SCott Morrison’s PM’s religious discrimination laws on ice

National Cabinet is currently meeting to consider advice from The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) including on whether three vaccine doses are required to enter Australia.

Despite the medical advice, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appears to have backed away somewhat from a push to require three doses to enter Australia as other premiers did not appear to support the move.

Qld Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today said she was “very happy” with the guidelines for two vaccinations for arriving tourists ahead of the international border’s full opening on February 21.

“We are very happy with the advice of two jabs,” she said. “I know there is a different point of view from Victoria, but we are very comfortable with the two jabs.”

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet also said he wants national “unity” on vaccination status.

“It’s a complicated area in terms of different countries have different rules,” Perrottet said. “It’s in the best interest of the country if we can find unity in relation to some of these positions,” he says.

“We cannot live in a hermit kingdom on the other side of the world. We need to rejoin every other country globally and do that in a measured and sensible way.

Mr Andrews seemed to back away a little from his earlier push to require three vaccination jabs today, at least to enter the country or state.

“We will try to the maximum extent possible to have consistent rules that will probably mean they won’t be perfect rules because we will all have to compromise a little bit,” he said.

When asked if that meant Victoria may have some different rules in some circumstances Mr Andrews said yes. “In some circumstances, some people who are here short term for instance. There might be different rules for people here longer term. There might be different rules for someone who isn’t necessarily a citizen but is a resident for the purposes of international study, so it might not be perfect but we will try to make it as close to one set of rules as we can.”