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SPC and the Mandating Vaccines for Safety

by Dr Rob Long 13 Comments

SPC and the Mandating Vaccines for Safety

imageThe purpose of the WHS Act is to ensure a safe workplace. The Act states:

Part 1, Division 1.2: 3 Object

1.(a)  protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety and welfare through the elimination or minimisation of risks arising from work or from specified types of substances or plant; 


2. In furthering subsection (1) (a), regard must be had to the principle that workers and other persons should be given the highest level of protection against harm to their health, safety and welfare from hazards and risks arising from work or from specified types of substances or plant as is reasonably practicable.

17. Management of risks

A duty imposed on a person to ensure health and safety requires the person—

(a)  to eliminate risks to health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable; and 


(b)  if it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate risks to health and safety, to minimise those risks so far as is reasonably practicable. 


Subdivision 2.1.2 What is reasonably practicable

(a) the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring; and

(b) the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk;

(c) what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about—

(i)  the hazard or the risk; and 


(ii)  ways of eliminating or minimising the risk; and 


(d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk; and

(e) after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk—the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

Division 2.2 Primary Duty of Care

19. Primary Duty of Care

(2) A person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking.

In the light of COVID 19, how can a Business ‘ensure a safe workplace’ if the benefits of vaccination outweigh the negative trade-offs?

We learned this week through the precedent set in the case of SPC, that mandating vaccines for workers will probably be normalised in Australian workplaces.

The real issue at the heart of this article is NOT the issue of ‘mandate’ but the issue of consultation. The CEO of SPC stated regarding the outcome of the investigation: ‘We’re really pleased. We thought we’d done the right thing’ echoing the moral and ethical obligations placed on employers under the Act. Other workplaces have also mandated vaccines as a term of employment.

At the foundation of the QHS Act and Regulation is a social, moral, ethical and political responsibility on employers to ensure a safe workplace. There is no ambiguity in what this implies for employers, regardless of what an individual may consider their ‘personal liberties’.

Work Health and Safety is always a balancing Act of what is collectively ‘good’ despite what is deemed an individual ‘good’. In this case the idea that individual rights can be claimed against the ‘common good’. What a shame the AIHS BoK on Ethics doesn’t discuss the notion of common good, social contract or collective personhood, not surprisingly leaving the industry in a state of confusion.

Some legal advice can be found here:

Some interesting times ahead.

Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Rob Long says

    Hi grumpy, i realise the nicotene analogy is not about mandated ingestion but rather there a host of mandates about passive smoking (based on the evidence) that we accept and regulate. eg. you can’t smoke in a plane and if you try, even in the toilets you will be disciplined and banned from flying.
    I find it odd how this issue of mandating something for the common good is all of a sudden made an emotive issue re vaccinations when a host of other things that are mandated and regulated are accepted without question. eg. mandated vaccinations for children.
    Where did all this nonsense about individual freedom and autonomy come from, charged with so much irrational rhetoric?
    Of course there will be compensation if something goes wrong but that doesn’t negate the benefit of all that is good about the mandate.
    When I was a kid we kids in our class in calipers, kids died from measles etc. Our parents didn’t balk for one second to eradicate polio.
    It’s so strange how the anti-vaxxers don’t seem to have a problem with other substances being put in their bodies with disastrous consequences eg. sugar, a toxin and the cost of obesity to the health system and economy is crazy, but we accept sugar, alcohol and ingest them at will but now we freak out about 5mls of a vaccine to help manage an epidemic? Selective health and safety at its best.
    As you can see I keep adding organisational mandates to this post because for most they understand the notion of corporate and social responsibility as good business.

    Reply

  4. grumpy says

    Hi Rob
    Playing devil’s advocate, what is the businesses exposure to risk if a mandated vaccination causes an adverse reaction given that the manufacturer’s of these drugs have been granted liability exemptions?
    Are companies treating a petty risk given that, according to NSW Health as at 19 Oct there have been close to 19 million tests administered with a total of 72,000 cases (i.e. positive tests, not necessarily symptomatic and/or infectious) a total of 0.4 positives per test.
    In addition, 67% of the total deaths have occurred are in the over 70 age group (i.e. likely no longer working and therefore outside the scope of the WHS Act).
    There is still no data available to make the claim that the benefits of the vaccines (can still contract and pass on COVID) outweigh the risks (adverse reactions, breakthrough infections and deaths).
    An interesting time ahead for many in the safety and legal industries, I guess.

    Reply

    • Rob Long says

      I’m sure the devil would be pleased with your proposition, ha ha.

      At the foundation of Covid is a very ethical problem concerning personhood, social identity and suffering. These matter transcend the mathematical or statistical machinations of undisclosed philosophies of utility, pragmatics and political expedience. We also have to balance the dialectics of precautionary principle, scientific community and social accountability in political governance.

