the vaccination situation

October 25th 2021

Over the last month, we’ve seen this situation escalate with the government expanding their vaccination mandate to include the education, health and prison worker sectors, and introducing vaccination certificates for customers (and staff) as part of the traffic light COVID-19 protection framework.

There is still a lot of grey area around exactly how far reaching the Order is and how the vaccination certificates will be policed, but at the moment, this is what we know:

• it is a choice for employees and you can not impose a “no jab no job” unless:
  • you have roles included in a government mandated vaccination Order (which continues to be expanded); or
  • have conducted a health & safety risk assessment (apparently soon to be made simpler) that shows other controls are not adequate to mitigate risk
• if (with consideration for the points above) you do identify roles that must be performed by vaccinated employees, you must start a formal process to engage and consult with the employees in these roles – the latest government announcement stated you would be legally able to terminate an unvaccinated employee with 4 weeks’ paid notice, however we’re yet to get clarity on whether that means redeployment doesn’t need to be considered, so we believe a fair, good faith process is still warranted
• this is a legal minefield with numerous intersecting and overlapping pieces of legislation including:
  • Health & Safety At Work Act
  • Privacy Act
  • Employment Relations Act
  • Bill of Rights
  • Human Rights

It is not an easy space to navigate, so we strongly encourage you to seek advice to work through it.

Category: COVID-19