Vaccine passport prohibitions will exclude significant numbers of hungry people from entering a supermarket.

The alternative of home deliveries comes at a significant and unaffordable cost to too many.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is but one downside!

Dan

A tad unrealistic. Almost certain I'll need a vaccine passport to get back into WA to see my sisters. 100% certain I'll need it to re-enter US or EU to see my children.

Coercion is as coercion does. I seem to recall the author achieving instant political oblivion, over highly dirigiste asset sales and public service sackings.

"Recent polls suggest most Australians support vaccine passports".

That means nothing. Australians are too frightened of dying to start living; they will do anything Big Brother tells them to do if it keeps them "safe", the poor, ignorant creatures.

I am fully vaccinated, but I will not be patronising any business that starts demanding to see 'passports', and I don't believe businesses will be doing that anyway. The UK has already dropped the idea as impractical, and only idiots will say, 'I don't want your money unless you can prove that you are vaccinated'; they have lost enough money to political and bureaucratic lunacy already.

In contrast to totalitarian Australia, the UK ditched Covid passports and will be also ditching the rest of the draconian restrictions in the near future. Australia continues to be the "medical Jim Crow", and the laughing stock, object of derision, around the world.

If Australians do actually support passports, they look pretty stupid against new research that suggests that "domestic vaccine passports increase hesitancy and distrust of governments.”

"Liberal democracy in Australia is in intensive care, while in other parts of the world, life is being breathed back into it."

Firstly I have so little respect for either of these two.

Newman rightly got turfed after a term for his nastiness and idiocy while Ruddick was one of those morons who attended an anti-lockdown rally unmasked and rightly got a $1,000 fine.

I fully support vaccine passports for the short term and probably into the medium term while we have so many people dying form a disease which is 10 times more deadly than the flu. However there should most definitely be a sunset clause.

I understand vaccinated people can get and spread the virus albeit at far less numbers than the unvaccinated. However during this pandemic I would certainly prefer to fly in an aircraft populated with fully vaccinated people and any airline which enforces this at the moment has my custom.

Arguing against vaccine passports or "green passes" as other jurisdictions call them is a tad like whining that the earth is flat.
Get over it.

Regardless of whether ScoMo will introduce it:

1. The "leaders" of WA and QLD will no doubt deny entry to anyone who cannot prove their corona status;
2. Businesses throughout Australia have the right to ensure their staff and customers are kept safe from known communicable diseases and to be sure, legislation will follow to strengthen their hand;
3. Airlines, foreign ports and possibly Australian airport facilities themselves will deny entry to those without adequate proof of their corona status; and
4. Contrary to popular mythology, we do not have the rights the anti vaxers claim we do. Last I looked we had no bill of rights.

I look forward to the Feds disallowing the un-vaccinated hospital treatment for the account of Medicare. If the socially irresponsible want the freedom not to be vaccinated, sure, let em at it. I along with others, want the freedom not to pick up their foreseeable hospital bills.

Whatever the Andrew Barrrs of this world think or believe matters not! It is what the overwhelming majority think that's worth a damn! And as recent polls have informed us, vaccine passports will become a fact of life! And thankfully so! And if the antivaxers don't like it? Tough titties!

They'd like it even less if some of us could sue them for hundreds of thousands for recklessly and knowingly threatening the lives, livelihoods, physical and mental well being of others!

That said, I don't take the annual flu shots. Given if infected I stay at home until the known incubation period, when I could infect others, is over! And because the shots on offer are usually aimed at last season's variant and have little or no effect on this seasons new strain! Other than that, have taken everything else tetanus, whooping cough, etc-etc, as my share of civic duty! If they don't like taking the vaccine?

The flu is spread by the infected who soldier on and infect the rest and breed next season's new variants.I believe they should stay at home until no longer infectious or are deceased!

And why we need to address and remove endemic generational poverty! Not with handouts but with cooperative capitalism that gives all comers a fair go! And save money elsewhere, i.e., in massively reduced energy costs and eliminating the profit demanding, paper shuffling, tax-dodging middleman, be he in private practice or some arm of a fiscally incompetent government!

