Yikes. The Inquisitors require the "petitioners" to find experts who disagree with the system when the system allows participation only from those experts who are part of the system. Makes my head hurt. No "heretic" has a chance.
It’s very interesting indeed. A lot of mandates and terminations appeared to occur prior to or just as Omicron was sinking it’s teeth into the NSW population and causing exponential levels of infections.
But, ATAGI started identifying waning efficacy of 2 dose vaccinations as early as late October.
Further, during the initial Omicron wave in NSW, ATAGI made some rather incredible concessions in their public statements on 2 dose vaccinations as they started to heavily recommend the booster doses against Omicron.
I rather tend to think that if ATAGI recommendations are to be seen as the supreme authority for an employer to mandate vaccination, then that employer would essentially be obligated to follow those recommendations as they were updated.
There lies a conundrum. Employers were mandating 2 doses around December/January based on The Delta variant at the same time 2 doses were proven to be ineffective against Omicron. The utter embarrassment of mandating a provisionally approved therapeutic, that is subject to review at any time, without long term efficacy data was seen to be ineffective at the same time it was being mandated. Leaving employer mandates in the hands of government recommendations essentially opens up the possibility that one day mandates seem fine and dandy based on variant A and then practically overnight that could change completely and render mandates not fit for purpose. This is what happened in many cases.
Doesn’t appear to me that these ATAGI statements and summary of evidence contained within have made it into evidence in any unfair dismissal case at the FWC. Surely, if it’s perfectly acceptable for an employer to submit ATAGI statements as evidence then so to should it be for the applicant.
Most of those ATAGI statements have been updated which means sourcing the originals via wayback machine. The summary of evidence makes for interesting reading. I recommend the ATAGI statement dated 24 December 2021 titled “Omicron variant and the timing of COVID-19 booster vaccination“
They did actually make it into evidence in this case, hence why I commented on it. The Fair Work Commission dismissed the contention that because ATAGI changed their guidance later, employers relying on it at an earlier stage did so unreasonably (see paras. 62-64 I cited above in the article). If anything, it only supports the position that, in the present, vaccine mandate policies have limited evidence from ATAGI. But this has no impact on decisions employers made earlier when ATAGI 'evidence' purported to show the 'safety and efficacy' of vaccine mandates. That is, at the time employers made decisions to bring in vaccine mandates on ATAGI advice, those policies were lawful and reasonable.
That is exactly how Commissioner Coleman argues in the cited case above.
Oh, and one more thing. That ATAGI statement on Omicron seems like justification for mandated 3rd & 4th shots. They're saying that 3+ doses is more effective at providing protection, thus an employer that mandates 3+ doses for their employees can do so with "Government Imprimatur." It's clear to me how this self-reinforcing scam works. Thanks for providing that link. Cheers.
I certainly can see that the justification as deployed in the Coopers case was that any vaccine mandate introduced during Delta was reasonable. A line in the sand reasoning. Vaccines were mandated during Delta. Didn’t comply. Anything that happened after is immaterial. Plus, disobeying mandates is the most heinous of crimes and far outweighs any harshness that may result from termination. It’s utterly ridiculous but the confirmation bias in these decisions and the courts is ingrained.
My point though was more along the lines of the policies themselves. Employers were essentially outsourcing their expert opinion to government regulators who provided statements to the public. So it should then be seen as a reasonable step of any employer moving forward to then revise those policies as new statements are released.
You are right though. According to the logic on display, mandating 3 and 4 jabs would’ve been seen as reasonable. However, the issue is that employers, particularly in NSW, didn’t mandate boosters. Why? Because achieving a threshold of compliance with boosters sufficient to then punish the abstainers didn’t meet risk/benefit calculations. Not enough people had received boosters. It was too risky to mandate and have it blow back.
So my main point is, that the public health advice and recommendations was for 3 or more as per ATAGI as early as December 2021 and certainly by February 2022 while at the very same time, employers were introducing 2 dose policies.
