Whatever their reasons, these people are every day coming closer to that point where they lose the opportunity to choose livelihood over principle. Either they will be vaccinated, or they will be unemployed.
I am one of the luckier ones. I can make a choice free of coercion. I don't rely on an employer for my job, I'm self-employed. Nevertheless, nothing can diminish the heart-breaking conversations I've had to have with all of these people wanting to talk through the decision they know they must eventually make. Some cry, some rage, some try and rationalise their own decision and others struggle with the decisions made by their government. I don't accept that the decisions of government have been rational, and I don't believe they have been made in good faith. I believe they are all political theatre decisions, made for the benefit of spotlighting a narcissistic Prime Minister. But of all people, I know that all of that is pointless. They will all still have to make a decision. And they have to make it soon.
How those decisions play out we can only wait and see. Time will tell how many people are vaccine injured, killed, or dehumanised by dismissal from their careers and social circles. When the time comes to tally up the results, who will pay the piper? Who will pay the price for this gross incompetence? Who will be held accountable for the carnage?
When decisions are made by the various Ministers given oversight of a particular portfolio by the Prime Minster, they will in most cases make their decisions following advice from officials appointed to inform them.
Where a Minister is required to make the final decision, however, should there be a judicial review, the court will regard the Minister as the person who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the decision is made reasonably, fairly, and according to law. In other words, the buck stops at the Minister's desk.
It is a convention of government that Ministers should be indemnified by the Crown for any actions taken against them for things done or decisions made in the course of their ministerial duties. But that is not always going to be the case.
"By their very nature, cases against a Minister personally raise issues about whether the Minister has acted so far beyond the scope of his or her authority that the Minister should not be indemnified by the Crown in relation to the proceedings. No absolute legal right to indemnity by the Crown exists just because a Minister was acting as a Minister in doing, or refraining from doing, the act that is the subject of the claim." - Cabinet Manual 4.40, Personal Liability
Clearly, personal liability for action taken by a Minister is a possibility in circumstances where that Minister has failed to exercise due diligence in carrying out their duties. Proceedings may for instance be instituted alleging that a Minister has acted dishonestly or in bad faith.
A Crown organisation is a Crown entity, government department, interdepartmental venture, departmental agency, or government-related organisation. The Crown Organisations (Criminal Liability) Act 2002 (the 'Act') allows for a Crown organisation to be prosecuted (by the bringing of proceedings in the manner provided for in the Criminal Procedure Act 2011) for an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 ('HSWA').
A Crown organisation that is not a body corporate has a separate legal personality for the purposes of compliance with the obligations imposed by the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and the bringing, hearing, and determination of proceedings against it for an offence referred to in section 6 of the Act, and the imposition of sentence if that organisation is convicted, and the enforcement of any sentence imposed on that organisation.
The Ministry of Health leads New Zealand’s health and disability system, having overall responsibility for the management and development of that system, with regulatory responsibilities within the health and disability system including administering legislation and associated regulations. The Ministry of Health is directly responsible for managing COVID-19 in New Zealand and immunisation issues, and has oversight of Medsafe which is responsible for safety and ethics.
The Ministry is led by an Executive Leadership Team. Dr Ashley Bloomfield is the Director-General of Health and Chief Executive of the Ministry of Health.
Former GCSB Director of Strategy, Governance and Performance and ex-Deputy and Assistant Commissioner at the Public Service Commission, Bridget White, is the Ministry's COVID-19 Health Response Acting Deputy Chief Executive.
Dr Ian Town chairs the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group and is the Chief Science Advisor to the Ministry of Health.
New Zealand's Minister of Health is the Minister ultimately responsible for oversight of the Ministry itself. The current Minister of Health is Labour Party MP Andrew Little, who is also responsible for the District Health Boards. Andrew Little is rarely heard from in relation to the issues surrounding the Covid-19 Public Health Response, deferring to the Minister in charge of the Covid-19 Response, Chris Hipkins.
Body corporates, in relation to the Ministry of Health, are the various authorities appointed by or under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 as the body that is, in accordance with that Act, responsible for the registration and oversight of practitioners of a particular health profession. This includes the Medical Council of New Zealand ('MCNZ') and the Nursing Council of New Zealand. Body corporates are not given any immunity from prosecution. MCNZ received a huge public backlash earlier this year for its instruction to health professionals that they should not issue vaccination exemptions, despite the law clearly allowing exemptions to be issued. The consequence of such an instruction is that countless people could be made unemployed through being refused exemptions that they would otherwise have been entitled to have. MCNZ made it clear to health professionals that not doing as they were told could result in the revocation of their medical licences - few doctors will argue with them, such is the power they wield. That is not good faith, nor is it good medical practice.
An increasing number of private employers, taking up advice provided by government Ministers and officials, are now mandating that their staff be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs even though those staff are not subject to Vaccination Orders implemented by the Director-General of Health under Public Health Response legislation.
But in so doing, that action by employer raises a number of questions around the HSWA and the Employment Relations Act 2000 ('ERA'). For instance, is vaccination safe or are workers put at risk in being vaccinated? Or perhaps we might ask the question, since we now know that vaccinated people spread C-19 as easily as unvaccinated people, are vaccinated workers still at risk of being infected by C-19 in the workplace? If so, and if employers are not addressing that risk, is that reckless as to the risk to an individual of death or serious injury or serious illness?
Leaving aside for the time being the question of the effectiveness of the various vaccines in terms of reducing the severity of illness in a C-19 infected patient, let's just focus on what vaccination is expected to do. It is probably easier to set out what it is not expected to do.
- Vaccination does not prevent a person from being infected with Covid-19 (any variant)
- Vaccination does not prevent a person from spreading Covid-19 to others
- Vaccination does not prevent a person from getting sick as a direct or indirect effect of infection with Covid-19
- Vaccination does not prevent death as a direct or indirect consequence of infection with Covid-19
By process of elimination, we can easily establish that the only thing that vaccination against Covid-19 is expected to do is reduce the severity of symptoms or likelihood of death of a person infected with Covid-19, lowering hospitalisations ('flattening the curve'). Which can also be accomplished with early and appropriate treatment.
Given that information, if a Minister or designated Crown organisation does not rapidly roll out early and appropriate treatment, or if it discourages health professionals from giving sound advice and adequate information to individuals in the process of deciding whether or not to be vaccinated, preferring instead to focus on a highly politicised vaccination campaign, and a person dies or is seriously harmed as a result of not receiving appropriate early treatment or being vaccinated without informed consent, is it possible to aim a finger of blame at said Minister or designated Crown organisation? It would seem that in theory at least the answer would be yes.
Similarly, if a Minister or designated Crown organisation allows even one person to be dismissed in circumstances where it is clear that the person is in no greater danger of infection in the workplace than any other person, is the Minister or organisation able to be joined in an unfair dismissal case? Again, the answer may well turn out to be yes.
Keep an eye out in the near future for a volley of lawyers and employment advocates to begin proceedings to test those theories.
We have moved past the phase of shock at the direct nuclear attack on our freedom to make health choices for ourselves and our children. We are beyond grief and even beyond anger. We are well past having the opportunity to fight to prevent job losses in their thousands - there simply is no time left.
The battle for freedom is still ongoing. Protests are still to be held, venues yet to be marched upon await us. Our duty now, in our thousands, is not only to support that fight for freedom but also to support the coming legal battle for reparations. We need to begin the process of ensuring accountability for every person and every entity involved in this horrendous overreach of the State into our lives.
Let the process begin in earnest!
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