Vaccine passports ‘to leave Aussies divided’

Scott Morrison is being warned the introduction of domestic vaccine passports may create two classes of citizens.

Scott Morrison at Melbourne healthtech company Planet Innovation on Thursday. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Scott Morrison is being warned the introduction of domestic vaccine passports may create two classes of citizens, as he vows to continue working with the states on a plan to exempt fully vac­cinated Australians from COVID restrictions.

Business groups joined the premiers of NSW and Queensland on Thursday in criticising the idea, which the Prime Minister has this week been promoting. Under the plan, states would waive snap lockdown and border closure restrictions on people who had received their coronavirus jabs.

“Say if you booked a trip to Cairns and you wanted to be able to come back home into Melbourne after you‘ve had that holiday up in Cairns, then you’d be able to come back to Victoria and not get stopped at the border,” Mr Morrison told 3AW radio.

But Restaurant and Catering chief executive Wes Lambert said a domestic vaccine passport system “would be very cumbersome” and create more red tape during the pandemic that would treat Australians differently based on their vaccination status.

“We need an open country, an open economy and the government has been requesting we holiday here this year — it’d be very difficult for us to support further red tape that would stop Australians from travelling within their own country and the potential to create two classes of Australian citizens,” he said.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox questioned if Australia had “given up on the idea” of being one country, saying the internal borders should be fully and permanently lifted “once we are open for business”.

“Haphazardly enforced and potentially inconsistent border passports would be another government-inspired nightmare for the community and business alike,” he said.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry acting chief executive Jenny Lambert said the scheme could act as an important incentive to get vaccinated but it should not be seen as a passport, which was a document with a strong national identity.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. People can already print out a certificate of vaccination through their myGov account, which should be acceptable in any state or territory as a person’s ‘vaccination card’,” she said. “Vaccinated people present a lower risk of symptomatic transmission and are protected from serious illness, which means they shouldn’t be inhibited by the same restrictions.”

The Australian revealed on Thursday that NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was against the domestic vaccine proposal because she believed people should be able to move freely around the country irrespective of whether they were immunised.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she and Ms ­Berejiklian were “one on this” as she asked how such a passport would work.

Mr Morrison insisted the idea was not “dead in the water”.