“The only people who need protection from discrimination are people who can’t receive the vaccination for reasons outside of their control.
“But if you’re able to get vaccinated and you choose not to,discrimination is the wrong word. That’s not discrimination. You have freedom to make a choice,but if you make a choice,those choices have consequences.”
Senator Lambie said people who worked with vulnerable people needed a police check,taxi drivers needed to get licenses and it was not discrimination to expect some workers to be vaccinated.
“That is the way it is and we do that to keep people safe. How about that? We put others before ourselves,” she said.
In a separate dispute,a Senate committee is urging the government to allow more scrutiny of emergency decisions such as the closure of the international border last year,an order that did not have any mechanism for a vote in Parliament to consider the move.
The Senate committee,chaired by Senator Fierravanti-Wells with Labor senator Kim Carr as deputy chairman,wants Mr Morrison to make sure future orders are “disallowable instruments” that can guarantee oversight and trigger votes in Parliament,but the governmenthas rejected the suggestion.
With tempers flaring in Parliament’s final fortnight for the year,Labor accused Mr Morrison of failing to condemn the violence at last week’s demonstrations against vaccine mandates and trying to appeal to the protestors with his sympathy for those who wanted an end to the rules.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said Mr Morrison was using “doublespeak” when he criticised restrictions in Queensland that required people to show their vaccine certificates to go to cafes and other venues when this was part of the national plan agreed by Mr Morrison and state premiers.
“Measures have been put in place by governments,Labor and Liberal,state governments across the board,” he said.
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With Labor backing vaccine rules while conservative parties such as One Nation railed against them,Mr Morrison set out a position that endorsed the rules for some situations but argued against mandates for all employers.
“If venues,businesses,airlines,other places of work seek to require of their employees to be vaccinated,they have that right under the law,” Mr Morrison told Parliament.
“But it is not the Commonwealth government’s policy that they should be told to do that.
“Wherever that is in the country,that is not the government’s policy.
“We support mandatory vaccines for health workers,for aged care workers,for disability workers,those who are working with vulnerable people.
“But when it comes to what happens in somebody’s business,we believe business should make that decision and shouldn’t be told by the government what they should be doing.”
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