Your front page story "Educators reject mandate" (October 21, p1) highlights a strange personal perspective on human rights.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Does the Charnwood-Dunlop School principal also tell his students that forcing people to drive on the left-hand side of the road or making the wearing of a seat belts compulsory should also be regarded as "experimental"?
Millions have had the vaccinations, and millions drive on the correct side of the road and wear seatbelts as a matter of public safety.
Those of us who have had double vaccinations have done so as much out of concern for the community as for ourselves.
I think the gentleman can be assured that many of your readers would have little or no concern if he caught the COVID-19 virus.
It is the danger that such a foolish personal preoccupation presents to his students and community that is a far greater concern.
Perhaps if his righteous indignation is so outraged by his superior knowledge of medical treatments, he should resign his post and make room for someone with an eye to community benefit.
Gerry Gillespie, Queanbeyan, NSW
Rights? What rights?
I was horrified to read that Charnwood-Dunlop School principal Rob Lans has said he won't conform to the ACT teacher vaccine mandate.
The claim by 79 teachers that it "would violate their human rights" is quite wrong. Human rights are always about a delicate balance between my rights and the needs of everybody else.
Mr Lans has the right to allow himself to catch COVID-19 and die from it if he so wishes. But he has no right to refuse to take every possible precaution to prevent that happening to the children and staff he is employed to teach and to work with.
That's what the mandate is for.
His claim that the vaccines are "experimental" is a ludicrous furphy.
I am concerned that your headline "Educators reject mandate" falsely gives the first impression that more than a small number misunderstand what having human rights means.
The children they teach have the right not to be put at greater risk than necessary. As teachers they must guarantee that right. That's what they are employed for.
Frank McKone, Holt
Voice of experience
Thanks to the efforts of grandparents, parents, friends and elder brothers and sisters, at last our children and their teachers can return to the classrooms.
It seems reasonable to assume that the staff of our schools are or will be vaccinated.
And yet we hear that some are nervous about the vaccines and feel it is a confidential private decision.
I suggest that this has to be outweighed by the entitlement of parents to know if their children are being taught and cared for by an unvaccinated person.
My first thought was for the children who have spent much time with specialists, maybe making trips to Sydney for hospital stays. There will be others with special health issues.
How is the principal to be sure which children have lowered immune systems? We must allow parents to be told so they can decide what is best for their children.
This virus likely to linger. Education is a career choice. Part of that choice has become being vaccinated for the safety of your students. Sometimes it is tough, sometimes it gives so much delight that you are amazed by the idea that you are being paid for being among the wonderful children.
My teaching career spanned more than 40 years, with several interruptions, starting in 1966 at Telopea. From time to time I was asked to be vaccinated.
Robin McCallum, Higgins
It's a mystery
I can't understand people who refuse to get vaccinated to do their job. Many things in life are compulsory, and mostly for our own and everyone's safety.
We all drive on the left-hand side of the road: what an imposition on my freedom.
There are many jobs we can't do because we don't have the necessary qualifications or registrations. I want to be a doctor but they wont let me without qualifications.
I can't drive a bus without getting a licence, passing an annual medical and holding a "Working With Vulnerable People" registration. Such discrimination.
Wake up all those of you with over-developed senses of entitlement. Get vaccinated or get used to not doing the job that you think you should have.
Peter Wallace, Googong, NSW
Rights and obligations
Those who complain that mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for some workers are a violation of their human rights conveniently forget that we are all subject to limitations on our personal freedoms under the laws which govern us.
Freedom is not absolute. It has to be balanced against our wider social responsibilities. Sometimes we need laws and rules to save us from ourselves as well as to protect others.
I doubt if anyone objecting to mandatory vaccinations would want to live in a world of absolute freedom. That would lead to anarchy and the total violation of the human rights they are claiming to defend.
Mark Slater, Melba
Time to really open up
Apparently, Canberra is about to become the most vaccinated city in the world.
You would never know it given the way our Chief Minister continues to treat us like children.
It's time for him to lead from the front, and stop hiding behind the "medical advice" mantra.
We were dutiful citizens and did what he asked. But enough is enough. No more lockdowns, restrictions, border controls, masks outdoors, QR codes or kids at home.
Perhaps he could pivot a few of those contact tracers into business recovery tracers. We need all business open without any restrictions to their operations.
Those citizens who are still concerned (or unvaccinated) can always stay at home if they choose to. Stop punishing all of us. COVID-19 isn't going away and we need to accept this and live with it.
Don Maye, Kambah
The Porter case
Forget the pub test. A better test would be to ask all politicians what they would do if the boot was on the other foot.
What would members of the LNP be saying, for example, if Christian Porter was a Labor member? That should tell them what they should do notwithstanding he's actually one of them. What would they be saying if their proposals for a federal integrity commission were coming from a Labor government? That should tell them all they need to know about what's wrong with the current proposals.
Keith Hill, Clifton Beach, Qld
Matters of fact
Laura Hakkinen née Watson was mistaken in her criticism of your editorial sentence "England may have joyously greeted Freedom Day in July". (Letters, October 14). The "Freedom Day" referred to was an English event, not one which applied to the "British Isles as a whole country (sic)". Under the devolved government arrangements for the UK versions of "Freedom Day" (from COVID-19 restrictions) took place in Wales on August 7 and in Scotland on August 9.
Colin Walters, Griffith
Compassion deficit
Anne Prendergast is as entitled to her vehemently expressed conservative views as the next person, but I hope she read and inwardly digested Kate Baldwin's beautifully written piece "Voluntary assisted dying should be legalised by all states and territories", canberratimes.com.au, October 18) ironically published on the same day as Anne's letter.
As someone who had a close relative diagnosed with MND who then subsequently died a horrible death, I hope that if I am unlucky enough to have inherited the gene and suffer to the extent of Kate's grandmother, VAD will be an option for me.
Janet Cossart, Stirling
Stay at home
As we reach 80 per cent fully vaccinated, Paul O'Connor remains worried about standing in a room with five people in total, one of whom could quite possibly be carrying COVID (Letters, October 21).
He should also be worried about the other four who, though fully vaccinated, could still spread COVID-19. He'd better stay at home for the foreseeable future.
Frank Marris, Forrest
Too much information
Whilst I appreciate the need for people to get vaccinated - and we did a brilliant job - it's time for the media to stop showing close-ups of needles going into arms 10 or 20 times in every news bulletin. Some people have trouble seeing this repeatedly. I think everyone is pretty much on board by now.