Any employer that couldn’t foresee mandating 3 doses as justifiable or beneficial based on perceived lack of compliance was not then maintaining their health policies in accordance with the latest health advice. Sticking with just the 2 doses, while ATAGI were effectively throwing 2 doses under the bus, was deviation removed from the current government regulator recommendations. Ergo, their policies then became unreasonable.
And there lies the folly of mandating a provisionally approved vaccine with no long term data against a virus that mutates rapidly. One day it’s lawful and reasonable to do so. The next day a mutation as rendered them useless. FWC says that this doesn’t matter. Clearly it does. Any reasonable employer should have considered the implications as to reasonableness if the vaccine became ineffective when deciding to mandate. They didn’t. None did this. They just considered the vaccines would always perpetually be safe and effective.
Thank you for pointing me to this post. I will include it in my article. I hope you do catalogue all these cases for reference, this will be important when we file at ICAC.
The NSW IRC has followed in the footsteps of the FWC.
Outrageously, a recent decision for Fire Brigade employees who, with the support and funding of their union, engaged in an industrial dispute at the IRC.
The challenge was that FBNSW maintained a baseline 2 dose mandate against the Omicron variant in June 2022. They attempted to mandate the booster but due to perceived blow back, declined.
The IRC Commissioner in this case, Janet McDonald, found that ATAGI statements relied on by FBNSW were reasonable to maintain a baseline 2 dose mandate, even in June 2022, because they were still effective (at 25 weeks) against severe illness and deaths.
It would appear the union fought against this baseline mandate on the accepted fact that vaccines are ineffective against transmission. Only for the pivot to severe illness and death as the saviour whereby the unions evidence was found wanting in this regard.
I suppose one could ask, “what is the actual risk for a healthy working age adult of suffering from severe illness and death from the current prevailing variants?” Of course this question was not posited by the Commissioner in her judgement.
So now it’s perfectly reasonable for an employer to mandate a medicinal therapeutic, not to protect others but simply for your own good, regardless of the risk.
Well I hadn't expected them to turn to severe illness and death for a mandate case... That was the whole point that the mandate was there for transmission as it's written in the damn policies! Unbelievable.
I've had to put it on hold for now (I've processed about 50 of 390+ cases) due to my heavy workload, we're short-staffed in public bus driving just like everyone else. I hope to pick up where I left of maybe towards the middle of February. What kind of timeline are you on for an ICAC filing?
The judges are ignorant of medicine so flipping the issue off to ATAGI is a way of hiding their ignorance. They don't need to deal with any case on its medical merits, despite this whole issue being of experimental injection. Of course, citizens get NO REPRESENTATION and NO RECOURSE with ATAGI. So when judges fail to provide a hearing and justice, there is NO justice. Australia is just so stupid it's almost unbelievable.
So is there a way to directly challenge ATAGI legally? Otherwise we will just lose every single court case because the judges will always refer to ATAGI’s advice. If there is no legal avenue, then it leaves only the political avenue. Would be good to know once and for all of there is any successful lawfare tactics we could use or whether that’s a waste of time and we should focus on the political side. Great job btw! Keep up the good work for all of us
Sadly, to attack ATAGI is to enter the world of "expert" versus "expert". The FWC and the Courts (because our State Supreme courts and Federal High Courts follow virtually identical reasoning) "prefer" the evidence of ATAGI prima facie: just read how the FWC dismissed the evidence of Dr. Petrovsky. How can any other individual or group of experts undo such ingrained and inimical injustice when the system automatically filters out any possible challenges to the "established facts"? It might be possible with a very carefully crafted rhetorical argument, because at law rhetoric (logical argument, fallacies, etc) is usually more important than evidence adduced. One would have to demonstrate that ATAGI's position is logically untenable, rather than scientifically infeasible, to have the best chance.
Yikes. The Inquisitors require the "petitioners" to find experts who disagree with the system when the system allows participation only from those experts who are part of the system. Makes my head hurt. No "heretic" has a chance.
