Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll has been criticized in the Supreme Court for her decision to introduce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy for all staff.
Key points:
- QPS staff slowly adopted COVID-19 vaccines in August last year, which is why the directive was made.
- Commissioner Carroll told the court she supported the committee responsible for granting or denying exemptions to QPS staff
- He will continue to testify later this week in the civil trial that is being heard in Brisbane
Commissioner Carroll was called as a witness on the third day of a civil trial heard in Brisbane that challenged the employment warrants of more than 70 Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Queensland Ambulance Service employees. (QAS).
She told the court that before issuing the instruction last September she had received an “extraordinary” amount of information about vaccines from various sources, including the director of health (CHO) and the state health department.
“It was clear, very clear … that vaccination would prevent deaths and reduce serious illness,” Commissioner Carroll told the court.
Under the interrogation of Dominic Villa, who represents a group of seven QPS staff, Commissioner Carroll was repeatedly questioned about what documents she had read before issuing the directive.
“I would not have read all the pages of all the documents; they would have informed me of them,” he told the court.
“I can’t read them all … it’s not humanly possible.”
Commissioner Carroll was also asked how she concluded that COVID-19 would have a “significant” impact on front-line officers if they refused to be vaccinated.
“In a small station, if 50 percent of people have COVID, it would be significantly affected. In larger areas, this would not be the case,” he told the court.
“Exercise in Pure Speculation”
Villa suggested that Commissioner Carroll’s reasoning for determining that QPS staff had a higher risk of infection was “an exercise in pure speculation.”
“No, it’s not,” he told the court.
“We had very good evidence of what happened around the world.”
The court learned that in August last year, there was a slow reception of vaccines by QPS staff, which is why the directive was made.
“We had a period of time when we really wanted people to get vaccinated faster … because of the nature of our role,” he told the court.
More information on vaccine release:
The court learned that all seven QPS staff members had received an exemption for “exceptional reasons” for failing to accept government-mandated vaccinations.
When asked about the exemption process, Commissioner Carroll supported the committee responsible for deciding them and rejected a suggestion that there was a deliberate attempt to rule out such objections.
Commissioner Carroll will continue to testify later this week.
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Posted 3 hours 3 hours agoWednesday, June 1, 2022 at 7:30 AM, updated 2 hours ago 2 hours agoWednesday, June 1, 2022 at 8:00 AM