NSW Police Commissioner says officers won't force businesses to comply with vaccine passport
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said that officers under his command will not force private businesses to comply with any measures that the government plans to impose on unvaccinated citizens.
As Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews prepares to institute a vaccine mandate for all authorized workers, another Australian state is refusing to enforce the state’s vaccine passport mandate.
Earlier this week, the police commissioner of New South Wales refused to enforce the state’s vaccine passport mandate, stating that officers will not check anyone’s vaccination status in public venues. The move appears to go against efforts by the government to pass a mandate that would ban all unvaccinated people from gaining entry to restaurants and other public spaces until at least early December.
In recent weeks Australia has come under increasing scrutiny for its brutal enforcement of pandemic-related lockdowns and masking policies, as extensively reported by Rebel News.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said that officers under his command will not force private businesses to comply with any measures that the government plans to impose on unvaccinated citizens.
“The role of police in terms of vaccine passports, we will not be walking through restaurants, cafes and pubs checking if people are double vaccinated,” he said, the Guardian reported.
Speaking on Sydney radio, the police chief said, “the police will assist restaurant owners and shop owners if they are refusing entry to someone — we’ll certainly respond to assist those people.”
However, Fuller’s remarks were later contradicted by NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, who remarked that “If the law says you have to be double vaccinated, then, of course, the police will enforce that, they have no choice but to enforce that.”
Hazzard also stated that businesses would not face fines if they allowed the entry of an unvaccinated person. When pressed on why businesses would even bother to enforce the vaccine passport mandate if they don’t face any consequences for refusing to enforce it, Hazzard fired back at the media for obsessing over the details.
Much like France, not too many Australian businesses are too keen on implementing the heavy-handed requirement on their customers, with many businesses waiting to see the exact details of the forthcoming public health orders expected to drop in the coming weeks.
Despite efforts to resist vaccine mandates, some companies like national airline Qantas, have announced a ban on unvaccinated persons on international flights.
“What needs to be remembered is that there are many, many businesses who will actually make it very clear that as at 1 December, if you haven’t been vaccinated, you won’t be welcome and I think the airlines have made that very clear,” said Hazzard. “There are a lot of other businesses saying the same thing and I think people need to understand that a balancing act had to be struck.”
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