You should write more public work! Crikey, you just summed up my article in one sentence! Brilliant! Cheers!
It’s very interesting indeed. A lot of mandates and terminations appeared to occur prior to or just as Omicron was sinking it’s teeth into the NSW population and causing exponential levels of infections.
But, ATAGI started identifying waning efficacy of 2 dose vaccinations as early as late October.
Further, during the initial Omicron wave in NSW, ATAGI made some rather incredible concessions in their public statements on 2 dose vaccinations as they started to heavily recommend the booster doses against Omicron.
I rather tend to think that if ATAGI recommendations are to be seen as the supreme authority for an employer to mandate vaccination, then that employer would essentially be obligated to follow those recommendations as they were updated.
There lies a conundrum. Employers were mandating 2 doses around December/January based on The Delta variant at the same time 2 doses were proven to be ineffective against Omicron. The utter embarrassment of mandating a provisionally approved therapeutic, that is subject to review at any time, without long term efficacy data was seen to be ineffective at the same time it was being mandated. Leaving employer mandates in the hands of government recommendations essentially opens up the possibility that one day mandates seem fine and dandy based on variant A and then practically overnight that could change completely and render mandates not fit for purpose. This is what happened in many cases.
Doesn’t appear to me that these ATAGI statements and summary of evidence contained within have made it into evidence in any unfair dismissal case at the FWC. Surely, if it’s perfectly acceptable for an employer to submit ATAGI statements as evidence then so to should it be for the applicant.
Most of those ATAGI statements have been updated which means sourcing the originals via wayback machine. The summary of evidence makes for interesting reading. I recommend the ATAGI statement dated 24 December 2021 titled “Omicron variant and the timing of COVID-19 booster vaccination“
Can be found here: https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-statement-on-the-omicron-variant-and-the-timing-of-covid-19-booster-vaccination
They did actually make it into evidence in this case, hence why I commented on it. The Fair Work Commission dismissed the contention that because ATAGI changed their guidance later, employers relying on it at an earlier stage did so unreasonably (see paras. 62-64 I cited above in the article). If anything, it only supports the position that, in the present, vaccine mandate policies have limited evidence from ATAGI. But this has no impact on decisions employers made earlier when ATAGI 'evidence' purported to show the 'safety and efficacy' of vaccine mandates. That is, at the time employers made decisions to bring in vaccine mandates on ATAGI advice, those policies were lawful and reasonable.
That is exactly how Commissioner Coleman argues in the cited case above.
Oh, and one more thing. That ATAGI statement on Omicron seems like justification for mandated 3rd & 4th shots. They're saying that 3+ doses is more effective at providing protection, thus an employer that mandates 3+ doses for their employees can do so with "Government Imprimatur." It's clear to me how this self-reinforcing scam works. Thanks for providing that link. Cheers.
I certainly can see that the justification as deployed in the Coopers case was that any vaccine mandate introduced during Delta was reasonable. A line in the sand reasoning. Vaccines were mandated during Delta. Didn’t comply. Anything that happened after is immaterial. Plus, disobeying mandates is the most heinous of crimes and far outweighs any harshness that may result from termination. It’s utterly ridiculous but the confirmation bias in these decisions and the courts is ingrained.
My point though was more along the lines of the policies themselves. Employers were essentially outsourcing their expert opinion to government regulators who provided statements to the public. So it should then be seen as a reasonable step of any employer moving forward to then revise those policies as new statements are released.
You are right though. According to the logic on display, mandating 3 and 4 jabs would’ve been seen as reasonable. However, the issue is that employers, particularly in NSW, didn’t mandate boosters. Why? Because achieving a threshold of compliance with boosters sufficient to then punish the abstainers didn’t meet risk/benefit calculations. Not enough people had received boosters. It was too risky to mandate and have it blow back.
So my main point is, that the public health advice and recommendations was for 3 or more as per ATAGI as early as December 2021 and certainly by February 2022 while at the very same time, employers were introducing 2 dose policies.
