06/11/2022
ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN AUSTRALIA
The very idea of a "vaccinated economy" is a pernicious concept implemented on a scale we've never seen before in Australia. As a mechanism of punishment, exclusion from this economy is far more punitive than any legally imposed fine, whilst at the same time avoiding the legal boundaries and limitations of our justice system entirely. This assigns all who are excluded from this economy, along with their dependents, to a plausibly deniable ghetto of economic disadvantage, while delivering maximum social and material punishment for refusing to comply with a government directive. No court in the land would ever approve or impose a fine of unlimited magnitude, yet deprivation or termination of paid employment does exactly this. It is worse than even a very large fine, which could be paid off over time. It is arguably even worse than a prison sentence which has a foreseeable end. Termination of employment and the imposition of barriers to re-employment, removes a person's ability to provide for their family and build a future whilst offering no support, providing no shelter, no protection or compensation for loss... and all for possibly infinite and permanent duration. For many, but particularly older workers, the loss of a job marks not just the temporary disruption of a career path, but the final termination of all paid employment. It marks the inglorious and unrewarded entry into forced (and unplanned) retirement. This constitutes an immoral injustice of soaring magnitude and it's a scathing and resounding outrage that it was actually conceived in the mind of a Victorian Premier whose political party claims to support social justice and worker's rights.
~ Allan Weatherall