I believe most of the antivaxers will come around if vaccine passports are all the go! And a good outcome given all the new variants are created in unvaccinated human or animal hosts!?
Alan B

SR the only reason you are for this is because Bully boy Danny dim sim is in charge. When the ALP lose anywhere all these regulations should be re-used against the ALP and the media. Police attacking both, bashing and ensuring bail conditions to keep them in jail. You know the drill. Let's see how you people enjoy a large dose of your own medicine.
Let them have their fun I will only give my money to non-nazi business and will remind them of that too. I would like to see supermarkets who have run for over a year without any hindrance try and comply with a passport policy.

If the text seems a little jumbled? It's because it's edited and repositioned by Grammarly? For example, >If they don't like the vaccine< was taken from somewhere else and put where it is. And my failing old eyes failed to pick it up.

Perhaps when I have the cataract removed that could change and someone somewhere will inform me or help me remove "EVER SO HELPFUL" Grammarly from my system and reinstall word perfect, which once purchased you allegedly own for life!
Alan B.

Alan B, you do not take the flu vaccine because it is based on last years virus but you want everyone forced into the Covid vaccine which is some thing they think is like the Covid dna? Wow! This Covid vaccine neither stops you getting or passing on Covid, what is the point of that?
We are being hammered hourly by politicians and the MSM of the horrors of Covid whilst the politicians get more power and the MSM get more money. Your fear astounds me, you really should get some perspective and look at the facts. Something will eventually kill you but do not focus on the fashionable boogey man. As an aside I think we are of similar vintage and I have attendant health problems as does everyone I know over 70. Let's live it up, let's tell the doomsayers to cheer up and let us vote out every sitting politician to reward them for all their current sacrifices.

JB. There's the pot calling the kettle black or you pointing to the sty in SR's eye while ignoring the plank in yours.

If you don't want the vaccine? Fine! Get everything home-delivered, stay out of the, pubs, clubs and all entertainment, all public transport options and sporting venues that require a vaccine passport, i.e., all of them! And when we include schools and school children stay away from those as well!

And when you try to socialise in the very few places still available to people with your IQ and antivaccine status? Don't be too surprised when those that can remove themselves with undue haste or as quickly as they can, almost as if you were a leper, do so?

And who could blame them, genius!

You remind me of that well-known genius, Paddy, who after having another violent and heated argument with his missus, declared, he would kill them both. And then as he put his pistol to his head, said, don't laugh you deleted expletive, you're next!
Alan B.

Ah Alan B I do hope I did not upset you? At your age too much excitement etc.
So you think 20% of the population can be monstered? Vic police are talking tough about shutting down public transport this weekend but when over fifty thousand turned up a few weeks ago the wallopers went to water and stood back. Of course they attacked the last people taking the train home but typical of bullies and cowards.
This fascism you and many others exhibit just proves what I have always thought that Labour politics is inherently National Socialist as in Hitler's last offering.
Try and calm down Alan and think things through more. If you are so frightened then you stay home and get food delivered lol.

JB. Yes, the vaccinated can still get and transfer the virus And only because we don't have fit for purpose, island-based quarantine for all infected!

The vaccine can only protect the vaccinated from the worst aspects of this killer virus and the sight not seen for the best part of a century, mass graves for the dead!

Moreover when around 95% of us are vaccinated all border restrictions can be lifted and the economy fully reopened! That's the point of the still unavailable to many, vaccine!

Yes I know, the little prick hurts a tiny little bit! And some men turn to water at the least little pain? You?

What'll you do if you need a catheter inserted to pee? Go into orbit? Pass out?

I've seen big bronzed men with tats all over Going white to the gills at the prospect of lining up for a jab! And OMG, squealing for mummy as an (OMG ) ardour buster, catheter was inserted up the (OMG) penis!

What'll you be when you eventually grow into manhood? A man or just another weak-kneed, lily-livered cow (bullyboy) ward?
Alan B.

