COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccinations

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing about vaccinations and workers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Recently, the New South Wales Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal of an aged-care worker for refusing to have a COVID vaccination. The decision points to a building body of case law that affirms an employer's direction to employees to get a vaccination, whether COVID or flu, to be lawful and reasonable. There would be few jobs where such a direction would not be within the scope of their employment.

However, there is no law that specifically prohibits giving such a direction, nor, in general terms, is there any law that prohibits an employer responding to an employee's refusal to be vaccinated with adverse consequences, including dismissal. So far, the only state to require its health workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is Queensland. My question to the minister is:

1. Is the government now intending to make vaccinations for healthcare workers and security staff in medi-hotels mandatory in South Australia?

2. Can the minister provide figures on how many health and security workers have so far declined to have COVID vaccinations since the rollout and how many have had the vaccine?

3. Have any staff, including SA Health and security personnel, been stood down or lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:47): I believe that the Australian government's approach to the COVID-19 vaccine is well founded, particularly in its commitment to a voluntary vaccination regime. In that context, we have supported and encouraged our medi-hotel staff to be vaccinated.

In relation to Tom's Court, I am advised that all the staff are vaccinated across all the staff streams, and that is where the risk to the worker is greatest because that's the COVID-positive facility. My understanding is that to achieve that we would have been facilitating transfers of staff who didn't want to be vaccinated, so I wouldn't even call that facility mandatory vaccination.

It is certainly the case that we encourage not only all the staff in our medi-hotels but also facilitate the vaccination of their families as well, in recognition of the families' increased risk. The latest advice I have received was that all our clinical staff in the medi-hotels had been vaccinated. The importance of that is that they are the staff who are most likely to have close proximity contact, but of course they do that within the PPE requirements.

In terms of the New South Wales case and the case law that it relates to, to the extent that it's an industrial law matter, it would be a matter for the Treasurer as the Minister for Industrial Relations. It is certainly not our practice in South Australia, in relation to flu and other vaccines, to have vaccines mandatory, and there's no proposal to follow Queensland's lead and make it mandatory for all staff, if in fact that's what has happened.