Former New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet has declared vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic were wrong. Source: ABC News.
The retiring politician, a Catholic, made the claim during a valedictory speech yesterday, as he prepares to leave parliament for a private sector job in the US.
Mr Perrottet said while governments acted with the right intentions, it was a mistake to force citizens to get the jab.
“If the impact of vaccines on transmission was limited at best, as is now mostly accepted, the law should have left more room for respect of freedom,” Mr Perrottet said.
“Vaccines saved lives, but ultimately, mandates were wrong. People’s personal choices shouldn’t have cost them their jobs.”
Mr Perrottet became premier in late 2021, replacing Gladys Berejiklian upon her resignation amid a corruption probe.
After taking over the top job, Mr Perrottet oversaw the state’s emergence from pandemic restrictions.
“When I became premier, we removed [vaccine mandates] or the ones we actually could, but this should have happened faster,” he told the legislative assembly on Tuesday.
“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.”
Mr Perrottet also used his speech to call for changes to Australia’s federation system, saying Canberra was becoming a “cemetery of reform”.
“We currently have federal and state health systems that don’t even work alongside each other. Rather, they actively work against each other,” he said.
“If we can’t reform the federal health system after a one in 100-year pandemic, we never will.”
At the end of the month, Mr Perrottet, his wife Helen and their seven children will relocate to Washington DC where Mr Perrottet will work as the mining company BHP’s US head of corporate and external affairs.
FULL STORY
Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet declares vaccine mandates as ‘wrong’ in his last week in Parliament (By Alexander Lewis, ABC News)
