Dominic Perrottet, the former premier of New South Wales, has voiced regret at the country’s enforcement of Covid vaccine mandates, saying that the policy was “wrong” and that the law should have left more room for respect of freedom.
Mr Perrottet, who served as the Premier of the Australian State from 2021 to 2023, made the admission in his valedictory speech this week, formally marking his departure from politics.
The Australian politician, who held office as leader of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party of Australia announced last month that he was resigning after 13 years in parliament. Mr Perrotter plans to move to Washington DC with his family to take up a role as the US head of corporate and external relations at mining company, BHP.
During his farewell speech delivered on Tuesday, Mr Perrottet said: “We didn’t get everything right. I believe we got more right than wrong. And without dwelling on every decision we got wrong, I believe it’s important to point out one mistake which was made by governments here and around the world. And that was the strict enforcement of vaccine mandates.”
It comes less than three months after the State’s Covid vaccine mandate for frontline workers was dropped. In August 2021, the Australian province mandated Covid vaccines for all healthcare workers – becoming the first State in the country to do so.
The public health order outlined by the State’s Health Minister mandated that healthcare workers received their first dose of a vaccine by the end of September 2021, to be fully vaccinated by 30th November 2021.
“Health officials and governments were acting with the right intentions to stop the spread. If the impact of vaccines on transmission was limited at best, as is mostly now accepted, the law should have left more room and respect for freedom,” he told parliament in his final speech.
“Vaccines saved lives,” he continued. “But ultimately, mandates were wrong. People’s personal choices shouldn’t have cost them their jobs. When I became premier, we removed them – or the ones we actually could – but this should have happened sooner and faster. And if a pandemic comes again, we need to get a better balance – encouraging people to take action, whilst at the same time protecting people’s fundamental liberty.”
The mandate applied to staff members working for public and private healthcare sectors, with the State’s Minister for Health saying at the time: “The public and private health systems have a responsibility to implement every possible measure to provide a safe work environment for their staff and most importantly, safe circumstances for their patients.”
Those who failed to present proof of vaccination to their employers were told they would be “excluded from the workplace,” according to the order, however certain exemptions could be made for those with medical contraindications.
The measure formed part of the State’s “roadmap to freedom” – with the NSW government promising citizens to grant freedoms relating to international travel and major events once 80 per cent of the population had taken two doses of a Covid vaccine.
In January 2022, it was announced by Perrottet that New South Wales would begin mandating booster shots for select frontline workers, with the government citing the spread of the Omicron variant.
The former premier said that teachers, nurses, as well as health and disability workers – who were mandated to be fully immunised – would also be required to get booster shots.
“There are a number of workers here in New South Wales that we have deemed to be in high-risk settings. In those circumstances, we have mandated vaccinations,” Perrottet said in a press conference given that month. “We will be moving to those mandates including a booster shot.”
This meant that in order to be classified as a fully vaccinated worker, the select frontline workers should have three shots of COVID-19 vaccines, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said in a statement.
The mandate, blasted as “unreasonable” by some, was scrapped in May 2024. NSW Health said it was reviewing the rule back in March, before confirming that it would be removed for existing personnel and new recruits.
About six months after the mandate was first rolled out in August 2021, NSW Health said that 995 staff members had either resigned or been sacked for not following the policy.
Former paramedic John Larter, an Australian man who previously challenged the NSW Health vaccine mandate in court, said that the scrapping of the policy symbolised how NSW Health had “acknowledged they can no longer continue to maintain their position due to the overwhelming evidence that mandatory vaccination was a misuse of power.”
“It was completely disproportionate and unreasonable to sack frontline workers which negatively impacted health workers, patient care and outcomes,” he said, adding that he hoped all of those sacked would be reinstated and compensated.
Queensland and Western Australia dropped their Covid vaccine requirements for health workers in 2023.