I support the public-health FUNCTIONALITY of vaccine passports, but not the passports themselves.

99% of Australians are law-abiding, and if told for public-health reasons to not attend a certain function, then they wouldn't: the addition of 1% unvaccinated people who cheat the system (with or without passports) into a function intended only for vaccinated people, would hardly make a dent in the overall immunity, but it does of course add significantly to the personal risk of those unvaccinated people.

Even without passports, there could still be criminal and civil charges against people who were caught to falsely claim that they were vaccinated. They could be sued by the business-owners where they attended, they could be refused medical care (or made to pay for it) if they get ill, and they might have to pay all the medical bills as well as for the financial loss of those they infected. To begin with, their dishonesty is likely to cost them their ability to ever again use that service and possibly many others.

Temptations would be too high for government, should state-based COVID passports are issued, to stop there and not use them for other purposes once the pandemic is over. That would make the return to normal freedoms more difficult once public-health conditions allow and would also further advance the proliferation and dependence on digital technology.

As SteeleRedux mentioned, this whole situation will not stay with us forever, so let us make sure that none of its harmful side-effects remain with us for any longer than need be.

Hi Jonathan J. Ariel,
"I look forward to the Feds disallowing the un-vaccinated hospital treatment for the account of Medicare. If the socially irresponsible want the freedom not to be vaccinated, sure, let em at it. I along with others, want the freedom not to pick up their foreseeable hospital bills."

Well I haven't cost the country a single cent in covid testing or vaccines, and I haven't caught or spread covid.
Do I get some kind of financial rebate?

What about a different financial model?
How about a $5000 fine if you catch Covid and an extra $5000 fine for everyone who you spread it to?

And say I don't have the vaccine and are therefore ineligible for healthcare, will that mean I won't have to feel any moral responsibility to give blood when all the other blood is tainted by vaccines?

Also is it ok for me to discriminate against the vaccinated?

Alan B, wow you really do get overexcited mate. I have had plenty of jabs over the last few years. This one is new and has bugger all to recommend it. Covid is not the bogeyman you obviously got yourself into a lather thinking it is. One of the common cold viruses which will take you out if you are very old and very sick. I noted that two 80 year old in Sydney were Asymptomatic so not the the black death mate. Fatalities of less than one per cent?
Calm down Alan this is a minor hiccup. Remember we are all in this together but some of us are in it deeper.

The government paid 98 billion in Jobkeeper, and for many of those companies it was just an extra dividend to shareholders.
What about the mothballed 90 billion submarine plan?

You want people to go without healthcare?
When the government itself failed every single person in the country with it's ill-conceived quarantine policies?

What if I have private health cover?
Can I still tell them to stick their deadly vaccines?
Or is my private cover not worth a cent now, since they may not let me into the building unvaccinated?

Honestly, I think it's all kind of amusing actually.
How many tens of millions, has government spent trying to make a stand against bullying and discrimination?
And now you chuck all that out the window;
- With a new policy that openly supports bullying and discrimination.

And why, because it doesn't want us to choose for ourselves whether or not to take experimental vaccines or have the option of taking other FDA approved medications that could reduce the severity.

As a side note, I don't know why the governments getting all bent out of shape over home-grown neo-nazis.

Especially since the government and it's own policies are turning all the leaders into a bunch of little Hitlers.

Here's Jacqui Lambie, saying she's coming for the unvaccinated lock, stock and barrel.
http://twitter.com/RodneyNCulleton/status/1436665308748546049

Is that some kind of threat where she's going to have the government shoot me, if I don't take the vaccine?
I think it is and you know why?
- Because if I said I was coming after them lock, stock and barrel, they'd argue that I'm making threats and I'd be in jail.

The country is become filled up with little Furers.

AC

Write all that on a flyer in over two hundred languages, and I’ll see that it’s distributed widely in the Western suburbs of Sydney.

Obviously the deeper problem for Governments is their inability of dealing with the monster of their own making, multiculturalism.

