Australia’s vaccine passport plans face resistance in the ACT
Residents of New South Wales and Victoria will require vaccine passports to enter pubs and major events, but those living in the nation’s capital of Canberra will not.
On Thursday the Australian Capital Territory chief minister, Andrew Barr, decisively split from a commonwealthbacked plan for vaccine certificates, warning of technical, policy and philosophical objections to requiring them to take part in economic and social life.
Barr’s comments raise the prospect that in a few short months unvaccinated Australians will have vastly different rights depending on their jurisdiction of residence.
Scott Morrison has supported the concept of vaccine passports on the basis unvaccinated people are more of a health risk.
On Wednesday the federal tourism minister, Dan Tehan, confirmed the government was developing a QR code system of vaccine certificates to be used both for international travel and events including sport and theatre.
Barr told reporters in Canberra he had raised concerns at national cabinet although no formal decision had been taken about the rights to be conferred on vaccinated Australians.
Barr is concerned that the ACT’s Check-In CBR app does not verify the identity of its users and cannot be used to guarantee vaccine status. The apps in Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory use the same source code as the ACT’s.
Digital services ministers are undertaking a “design sprint” to build vaccine certificates into the apps, in one stream for those jurisdictions, and a second for those states where the apps are used to confirm the users’ identity (NSW, Victoria and South Australia).
Barr suggested the Check-In CBR app could be modified to allow people to download their commonwealth vaccination certificate from the MyGov or Medicare app, but indicated the ACT government would not require businesses to check vaccine status.
Barr said in the territory vaccine certificates were “a solution looking for a problem”.
“We don’t need the QR code and vaccine passports to drive up vaccination rates. It’s not an issue in the ACT. I understand it might be in other jurisdictions and they might pursue it.”
Barr said the other possible justification was to “give vaccinated people freedom before others” but the ACT would not do so, arguing by the time it reached the 80% fully vaccinated mark it would take less than a week to offer those who had first doses their second dose.
He said there were “human rights issues” in refusing services to unvaccinated people, and ruled out doing so for public services.
Barr said individual businesses might insist on seeing that customers had been vaccinated, but ACT Health would not be enforcing that.
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In NSW the government is preparing to require people to have vaccine passports to enter high-risk venues including stadiums, theatres and pubs.
On Thursday the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said that vaccine passports would combine with the QR code system making it easier to “police venues” such as retail outlets and hospitality venues.
“If you want to go and buy something which is regarded as a non-essential shop, you will put up the QR code and if it is not a green light saying you have been vaccinated, you won’t be welcome inside,” she told reporters in Sydney.
“We are giving venues plenty of notice and businesses plenty of notice, they can prepare for what that looks like.”
On Thursday the Victorian health minister, Martin Foley, acknowledged that the promise of international travel and re-engaging in “commercial, social and cultural life” were encouraging vaccination.
“The critical role for government is having systems in place firstly to get as many vaccinated as possible and then to have those foolproof and fair systems that can demonstrate who is and isn’t vaccinated,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
Foley suggested the state would soon have “a vaccinated economy, a vaccinated cultural life, a vaccinated world operating for those who can demonstrate they are fully and safely vaccinated”.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, declined to say whether vaccine certificates would be needed in future.
“At the moment we don’t have Delta in our community so anyone can go along and see [a major event],” she said.
Palaszczuk said the issue would be discussed further at national cabinet and the Queensland government was still working through the technological issue of how the check-in app could show vaccination status.