Most Councils moving towards mandatory vaccination
- Details
- Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 11:00
depa supports it, the sooner the better, and no one should be going to a council counter or workplace who isn’t fully vaccinated. The evidence is now that it won’t be long before 95% of Sydney over the age of 12 will be fully vaccinated and before school returns in 2022, vaccinations will be recommended and available for kids over the age of 5.
LGNSW has been cautious, as have the other unions, concerned with the rights of individual members but, at the same time, the rights of the majority to demand a fully vaccinated workplace. That’s a difficult position to manage.
Councils have surveyed staff and found high levels of support for mandatory vaccination and deadlines are being set out into January, and potentially February, when non-vaccinated staff will be prohibited from returning to the workplace. They won’t be made redundant, their employment will be terminated by the employee refusing to accept a reasonable health and safety requirement of the employer.
The initial 10% of people claiming they won’t be vaccinated was analysed by advertising expert Dee Madigan in an episode of Gruen, and she believed that of that 10%, half of them could be won across to supporting vaccination, but it was a complete waste of time to talk to the other half.
An ultimatum to vaccinate or lose your job is pretty persuasive!
That seems to be true of local government and as we see from news reports on demonstrations of people calling for “freedom” and individual rights, and railing against discrimination, it’s an argument that for some people will be impossible to accept.
While it seems improbable that depaNews would have ever quoted Senator Jacqui Lambie, it’s hard to go past her refreshing assault on those opposing vaccination in the Senate on 22 November:
“Being held accountable for your own actions isn’t called discrimination, it’s called being...a goddam bloody adult... It’s putting others before yourself. And that’s what this country is supposed to be about”.
Go Jacqui! Timely advice with a fourth wave out of control in Europe, and now Omicron …