ScoMo’s candid answer about unvaccinated Australians

Scott Morrison provided a revealing answer when grilled by voters on what unvaccinated Aussies could be restricted from doing.

Businesses such as cafes and pubs should be allowed to open to fully-vaccinated patrons only, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said, as companies around the world bring in compulsory vaccination for workers.

Opinion is hardening against anti-vaxxers, especially in countries like the United States where masks have had to be reintroduced due to a resurgence in the virus thanks to the Delta variant.

Facebook and Google announced this week that workers returning to offices must be vaccinated, and Netflix will require cast and some crew on its productions to get the jab. The Washington Post will require all staff to show they are vaccinated.

While Australia’s own vaccination rollout is still its early stages — with just 17 per cent of those aged over 16 having had both jabs — there is already talk about harsher restrictions for those who don’t want to get vaccinated.

Mr Morrison is backing more restrictions on those who aren’t vaccinated, although he’s said the jab won’t be made mandatory because “it’s the wrong decision for Australia”.

During a grilling by voters from Mr Morrison’s Cook electorate in Sydney’s south on Thursday night, one frustrated resident said more Australians would get the Covid vaccination if businesses like restaurants were supported so they could open only to those who had received the jab, the Daily Mail reported.

Mr Morrison said once vaccination levels were higher he agreed this should be an option.

“When we get our vaccination levels a lot higher, I agree with you, and I think there should be those advantages to those who have done that and taken the opportunity,” Mr Morrison said.

“Because if you’re vaccinated, you’re less of a public health risk than you are to someone who’s unvaccinated.

“I think the time will come when exactly what you’re suggesting should be able to be achieved.”

It’s a move that looks likely to be supported by Australian restaurant and cafe owners, with a survey done by Deliveroo showing a quarter wanted the option to refuse service to the unvaxxed.

More than half said they would be “concerned” about serving unvaccinated customers once there were no restrictions.

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The PM agrees businesses should be supported to ban unvaccinated people from entering their premises. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

Mr Morrison has already indicated that people who aren't vaccinated “can’t expect to have the same restrictions not imposed on those who … are vaccinated”.

“They’re more at risk and would have to have more restrictions on people who are unvaccinated because they’re a danger to themselves and others,” Mr Morrison told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on Thursday.

He said authorities were still working through what kinds of restrictions would apply to unvaccinated people but has previously noted restrictions on people moving about in their states could only be imposed by state authorities.

“Only the state governments can place restrictions on people entering a venue, entering a place of work, things like this,” Mr Morrison told reporters on July 21.

“There are also industrial relations issues here that apply as well. They can apply the public health orders that mandate vaccinations, like the Western Australian Premier has done in terms of quarantine-based workers. They have those powers. They can implement them.

“I can provide them with the tools that helps them to implement them, like the digital vaccine certificates and things of that nature, and they could employ them.”

Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce has said the company is considering making the jab mandatory for its aviation workers, and Mr Morrison noted any decisions companies made in Australia would have to be consistent with the country’s laws, and particularly the employment laws.

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“I know they would be looking very carefully at that. But I’m responsible for the decisions that we make, and the decisions that we make is that it’s not mandatory,” he told 3AW.

Mr Morrison said there was only one area recommended for mandatory vaccination and that was for aged care workers.

“State governments as yet have not done that. So we’ve just got on with that job and we’re over 50 per cent first dose vaccinations for aged care workers now,” he said.

He said workers in all aged care facilities in NSW and Victoria had now received a double dose of the vaccine.

“And that means that we haven’t seen the same devastating effect in New South Wales from this recent outbreak,” he said.

Asked by a reporter earlier this month about the deaths of two people after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, including a Tasmanian man in his 40s, Mr Morrison said that “we are all responsible for our own health”.

“When it comes to informed consent and giving consent to whatever treatment or procedure you may have or I may have, then I’m ultimately responsible for what people do in their health treatment to me,” Mr Morrison said.

“There has been the opportunity for people to visit their GP, to have that consultation, the government has provided that and funded that, and the informed consent process provides the decision to the individual. That’s the sort of country we live in. People make their own decisions about their own health and their own bodies. That’s why we don’t have mandatory vaccination, because people make their own decisions. We encourage people to make those decisions.”

Meanwhile the vaccination conversation in US — where 60 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated — appears to be moving away from a focus on alleviating people’s concerns about the vaccine, making Covid shots as easy to get as possible, and driving up demand through gift giveaways and prize draws.

Now there is “a shift from understanding to impatience, and from incentives to consequences,” former Republican speechwriter David Frum, who recently wrote a piece called “Vaccinated America has had enough” in The Atlantic, told AFP.

Even with 60 per cent fully vaccinated in the US, this still falls short of 85 to 90 per cent epidemiologists now believe is necessary to contain the virus, despite the fact that the shots have been readily available for months.

US President Joe Biden this week announced millions of federal workers would need to either get vaccinated or submit to regular tests and wear masks, following similar steps taken by California and New York.

— with AFP

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