Scott Morrison will not indemnify businesses seeking to make Covid-19 jabs compulsory for workers

Scott Morrison will not indemnify businesses who try to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory in their workplaces, saying he will not ‘endorse’ such vaccine mandates.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott. Picture: Gary Ramage

Scott Morrison will not indemnify businesses that try to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory in their workplaces, saying he will not “endorse” such vaccine mandates.

Business groups want to have a conversation about vaccine mandates in high-risk workplaces, but want the federal and state governments to take the lead on allowing the practice.

The Prime Minister on Monday said while the legal advice from Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue suggested mandates were legal and reasonable in some cases, he would not protect companies from legal action against compulsory vaccinations.

“If we were to take that step, that would be thereby endorsing some sort of mandatory process,” Mr Morrison said.

“We will seek to provide as much careful advice as we can to help (businesses) make those ­decisions, but it is important that Australians know that we are not going to seek to impose a ­mandatory vaccination program in this country by some other means.

“We are not seeking to mandate vaccines. That is not the government’s policy. That is not how Australia has successfully run vaccination programs in the past.

“We’ve done it because ­Australians know their value.”

The legal advice provided to national cabinet on Friday said there was a legally reasonable basis for four tiers of workers to be captured by vaccine mandates.

In order of most reasonable, the four tiers were: workers in ­direct threat of catching the virus such as airline workers; employees working with other people more likely to contract Covid-19 such as medical professionals; ­individuals employed in public-facing roles such as supermarket workers; and, lastly, the rest of the working population.

The advice also opens the door for businesses, including restaurants and nightclubs, to bar anyone who has not received a Covid-19 jab from entering their premises.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said vaccine mandates might be necessary in areas such as meat-processing and manufacturing, but individual employers could not be expected to make major decisions on vaccine mandates alone.

“We think this should be highly targeted to high-risk areas where a failure to vaccinate certain categories of workers would dramatically compromise our quarantine and containment systems,” Ms Westacott said.

“We should also consider other high-risk areas such as meat processing, manufacturing and healthcare so we can keep these critical industries open.

“We cannot leave this to individual employers who need to have a laser focus on keeping their people in jobs rather than seeking legal advice.’’