Australia-based airline Qantas has mandated all staff need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by as early as mid-November, reports News.com.au. Frontline employees, which include cabin crew, pilots and airport workers, will need to be fully vaccinated by 15 November. “Having a fully vaccinated workforce will safeguard our people against the virus but also protect our customers and the communities we fly to,” Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said. Prime Minister Scott Morrison applauded the moved. “The decision is for those companies but I commend Qantas for the way they went about out,” Morrison said. “They surveyed their members, their staff. Found almost 90% of their own staff had been vaccinated or intended to be vaccinated.”

Qantas’s move comes after Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash called for a dozen major employer organisations to attend a meeting where they will hear from the Fair Work Ombudsman, Australian Information and Privacy Commissioner and Safe Work Australia chief executive about workplace vaccinations. The Ombudsman has advised employers to “exercise caution” if they are considering making Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory, noting the reasonableness of orders to staff to get vaccinated would be determined on a case-by-case basis. The workplace watchdog declared it was “more likely” to be reasonable to require vaccination for tier one work, where staff were in contact with people at risk from coronavirus, such as airline workers, or in tier two settings, where they work with vulnerable people, such as aged care.