Scott Morrison announces ‘vaccination passports’ could be the key to greater freedom

New vaccination passports could allow Australians to travel interstate despite lockdowns and outbreaks and gatherings and events down the track.

New vaccination passports could allow Australians the freedom to travel interstate despite lockdowns and outbreaks and attend family gatherings and big sporting events down the track.

While vaccination is not compulsory in Australia, the plan could offer more incentives to get vaccinated amid concerns some older Australians are hesitant and “vaccine shopping” by delaying their jabs to wait for other alternatives.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged the vaccination passport option today, suggesting a range of new travel freedoms for fully vaccinated Australians.

“We’ve seen that operate in other countries and I think they’re the types of things that can be used particularly to enable Australians who are vaccinated to move around Australia,’’ Mr Morrison said.

“I think that the next most achievable step, because Australia, with our international borders up, means that vaccinated Australians would be in a much lower risk position when restrictions were to kick in on Australians going on public transport or going to theatres or going to the footy or whatever they might do … family get-togethers.”

The road map to new freedoms for vaccinated Australians might also provide lessons for how the system could work when international borders reopened.

“If they’re all vaccinated and then obviously the risks are a lot less and that’s why I’d continue to encourage people to move on making their booking to get the vaccinations,’’ the Prime Minister said.

RELATED: ‘Offensive’: Virgin’s CEO slammed

There are renewed calls to reopen Australia’s borders. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Paul Jeffers

But the Prime Minister, who must call a federal election before May 2022, said the pandemic was more dangerous than before.

“I understand that everyone is keen to get back to a time that we once knew,’’ he said.

“The reality is we are living this year in a pandemic that’s worse than last year. I understand that we want to get us in a place where, when it’s safe to do so, we can make changes there. But right now, it’s not safe to do so.”

Slamming as “insensitive” the comments of the Virgin Airlines CEO who said international flights should resume even if “some people may die”, the Prime Minister said it wasn’t yet safe to reopen borders.

Virgin’s Jayne Hrdlicka told a Queensland University of Technology event on Monday that Australians needed to “learn to live” with the virus.

“It will make us sick but won’t put us into hospital. Some people may die, but it will be way smaller than with the flu,’’ Ms Hrdlicka said.

Mr Morrison said they were not comments he would have any “truck with”.

“And I regret that those comments were somewhat insensitive,’’ he said.

“Somewhat insensitive and I would encourage people – you know, 910 Australians have lost their lives. Every single one of those lives was a terrible tragedy, and it doesn’t matter how old they were. Some were younger, some were older. They were someone’s mum, someone’s dad, someone’s aunty, someone’s cousin, brother, sister, friend. And so, no, I find it very difficult to have any truck with what was said there.”

Mr Morrison said ultimately he would be guided by the medical advice.

“The pandemic is raging. The pandemic is morphing. It’s changing every day,’’ he said.

“The great risk as we’re already seeing is new strains, new variants coming through. That not all the vaccines will be equipped currently to deal with. And so, it’s important that we make decisions based on the best medical advice at the time and on the medical advice we have right now, it is not safe to take those paths, but we will know when it is based on clinical, proven evidence.

“I’m not going to take risks with Australians’ lives. I’m not going to do that.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has also proposed the option of a phased start to relaxing international borders when 80 per cent of Australia is fully vaccinated – a target that will require 10 million doses to be administered in NSW alone. Currently the state has administered just one million doses.

But she’s also raised concerns that future supplies of vaccines are not completely locked in, urging anyone who can get vaccinated now to do so.

There are expectations that Australians will require regular booster shots, which is one of the reasons why the Morrison Government has signed a new deal with the Moderna vaccine manufacturers and is pursuing options to make the vaccine in Australia.