society in which 10 per cent of the adult population are effectively excluded from the economy?

What are the chances this will increase the number of them who hold other, ahem, more problematic views?

Moreover, while according to all the polls a majority of the population backs privileges for the vaccinated, the size of the minorities ought to be giving our rulers pause for thought.

According to the Melbourne Institute’s findings – backed up by a recent YouGov poll - it would seem around one-in-five people are against being made to provide evidence they’re vaccinated to enter bars, restaurants and sporting venues.

After the week that we’ve just been through here in Melbourne, this strikes me as a recipe for trouble.

Still, you can see how we got here.

For the past 18 months public health across Australia have been shutting down our societies at the stroke of a pen, cheered on by their epidemiologist friends sitting in their institute offices.

And while the public have grumbled they have largely complied.

But as we can see with Victoria’s current growing outbreak – which it is sorely tempting to describe as uncontrolled – a substantial segment are done with doing as they’re told.

Originally published as Why some Australians are done with Covid vaccination rules