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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-26 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:53): I have a question for the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister advise if there are plans from the government to lift the COVID-19 vaccination requirements for frontline health workers in South Australia? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: I recently contacted the minister on behalf of a constituent who had elected not to have a vaccination and who was unable to return to her job as a nurse. Since that time, Queensland Health has repealed all mandatory COVID vaccination requirements for its health workers, and I wondered whether the South Australian government had plans for the same.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:53): Thank you very much to the member for Narungga for his question and his advocacy on behalf of his constituents. As members will know, previously there were directions in place under the Emergency Management Act and the State Coordinator.

A number of directions were put in place for employees who had to undertake the COVID-19 vaccination to work in particular industries. That was a wide range of industries that happened at that time, and a number of those ended over the period before we ended the emergency management arrangements and even before we transitioned to those being under the Public Health Act.

We then as a parliament transitioned a number of those to the Public Health Act for a period of six months, and then, at the conclusion of that, none of those declarations and directions were in place covering particular industries. However, at that time, obviously many industries or businesses decided to take their own decisions in relation to workplace policies for occupational health and safety reasons to have directions for their own staff in place.

One of those was SA Health, which has had a vaccination policy for its staff for a very long time covering a variety of different vaccinations that staff should have. A review of that process was done led by Professor Spurrier, but obviously overseen as well by the chief executive, that updated that policy and added COVID-19 as part of that decision and that policy that was in place in relation to staff who work for SA Health. There are some health businesses that have similar policies in place; there are some that do not.

These policies are always under review by the Chief Public Health Officer, by the chief executive, and we will continue to get the public health advice on that. It's not something that we as ministers make decisions about. This is a decision that ultimately will be made by the chief executive based on advice from the Chief Public Health Officer. I understand that the majority of jurisdictions, particularly the larger jurisdictions in Australia, still have similar policies in place in relation to public health employees in states like Victoria and New South Wales. We will continue to monitor that, and I will continue to update members if there are changes that are made.

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