      At this stage the experts in the field of epidemiology and virology are favouring the benefits of vaccines over the risks and this is supported by those responsible for health systems. Risk is always about trade-offs and by-products in many senses, not least of which is political risk. Such matters are not a mathematical issue or even a rational issue because they involve various forms of enactment that what is known at the time according to current knowledge. Much of this depends on one’s methodology/philosophy and how one views the nature of community, power and personhood.

      We all live with many ‘mandates’ for the social/common good and don’t debate them much. Much of this depends on the way the media amplifies or attenuates the debate according to the agenda of people like Rupert Murdoch or others with vested interests. Propaganda and misinformation is doing hot business at the moment.

      I saw a course advertised by the AIHS recently where a safety person proposed to make the complex simple. Pretty much sums up the naivety of the industry to a wicked problem. The sheer idea of promoting such a seminar says much about an industry that hasn’t much of a clue what to do about the ethics of mandates.

      Reply

      • grumpy says

        I totally agree that COVID is a wicked problem and there can be no way to determine the effectiveness of the measures that have been tried so far.
        My concern with personhood is the autonomy of the human body. Most of the other mandates we live with ‘for the common good’ have not impinged on this autonomy.
        Is it ethical to force a person to undergo an experimental treatment with the threat of loss of livelihood or the inability to participate in society? (despite all the MSM and CHO statements, all vaccines currently available in Aust have only provisional approval from the TGA.)
        What is the difference if my employer threatens me with the sack if I refuse to have sex with him or threatens me with the sack if I refuse the vaccine. Both involve sticking something in me that I don’t want to have.
        Propaganda and misinformation is doing hot business at the moment from all sides of the debate.

        Reply

        • Rob Long says

          Unfortunately your language that frames this problem is loaded with a range of assumptions and emotions that are commandeered and made popular with the so-called ‘freedom’ and autonomy perspective. there si no autonomy of the human body and indeed, as a social body comes astounding obligations and responsibility for others, community and the common good.
          We al drink fluoride (a toxin) through the water system, do you stop drinking water? or do you only drink rain water stored in a tank that carries various oxidants because of th container it sits in? The evidence shows that flouride saves with tooth decay but how do you refuse it as it is a longitudinal experiment of putting a substance in your body?
          Your use of language such as ‘force’ and ‘experiment’ are not neutral and if you wish to exercise absolute freedom in the matter you can take alternative pathways eg. change your job.
          Employers threaten staff all the time with requirements eg. passive smoking. You can smoke all you want just nowhere near others. After all nicotine is a experimental substance being ingested into bodies. If you wish to break such rules you can work elsewhere.
          Both examples are substances you perhaps don’t want to have ‘stuck in you’. There are many more, but in this debate it is clear that people are being quite emotive and selective in what they want to argue re mandates.

          Reply

          • grumpy says

            Hi Rob
            Having read many of your articles and others on this site over many years I am well aware that no use of language is neutral. It may not be force per se but it is coercion and the experimental nature of the COVID vaccines is well known to the manufacturers and the regulatory bodies, not only in Australia but around the world. I can only ascribe the meanings to words that are in common use.
            The nicotine analogy is a bit ingenuous as no employers are mandating nicotine injections (as far as I am aware).
            The NSW govt has just introduced an amendment to the Public Health Act to provide for payment of compensation to workers who suffer injury, loss or damage as a result of a requirement to be vaccinated. This compensation applies until death, even if the worker ceases to be employed by the relevant body that engages the worker.
            This potentially imposes a legal risk on companies that they were not privy to when they introduced their mandates.

  8. simon cassin says

    Hi Rob
    Thanks for your piece, I found it both interesting and informative. I agree that our thoughts about duties and rights are often considered from and individualist rather than a collectivist perspective.

    Philosophical interpretations of concepts such as knowledge, agency and ethics require a greater level of consideration and integration with other disciplines such as the social sciences and technical/process driven industries.

    But before we can even begin to see the benefits of an approach such as the one I have advocated we must first develop an ability to recognise the need for such an approach.

    All the best, Simon

    Reply

    • Rob Long says

      Hi Simon, yes at a basic philosophical and ideological level is where the problem lies with this industry that thinks it doesn’t have a philosophy and ideology. The ignorance and naivety is mind blowing. and then it spruiks the word ‘professional’ as if it has meaning.
      Without a mature curriculum, transdisciplinary approach to knowing, an ethic of risk and a host of basics, it will never be able to enter into a mature debate over ethical essentials such as a philosophy that undergirds mandating, social contract or common good.,

      Reply

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