No jab, no play: Qld Education Minister Grace Grace alludes to mandatory vaccine

An education minister has proposed children not be allowed to attend school unless they get the COVID-19 vaccine when it is ready.

Health authorities are considering a mandatory vaccination policy for Queensland teachers and students once the jab is available in Australia.

The state’s education minister, Grace Grace, said on Wednesday “everything was on the table” when quizzed if the vaccine would be made mandatory in schools.

But she ultimately deferred judgment on the potentially controversial issue to the national cabinet.

“We will address it as a government when we come to it,” she told a budget estimates hearing on Wednesday morning.

“It would be a policy decision of governments around the state about how we do this, and I’m sure the department will enact whatever the decision is made.

The roll out of vaccinations has begun in the United Kingdom. Picture: Hugh Hastings/Getty Images

“But I think the national cabinet will probably drive a lot of that decision making about vaccination and compulsion to do so.”

The Sunshine State’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, alluded to supporting a no jab, no school policy but admitted the issue was in its infancy.

“At this stage, it’s too early to have those discussions because the trials haven’t involved children,” she told reporters on Thursday morning. “But it’s a very important discussion as we go forward.”

Dr Young stressed the coronavirus was different to other diseases that carry a mandatory vaccination policy.

“Those other diseases that we require children to be vaccinated against, you do need to be vaccinated when you’re young for some of them and there’s some very significant diseases there that have very high mortality, such as polio, measles and so forth,” the chief health officer said.

“Whereas for COVID-19, you know that if you’re a healthy and well child, you’re unlikely to get severe complications.

“It’s a totally different dynamic, but it’s a very, very important discussion we definitely need to have.”