Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said businesses can deny services to unvaccinated Australians because they pose a “greater health risk” to the community.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Morrison said banning unvaccinated people from entry and services is “a legitimate thing” for businesses to do.
“They’re doing that to protect their own workers, to protect their other clients,” he said.
“It’s got nothing to do with ideology, or these issues around liberty.
“We all believe in freedom, but we also believe in people being healthy.
“And the simple fact is, if you’re not vaccinated you present a greater health risk to yourself, to your family, to your community, and others about you.”
Morrison has long been an advocate for the introduction of a medical apartheid in Australia, promising to restore freedoms to citizens based only on their vaccine status.
In his “pathway out of COVID-19” plan announced in early July, the Prime Minister suggested, in the “post-vaccination phase,” restrictions would ease on the condition that Australians accept the vaccination.
“Australia gets vaccinated, Australia is able to live differently,” Morrison said.
Adding, “We’ll do everything we possibly can to vaccinate the population as fast as possible… We get this done, Australia, and you can see what’s on the other side. We’ve made it very clear today what’s on the other side.
“You get vaccinated, and we get there, and all this changes,” he said.
This has always been Morrison’s plan for Australia. Before a vaccine had even been developed, the Prime Minister vowed to make the jab as “mandatory as you possibly can make it.”
Speaking in August last year with Neil Mitchell on 3AW, Morrison said medical grounds should be the only basis for avoiding the vaccine.
“I was the minister that established ‘No Jab, No Play,’ so my view on this is pretty clear,” he said.
Federal MP and Leader of the United Australia Party, Craig Kelly, described such vaccination passports as a “con job.”
Responding to news from the UK that some nations are placing an expiration date on vaccination certificates, Kelly warned vaccines are not setting us free.
“That people can still get infected and can still be spreaders despite being fully vaccinated makes vaccine passports useless and dangerously misleading.
“And now it looks like they might expire,” he said. “Not surprising given Israeli experience with ‘fading protection.’”
As daily case numbers in Israel now approach record levels, the nation is said, not only to be looking at alternative treatments, but will now require citizens to take a third dose of the vaccine.
Although 80% of adults in the country are fully vaccinated, new daily infections continue to soar, with 9,831 new cases recorded on Monday, the highest single-day figure since January 18, when 10,118 new cases were detected.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned the nation this week that the double-dosed vaccinated may be the most vulnerable to infection because they have a false sense of security.
“The most vulnerable population at the moment in a paradoxical manner – are the ones who received two vaccine doses but not the third dose,” he said.
“Why? Because they walk around feeling like they are protected because they received both doses. They do not understand that the second vaccine has faded against the ‘Delta’ – and must quickly get vaccinated with the third vaccine dose.”
Little wonder places like Austria won’t accept vaccination passports from UK travellers who received their second doses more than 270 days ago.
Of course, none of this has stopped Australian politicians from still suggesting the vaccine is our ticket to freedom. They continue to use the phrase “fully vaccinated,” despite other nations, such as Israel, demonstrating the insufficiency of just two doses.
While we lambast Premiers for setting unrealistic goals, like C0VID-zero targets after 80% vaccination thresholds are achieved, what they suggest is simply an unspoken lack of faith in the ongoing sufficiency of the vaccine to protect the population.
So, what then will vaccination passes actually achieve, aside from creating a new class of untouchables?
In the UK, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said in June, there is no justification for implementing a vaccination certification regime, saying the Government has so far failed to make any scientific case in favour of it.
“We recognise the need to formulate an effective lockdown exit, but C0VID passports are not the answer,” said William Wragg, Chair of PACAC.
“We are entirely unconvinced by the case for their introduction. Although it is a tool that is being sold as and built with the intention of being for the universal good, it has the potential to cause great damage socially and economically.
“As vaccine uptake statistics indicate, any C0VID certification system will be a discriminator along the lines of race, religion, and age,” he said.
Wragg urged the Government to scrap any idea of introducing C0VID passports, saying there is “no justification for them in the science and none in logic.”
Similar sentiments have been echoed in Australia by Federal MP George Christensen, who has vowed to oppose any attempts to have “vaccination passes that segregate Australians into the haves and have nots and denies them jobs, denies them services or denies them access to certain areas.”
“It’s wrong. It is discriminatory,” he said.
