Industry calls for priority vaccine access

As workers face ‘major challenges’, transport and retail leaders are pushing for priority vaccine access.

Saturday crowds at Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

The leaders of essential industries in transport and retail are pushing for staff to be given priority access to vaccinations as supplies of Pfizer and Astra Zeneca become more available.

The chief executive of rail operator Pacific National, Paul Scurrah, said freight transport workers should be given the vaccine as soon as possible as they were essential to moving goods around the country.

He said workers in road and rail transport were “facing major challenges”, having to deal with different testing, quarantine and lockdown regimes in each state.

“We are advocating for everyone in the freight industry, including trucking, to be elevated up the priority list for vaccinations,” he said.

Mr Scurrah was speaking ahead of virtual meetings between the airline and mining industries on Tuesday with the federal government’s vaccine distribution task force headed by Lieutenant General Frewen.

Qantas, which is considering making vaccination mandatory for its workers, is calling on Canberra to make vaccinations compulsory for all workers in the aviation industry.

Mr Scurrah, the former CEO of Virgin Australia, said Pacific National was “at the forefront” of dealing with state and federal governments to lobby for priority access for vaccines to freight transport workers.

He said freight workers were having to deal with constantly changing regulations as they tried to deliver goods across borders.

Australia’s largest private rail freight operator, Pacific National has more than 3500 workers, of which 2300 were involved in front line operational service.

“The company has done an amazing job of keeping the supply lines of the country open with continuous service,” he said.

Mr Scurrah said Pacific National was seeing increasing demand during the pandemic as customers realised rail was a safe way to move freight around the country.

The company was encouraging its workers to get vaccinated “as quickly as possible”. But it would like to see workers in the industry given special access to vaccines in the same way as some supermarket workers and aged care workers.

Workers in supermarkets in eight Sydney local government areas deemed to be hot spots have been given priority access to the vaccine at the Olympic Park hub, while workers at some food and grocery distribution centres in western Sydney have been given vaccinations at their work sites.

Mr Scurrah said his customers were realising rail was the safest transport option for goods during a pandemic.

“A typical interstate freight train from Sydney to Melbourne can haul 215 containers and uses four train drivers.

“This is equal to about 90 cross border trucks which use 90 drivers.”

Mr Scurrah said Pacific National operated from 90 different locations across the country and the opening of a 24 hour, seven day a week testing centre in Taree on the mid-north coast of NSW a few weeks ago by the state government had made a big difference.

“It gives a lot of comfort to our people,” he said. “And it allows us to meet some of our turnaround times.”

Mr Scurrah said it was important that the vaccine rollout be accelerated.

He also called for the establishment of more stand-alone quarantine facilities to cope with inbound travellers.

Paul Zahra, chief executive of the Australian Retailers Association, said the retail industry wanted to see priority access for vaccines for frontline retail workers.

“We have been advocating for frontline retail workers to have priority as part of the vaccine rollout,” he said.

Retail workers were often the only point of outside contact for people in lockdown during the pandemic.

“These workers often perform their roles at some personal risk and under the most challenging of circumstances,” he said.

“They need to be prioritised as essential frontline workers. We want them to be prioritised to ensure their safety and that of their customers.”

Retailers were keen to be involved in the rollout of vaccines including being able to have them vaccinated in the workplace, in the same way as they gave staff vaccines against the flu.

“We have been working closely with the federal government to make sure that once there are enough vaccines in the country, we can have access to them for retail workers.”

Mr Zahra said retailers were eager to do what they could to help with the vaccine rollout.

“Retailers have a strong physical presence across the nation,” he said.

“Many have offered their spaces, including car parks, to be vaccination hubs, particularly in regional locations where the government may not have access to other sites.”

Mr Zahra said stepping up the rollout was the “only ticket out” of the pandemic.

“No one is safe while we have the Delta variant of Covid,” he said. “Our low vaccination rate hasn’t helped.”

He said Australia had an advantage in dealing with Covid in the initial stages of the pandemic, but it had “lost our Covid advantage” with its slow vaccination rollout.

“We have been advocating for vaccination hubs to be set up in distribution centres to get those people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

“The last thing we want is for food or essential shopping to be impacted.”

He said it was evident the western suburbs of Sydney played an essential part in the supply chain.