It’s easy to see unacceptable outcomes on all sides, through the porthole of Covid restrictions.

One of them you will not be shown on the square box of lies, are the homeless families in increasing numbers, living in tents on the front lawns of their previously rented accommodation, evicted from their public housing estates for not paying the rent.
Note here, public housing, which is Government supplied social housing.

The homelessness in the Western suburbs since the lockdown, has become the new epidemic. Hardly a park in the neighbourhood not occupied by homeless groups including women and children.

The police response has been full of mercy (not), as the homeless are moved on daily like a herd of sheep.

Be sure your objections will be treated with the same divorced disregard for your welfare. Be careful.

Dan

Obesity is a bigger downstream killer than this virus, and even a major risk factor for this virus. Surely if we're gonna have medical discrimination, it should be for anyone with a BMI over 30?

Thanks Campbell Newman and John Ruddick- We are blessed to have high quality contributors on OLO. Thanks for your article- it shows courage in an age of double speak. Thanks again.

If you need a good engineer Hasbeen sounds like he has a good skillset.

diver dan- I wasn't aware of the widespread homelessness in Sydney. Surely there needs to be a better solution than the police moving people on- in perpetual abuse. I'd like to see these resources put to better use. Give them an opportunity to grow in a direction of their choice if they put in the effort.

JBowyer and SilverInCanberra as well as many others making good contributions- Kudos

Steele Redux said- I understand vaccinated people can get and spread the virus albeit at far less numbers than the unvaccinated.

Answer- I was of the understanding that vaccinated people spread the virus at more or less the same rate as unvaccinated but I'll need to brave the contentious literature on this. It seems if anything the only people affected by not vaccinating is the ICU wards and the person themselves- there are also side effects of the vaccine to be considered- and the political dimension.

The Political Dimension.
No new strains would hit Australia if they created a hygenic seal around Australia's borders- and over time the current strains would die out with some quarantine measures. But the politicians are unwilling to take the necessary actions affecting a small number of people at the borders and prefer to impact a large number of people internally within Australia.

Armchair,

You mention that you don't cost the gov money by not being testsed.
Great point. Someone should look at the sweet deal private path labs have by rcvg $82.50 for each covid test they perform or claim to perform, with as I understand, no turnaround stipultions. I know of folk waiting 5 days for a result from a private lab and only 1 day when the test was performed in a public hospital. And thw private lab is paid double what the public hospital rcvs for the same test.

You also query

"is it ok for me to discriminate against the vaccinated"?

I suspect the answer is "yes" as vaccinations are not protected as far as I know under so called Human Rights or Anti Discrimination laws.

Works quite well in many EU nations e.g. Austria the original home of von Hayek and allows both business and society to open up in a safe manner (with FFP2 masks in public buildings, transport etc.).

Many workplaces including education demand vaccinated teachers/students then EU Cov cert. paper or smartphone based, and negative Covid tests for unvaccinated who must mask up (cafes, bars, hotels etc. also demand vaccination certificate)

Clever little nudge or carrot too, the Covid tests have been free from the state like vaccinations, now they ask user pay EUR28; economically sensible, ensuring responsibility and reducing state expenditure.

Dear Andras,

I understand and accept the epidemiological need to have different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

While some epidemiological requirements are absolute, such as the case with borders and quarantine, where the virus/variant is either in the community or is not, no shades of grey, the requirement to have different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people is only statistical - its purpose is to reduce the risk of unvaccinated people infecting other unvaccinated people, thus overwhelming hospitals.

What allows Austria to safely open business and society are therefore the rules, rather than their strictest enforcement at all costs. Nothing too significant would happen if 2-3 unvaccinated people managed to slip through and enter an unvaccinated function (which probably happens even despite the passports). While reasonable moderate enforcement measures might still be needed (should simple goodwill and trust on its own fail to work), the situation does not warrant such monstrous technology, that is worse even than the virus and which will be hard to get rid of even once the pandemic is over.