Victoria Vaccination Alert: 'Authorised Workers' Must be Immunised

All workers Victoria that are on the Authorised Worker list will require their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by Friday, 15 October in order to continue working onsite, the state government announced last week.

These workers must also be fully vaccinated by 26 November.

The 15 October deadline will not apply to workers who already have existing requirements under CHO directions – groups like construction, freight, healthcare, aged care and education will still have to comply with previous advice.

The ‘Authorised Provider and Authorised Worker list’ is freely available on the Victorian government’s coronavirus website and can be found here.

Notably, the list includes:

• labour hire workers when servicing an Authorised Provider;
• workers in “all manufacturing”;
• workers in administrative services provided by an employer to enable its employees to work from home e.g. payroll and IT services;
• workers in commercial operations that supply goods or services necessary (e.g. manufacturing of PPE or hand sanitiser): for the implementation of measures to limit the spread of COVID-19; or to support any business activity that may be carried out in accordance with these directions; or to support the export of goods and services from Victoria.

Moray & Agnew Partner Nick Duggal said Victorian businesses must immediately confirm whether their business is an “Authorised Provider” that employs “Authorised Workers” for the purposes of “Authorised Work”.

“Subject to further developments or clarifications, an Authorised Provider will have to ensure that if it employs Authorised Workers, they are vaccinated before they attend work onsite,” he said.

“Based on the current health orders and its earlier iterations, this means that you will likely be required to collect and hold information about the vaccination status of your employees, if they are considered Authorised Workers.”

“As the first dose deadline (and subject to any exceptions e.g. a booking to receive a first dose) is 10 days away, we recommend that employers with employees that fall within the Authorised Worker list formulate and public their COVID-19/vaccination workplace policy, and begin collecting vaccination status information from employees as a matter of urgency.”

If you require any assistance in interpreting the announcement or formulating your company’s COVID-19 Vaccination Policy, please contact the Moray & Agnew Workplace team.