Wednesday, 19 June 2024

COVID-19 vaccination

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:04): (971) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health and is related to vaccine mandates for healthcare workers. The period of COVID vaccine mandates was absolutely dreadful for many Victorians. My office received hundreds or possibly thousands of calls or emails about this. In the Libertarian Party our view was always, and remains, that whether to get vaccinated or not is a personal decision, possibly involving consultation with the family doctor. Through these many calls the main reasons that people gave for not wanting to be vaccinated were that someone close to them had had a serious adverse reaction; they had complex health conditions, such as being pregnant, and had not been convinced of the safety; or they already had had COVID and did not see the point.

Despite this, Victoria maintained the general worker mandates for months, despite the vaccination rate being over 95 per cent and many people having immunity from a previous infection. Worse, though, for healthcare workers this has persisted for years – all the way into 2024. Western Australia and Queensland dropped the vaccine mandates for healthcare workers last year. New South Wales announced last month that they were scrapping them, and South Australia announced a couple of months ago that they were also scrapping them. In Victoria we have had serious issues with the healthcare workforce while still preventing trained, qualified and experienced people from going back to work. I am even aware of registered nurses travelling interstate just to work. Minister, this has gone on long enough. It is time to scrap the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for healthcare workers and let people get back to work.