“No Jab, No Job”: Is Bureaucratic Rule By Decree Superseding Constitutional Guarantees?

All employees and their customers turning up to work or shop in New South Wales today will have to sign in via the government’s mandated QR codes.

This is despite the concept of contact tracing having no known medical value and the fact that current mandates have not been voted into law by way of parliamentary procedure.

COVID-19 mandates are rule by decree. These mandates are enforceable by law but are not a law.  

Mandates are issued by way of “emergency powers.” Subjecting the people to the whim of an unelected “expert class.” In our current context, this means the authoritarianism of an unelected health bureaucracy.

After a lengthy search there appears to have been no specific legislation concerning QR (Quick Response) code electronic surveillance – or even masks – put to the general public. In other words, sent through the normal channels for the rigorous debate, and approval of elected representatives.

Is this a step further towards mandatory vaccinations?

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in favour of the idea, advocating in an early July appearance on the Channel 7’s ‘The Morning Show’, “We’ve basically got to say: you can’t get on a plane unless you’ve been vaccinated, you can’t go to the movies if you haven’t been vaccinated.”

Turnbull is being true to form. His government brought in the “no vax, no play, no pay” rule. This removed “conscientious objection as an exemption” from all forms of vaccination.

His website boasts of how in 2015 (extended in 2018) he weaponised welfare and “incentivised” the vaxx by removing government support from parents who chose not to vaccinate their children – including the removal of the family tax benefit; compensation used to ease the burden of the Goods and Services tax.

Malcolm’s big on compulsory compliance, and so it seems, nanny-state government overreach.

Turnbull appears to be okay with throwing out the constitution, by-passing doctor/patient relationships, informed consent, any form of increasingly viable treatment options, and setting a totalitarian precedent with Government prescribed medical procedures.

His ‘no jab, no play, no pay’ model is manifested in the ‘no jab, no job’ option from the government Turnbull once led.

This might explain Malcolm’s frustration with the Morrison government’s hesitancy to go full Malcolm.

There’s a reason Malcolm Turnbull was replaced.

Malcolm’s frustration with Morrison is about what’s right for Malcolm, not what’s right for the Australian people.

The current government must know that it is political suicide to kill fundamental freedoms, through an iron-fisted – consequences be damned – mandatory COVID-19 vaccination of everyone who didn’t need it, or want it.

Any reach for Malcolm’s institutionalised mechanism on mandatory vaccinations to include COVaxx will potentially kill the LNP’s re-election chances.

Speaking with GAP leader and former Western Australian Senator, Rodney Culleton, Constitution Watch editor, Darren Dickson, said that “a lot of people are feeling that they are being forced to accept certain medical services.”

For those looking for Constitutional protections against Government overreach, Dickson explained how Section 51, 23A of the Australian constitution applies.

Section 51, 23A grants “powers to parliament to make laws for the ‘peace, order and good government,’ in respect to medical and dental services, but so as not to impose any form of civil conscription.”

“This goes back,” Dickson said, “to 1946. Australia had a referendum and the people voted for this to be inserted into the constitution; it provides a medical protection that I know a lot of people are looking for.”

He adds, “certain forced medical procedures have been interpreted by the High Court of Australia as civil conscription…the doctor/patient relationship cannot be penetrated; it’s voluntary. It’s by your consent and no third party can get involved. Not even the government.”

This means, “the government cannot provide any legal or practical compulsion for you to accept a medical procedure,” without your consent.

Any violation of this, Dickson argued, could be considered “assault.”

The 2020 interview also laid out arguments against mandatory vaccination based on court cases already settled by the High Court, whereby the Commonwealth cannot “write any laws, so as to impose immunisation or vaccination upon the people of Australia.”

The constitutional guarantee extends to State governments, who can be challenged by Section 109 of the constitution: “When a law is inconsistent with the law of the Commonwealth the latter shall prevail, the former is invalidated.”

With regards to Quick Response (QR code) contact tracing, Dickson said, “they’re an encroachment of civil liberties. For one, it’s forcing me to carry a mobile phone, which is not law. Secondly, it’s asking the business to impose this on the customer, which compromises the Privacy Act, Section 94H.”  

Worth adding: in its outline, guidance for individuals and business, the Australian Government’s CYBER Security Centre considers the QR code system to be hazardous.

1. “Scanning a QR code which directs you to a non-government website requesting your name, phone number and email address, could result in your personal contact information being used for marketing or criminal purposes.”
2. “…it is quick and easy for criminals to generate QR codes as part of attempts to obtain your personal information, usually by causing your smartphone to visit a harmful website, install a malicious app or join an untrustworthy Wi-Fi network.”

Dickson’s explanation begs the question: Are constitutional guarantees the reasons why rule by representative democracy is being replaced with rule by unelected bureaucratic decree?

The fine print matters.

All of which is worth thinking about, as you’re forced to tell the government where you are, what you’re doing, and in some suburbs, why you’re there.

Related: Scott Morrison Says Vaccine Will Be ‘As Mandatory As You Can Possibly Make It’