We’re told in the media that ‘vaccine’ mandates are over, yet my office hears from many Australians who are refused employment or threatened with being sacked from their jobs unless they take two, sometimes three jabs. What is the current guidance on mandates in the health sector? Department of Health has no particular view and says it can be the employer’s individual decision — there is no national policy or vaccine mandate in place. The Minister has not heard of anyone, including nurses, being sacked recently.
The terms of reference inquiry for a potential COVID Royal Commission involved witnesses who gave this testimony. Despite an alarming shortage of nurses and other healthcare workers, skilled and willing staff are being rejected for their decision based on informed consent. We hear from many healthcare workers and others from across Australia who are still faced with the ‘no jab, no job’ discrimination to this day.
This looks very much like the rule of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” is being applied by the Minister and the health department. Until they take responsibility and offer a position around employers’ choices over applying mandates there will continue to be a ‘free for all’ on the use of coercion and discrimination to the detriment of individuals and our health care services.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Turning to vaccine mandates—COVID injections—while the media are being fed a line that vaccine mandates are over, my electorate office is getting reports from health workers who are being refused re-employment for not having two COVID injections. What is the health department’s current guidance on vaccine mandates for employment in the health sector?
Prof. Singer : Apologies, Senator. Could you—
Senator ROBERTS: Do you want me to repeat the question?
Prof. Singer : Yes, please.
Senator ROBERTS: While the media are being fed a line that vaccine mandates are over, my electorate office is getting reports from health workers who are being refused re-employment—some have even been sacked in the last two weeks—for not having two COVID injections. What’s the health department’s current guidance on vaccine mandates for employment in the health sector?
Prof. Singer : I’ll just need to look that up. I believe that there may be some in relation to aged care, but we don’t have any particular view on mandates generally. Obviously, they are individual agreements between employers and employees. There is no national mandate as such, to my knowledge.
Senator ROBERTS: Does it bother you, Minister, that there are some state health departments, including Queensland, where nurses are being sacked for not having their two injections and for choosing to go on their informed consent?
Senator McCarthy: I’m unaware of that. Of course, it would be a concern that they can raise in each jurisdiction. But, as the Acting Chief Medical Officer has said, there is no national policy in place on that.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s move to good manufacturing practice. I have just two questions left. At the last estimates, I tried to get to the bottom of whether every batch of Pfizer COVID injections was made using good manufacturing processes. If they were not, that may explain the huge variance in adverse events between batches. If they were made with good manufacturing processes, there is another cause we really need to understand for the huge number of excess deaths. In your answer on notice, you did not answer the question, but you gave me a list of entries in your manufacturing information database. This is a little confusing, because your answer does not allow me to check good manufacturing process certificates off against batch numbers. What your data tells me is that all of these good manufacturing process certificates were issued as a result of a desktop audit rather than an in-person inspection, which means you took the manufacturers’ word for it based on whatever it was they sent you. Is that correct?
Prof. Lawler : Thank you for the question. I would just highlight that we’ve received these questions regarding the batch testing of vaccines and the associated release a number of times before, and we’ve answered these questions—most recently, I think, SQ23-002145. Those answers are clearly on the record.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s not the one I have. Secondly, there are 44 good manufacturing process certificates for all COVID vaccines, yet there are 410 batches listed in your COVID vaccine batch release assessment. Some of those are duplications and some, admittedly, are for AstraZeneca, but the number seems off. Can you please give me on notice a full list of Pfizer batch numbers and the corresponding good manufacturing process—or is it true that good manufacturing process was only used from the bivalent vaccines onwards?
Prof. Lawler : Thank you for the question. I’m happy to either take that on notice or to return to that under outcome 1.8 when my—
Senator ROBERTS: Perhaps you could take it on notice.
Prof. Lawler : Absolutely.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