Any employer that couldn’t foresee mandating 3 doses as justifiable or beneficial based on perceived lack of compliance was not then maintaining their health policies in accordance with the latest health advice. Sticking with just the 2 doses, while ATAGI were effectively throwing 2 doses under the bus, was deviation removed from the current government regulator recommendations. Ergo, their policies then became unreasonable.
And there lies the folly of mandating a provisionally approved vaccine with no long term data against a virus that mutates rapidly. One day it’s lawful and reasonable to do so. The next day a mutation as rendered them useless. FWC says that this doesn’t matter. Clearly it does. Any reasonable employer should have considered the implications as to reasonableness if the vaccine became ineffective when deciding to mandate. They didn’t. None did this. They just considered the vaccines would always perpetually be safe and effective.
Thank you for pointing me to this post. I will include it in my article. I hope you do catalogue all these cases for reference, this will be important when we file at ICAC.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/die-unfair-arbeitskommission
The NSW IRC has followed in the footsteps of the FWC.
Outrageously, a recent decision for Fire Brigade employees who, with the support and funding of their union, engaged in an industrial dispute at the IRC.
The challenge was that FBNSW maintained a baseline 2 dose mandate against the Omicron variant in June 2022. They attempted to mandate the booster but due to perceived blow back, declined.
The IRC Commissioner in this case, Janet McDonald, found that ATAGI statements relied on by FBNSW were reasonable to maintain a baseline 2 dose mandate, even in June 2022, because they were still effective (at 25 weeks) against severe illness and deaths.
It would appear the union fought against this baseline mandate on the accepted fact that vaccines are ineffective against transmission. Only for the pivot to severe illness and death as the saviour whereby the unions evidence was found wanting in this regard.
I suppose one could ask, “what is the actual risk for a healthy working age adult of suffering from severe illness and death from the current prevailing variants?” Of course this question was not posited by the Commissioner in her judgement.
So now it’s perfectly reasonable for an employer to mandate a medicinal therapeutic, not to protect others but simply for your own good, regardless of the risk.
Decision can be found here:
https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/185c285fa8f8e586ac9ea22c
Well I hadn't expected them to turn to severe illness and death for a mandate case... That was the whole point that the mandate was there for transmission as it's written in the damn policies! Unbelievable.
The sooner ICAC referrals are made the better
Great additional example. Cheers for that!
I've had to put it on hold for now (I've processed about 50 of 390+ cases) due to my heavy workload, we're short-staffed in public bus driving just like everyone else. I hope to pick up where I left of maybe towards the middle of February. What kind of timeline are you on for an ICAC filing?
The judges are ignorant of medicine so flipping the issue off to ATAGI is a way of hiding their ignorance. They don't need to deal with any case on its medical merits, despite this whole issue being of experimental injection. Of course, citizens get NO REPRESENTATION and NO RECOURSE with ATAGI. So when judges fail to provide a hearing and justice, there is NO justice. Australia is just so stupid it's almost unbelievable.
So is there a way to directly challenge ATAGI legally? Otherwise we will just lose every single court case because the judges will always refer to ATAGI’s advice. If there is no legal avenue, then it leaves only the political avenue. Would be good to know once and for all of there is any successful lawfare tactics we could use or whether that’s a waste of time and we should focus on the political side. Great job btw! Keep up the good work for all of us
Sadly, to attack ATAGI is to enter the world of "expert" versus "expert". The FWC and the Courts (because our State Supreme courts and Federal High Courts follow virtually identical reasoning) "prefer" the evidence of ATAGI prima facie: just read how the FWC dismissed the evidence of Dr. Petrovsky. How can any other individual or group of experts undo such ingrained and inimical injustice when the system automatically filters out any possible challenges to the "established facts"? It might be possible with a very carefully crafted rhetorical argument, because at law rhetoric (logical argument, fallacies, etc) is usually more important than evidence adduced. One would have to demonstrate that ATAGI's position is logically untenable, rather than scientifically infeasible, to have the best chance.