Vaccine Mandates: Human Rights Destroyed by Emergency Declarations

In light of Professor Brendan Murphy’s, the Secretary Department of Health & Aged Care, evidence during the June estimates that mandates are no longer justifiable, I asked the Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, for their latest guidance on COVID vaccine mandates. Commissioner Finlay’s response was that this advice has not changed throughout the COVID response in terms of general human rights principles. What this means is that although governments can restrict individual human rights in an emergency, those restrictions need to be proportionate, non-discriminatory and targeted to risk. This goes to the heart of the problem. Decisions were made that put Australia onto an emergency footing in 2020. Yet this has dragged on beyond what is reasonable. The response has not been proportionate to the risk of the COVID infection, which the Chief Medical Officer in March of 2021 admitted was low to moderate. Discrimination remains to this day against those who exercised their right to say no to injections, despite the coercion. We must have a system in place whereby civil liberties are rightfully returned. The Australian Human Rights Commission should be at the forefront of calling for this, yet they appear to be captured, with the exception of Commissioner Finlay, who has come out strongly in support of human rights principles. Commissioner Finlay is looking forward to the COVID Inquiry that was recently announced, after the Senate approved my motion to establish an inquiry to recommend and report on the Terms of Reference for a COVID-19 Royal Commission. She sees the need not only to look at the economic and scientific impacts and advice that were given throughout the COVID response, but the human cost too. Transcript: