National cabinet has agreed that all states and territories will integrate vaccine certificates in their check-in apps. But as for how and when they will be implemented, and how they will be used is unclear. Will vaccine passports be the way of opening up business to the fully vaccinated, and at the same time excluding the unvaccinated. Both business and government seem keen on the idea. As governments have been cherry-picking various industries/groups to be mandatorily vaccinated it is only a small step, when the vast majority are fully vaccinated, to compulsorily order the remaining unvaccinated, who do not have legitimate health reasons, to get the jab.

Elsewhere i.e. states in the EU, no vaccination = no access, but a universal EU standard of certification had been agreed for smart phone app and/or paper based inc. QR code; no one is on the street demonstrating against science and technology or anti-enlightenment values.

This has allowed businesses, entertainment and travel to open up in the EU Schengen Zone, thanks to vaccine supply, logistics and delivery (with high vaccination rates) versus Australia where any system was (like the UK and US), has been an afterthought to be avoided or smothered with other news 'noise'.

If epidemiological science finds that unvaccinated people should not attend certain places, then I have no problem with it.

However, the social and mental damage of sowing mistrust among people, forcing them to seek proofs from each other that they are not lying, will create far more damage than what the few unvaccinated people who might flout the rules could possibly cause [primarily to each other].

This obviously does not preclude police from conducting random checks, just like the tax office does, but most people are honest and should be assumed to be honest unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Honest vaccinated people, which are fast becoming the overwhelming majority, should not be humiliated by being mistrusted or by being required to carry such filthy digital items.

One's word of honour should suffice.

Yuyutsu, just another example of rhetorical tricks based upon opinion:

'Honest vaccinated people, which are fast becoming the overwhelming majority, should not be humiliated by being mistrusted or by being required to carry such filthy digital items.

One's word of honour should suffice.'

How is it humiliating to confirm vaccination via 'filthy digital items'? Conversely, how does this encourage further take up of vaccinations and/or deter people from falsely claiming to be vaccinated?

Simply illogical and Orwellian..... yet under the guise of libertarian LNP values we are happy to spend billions to implement mandatory detention and regulations to promote the existential, not real, threat of refugees and border security?

Dear Andras,

First, regarding your last paragraph, I have no idea why you brought the subject of refugees: I definitely oppose the shameful way Australia detains and mistreats refugees, but what has this to do with the topic at hand?

My point was about government placing a wedge between people - and I was not referring to the unfortunate physical-distancing wedge that is sadly, but temporarily, required to defeat the virus, but to a further wedge of mistrust that places emotional barriers as well between ordinary people, a wedge which will be difficult to heal even long after the pandemic is ended. While denying direct human interaction on both levels, government wants to fill this gap with digital tricks, which I believe are more dangerous and harmful than the virus itself.

I am not that worried about COVID itself - we obviously need to deal with it, but one day it will be over. I am much more concerned with the indirect damage to our well-being, which goes far beyond the biological illness and death caused by the virus itself. Apart from distancing and causing mistrust between ordinary people, the pandemic has also accelerated the proliferation and dependence on unwholesome and unnatural digital technology. This could save lives on the biological level, but draws the carpet under the reasons to have a life in the first place, it sets the clock closer to the time when machines will rule the world and humans become dispensable.