I’d like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Roberts and indicate to the chamber that I will be supporting his amendments because I support workers’ rights. A fundamental right of every Australian should be to earn a livelihood to support their family. That should be a basic right. In fact, it’s a right we have signed up to in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. One of the enshrined human rights that we as a country have signed up to is the right to work to provide for your family. With the introduction of vaccine mandates last year, we denied that right to thousands of Australians who were thrown out onto the streets and had no way to provide for their families, in the short term at least.
The mandates were never justifiable. Even I thought at the time that there was no evidence that the vaccine stopped transmission. Really, the only justification you could have to overturn and override that fundamental human right would be if somehow getting the vaccine protected a third party. I said at the time, and I’ll say now that if we had a vaccine that could stop COVID in its tracks and prevent that death, I would consider some limitations on other rights. That’s the way rights work. There is a right to life, as well. Sometimes we have to weigh these different human rights up. But if it wasn’t apparent a year ago, it is clearly and starkly evident today that, for whatever the merits of the coronavirus vaccines, they do not stop transmission. Someone’s else not having the vaccine is of no risk to you or anybody else in our society, and we know that now because we’ve largely got rid of mandates, in any case. They’re gone, largely, but they are not completely removed. They still exist in the resources sector, where I come from in Central Queensland, where people have been locked out from their jobs because some companies have dug their heels in, if you like, and are maybe embarrassed to back down on the very strong stances they took a year ago that have proven to be wrong.
We have an opportunity, when we’re debating this type of legislation, to protect the rights of workers and to protect the rights of individual Australians to provide for their families. There can be no justification now to continue these mandates. Keep in mind, too, that even if you supported the mandates—I’ve never seen a mandate for a booster; I actually don’t know. I think some health authorities might, but all of the mandates I’ve seen in private companies are for the original two shots. For anyone who took the original two shots on the timeline for most of us—that is, by late last year—they’ve already worn out. We know that from the science. The science says that, after 12 months—well, after six months really, but after 12 months definitely—there is no more impact of those first two shots.
So, if you thought this was an issue or if these private companies thought there was a risk, why aren’t they mandating the third shot—the booster—or a fourth shot? They’re not doing that because they’d lose a lot of their workers if they did. These have no basis in science. All they are doing is hurting Australian families—admittedly fewer than last year. Thankfully, most of these mandates, as I say, have gone. The state governments have largely got rid of them in their laws, but there are still people being hurt by this. There are still people being harmed by it. They have no justification. I will once again stand up for the right of all Australian workers to make decisions about their health care when it doesn’t affect the health of others.
