Coronavirus: Mandatory vaccine push a poke in the eye for democracy

Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Government-mandated vaccination should be opposed on principle. It is an option of last resort when the risk a virus poses to the democratic majority is greater than the risk of eroding individual freedom and bodily integrity. In the context of Covid, governments and corporations have begun to exclude unvaccinated people from employment and public spaces. Yet Australian governments have not sought the consent of the people to introduce mandatory vaccinations.

Whatever view we might hold about mandatory vaccination, it should not be introduced without public debate and democratic process. In the ideal, the public would be invited to vote on it. At the very least, it should be debated in parliament. Without due democratic process, the ad hoc policy of compulsory vaccination sets a dangerous precedent that leaves us in an untenable position between two forces of intolerance; one that devalues individual freedom and the other that seeks to undermine trust in majoritarian government.

By law and by stealth, mandatory vaccinations are coming into force. More than a dozen countries are encouraging it by constraining the freedoms of the unvaccinated. The most common requirement is for healthcare workers to have the shot. But the demand is being extended to workplaces and public spaces. Several countries, including Australia, are planning EU-style vaccine passports to enable the fully vaccinated to travel without being subjected to entry requirements such as quarantine.

Last week, SPC became the first Australian business to mandate Covid vaccinations for staff. SPC chair Hussien Rifai dismissed union concerns, saying he would wear the consequences of the policy.

On Thursday night, the Fair Work Ombudsman released long-awaited advice detailing what businesses can and should mandate vaccinations. The Ombudsman advised that such direction must meet standards for lawful and reasonable action. For many employers, the wording will frustrate rather than facilitate action. Determining reasonableness without legislative cover is like swimming through a sea of red tape with union sharks circling. It will not happen unless the law clarifies and requires it.

There are other problems with the Ombudsman’s direction. The first is the descriptive categories used to distinguish between different types of work. Tiers 1 and 2 are relatively clear. Tier 1 focuses on workers’ vulnerability and includes settings that pose a higher risk of transmission such as hotel quarantine and border control. Tier 2 focuses on workplaces where clients or patients have heightened vulnerability to serious illness from Covid, such as health and aged care. An employer direction for workers in Tiers 1 and 2 to be vaccinated is most likely to be considered reasonable. Work classified as Tier 4 carries a low risk of transmission. The example given is work from home and it is less likely a mandatory vaccination direction for this group would be considered reasonable.

And then there is Tier 3, where clarity has gone to die. For Australians who run Tier 3 businesses, may God help you because the Ombudsman and government have not. A direction for staff to be vaccinated is “more likely to be reasonable” from an employer operating a business in an area “where community transmission of coronavirus is occurring … that needs to remain open despite a lockdown”. Stores that provide essential goods and services are given as an example. If the Ombudsman’s advice gains popular support, many such businesses may well be caught between community expectations that staff be vaccinated and union demands for consultation processes that can be complicated and costly.

Australian small and medium-sized businesses have suffered from government-mandated lockdowns. It is not good enough to expose them to union and legal action because governments will not draft mandatory vaccination legislation and debate it in parliament. At the same time, state governments continue to impose lockdowns and restrictions on the basis of reducing cases to zero. Victorians are enduring another extended lockdown, with several cases of infections with unknown origin. NSW has finally gone into a statewide lockdown after residents from suburb hotspots flouted health directions and the virus spread. There are more than 6000 active cases in the state and on Friday, West Australian Premier Mark McGowan introduced a virtual vaccination passport by banning entry to unvaccinated people from NSW.

Mandatory vaccination is problematic but to stop businesses requiring it, governments must first stop lockdowns. For that to happen, the vaccination rate will need to reach about 70 or 80 per cent. But a sizeable minority is resisting the jab. It is increasingly hard to respect the choice given scientific evidence in favour of vaccine safety and efficacy for the vast majority of recipients.

The descent into corporate control over whether a vaccine can be put inside employees’ bodies is alarming. Yet these desperate measures will be taken by businesses if the risk of bankruptcy from government-mandated lockdowns increases. Those who believe the vaccine violates their right to be free might consider, as many do, that freedom is a peculiar defence to mount against life-saving medicine. What freedoms are enjoyed to a greater extent by vaccine refusal – the freedom to be sick, to infect others, to bond with like-minded people, to feel superior to the “sheeple”? As the days pass, the case for vaccine refusal becomes clearer. It is an argument for the pursuit of selfishness.