A group of home-based care and support workers challenging the sector’s Covid vaccine mandate are arguing there is no justification for the government’s move.
File photo.
Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
Lawyer Matthew Hague is representing five workers who have mounted a High Court bid to have the mandate ruled unlawful.
He said there must be clear justifications for vaccine mandates, and in this case there weren’t.
“On 6 November last year, the government amended the vaccination order to impose a vaccine mandate on home-based care and support workers and this means they are no longer eligible to be paid for their support work, even though in many cases they are actually living with the family members or dependents that they’re caring for,” Hague said.
He said unvaccinated home-based support workers were no longer paid for the work they did.
“There’s no justification from a safety perspective, our clients are living with the people they are caring for, the only difference is that they no longer receive the much-needed financial support for caring for their loved ones.”
Hague had asked the High Court for a hearing as soon as possible.
He said his clients’ requests for the removal of the mandate for home-based care workers had been ignored.
In 2019, changes to the Funded Family Care system saw the parents of disabled children and spouses of disabled people with high needs eligible to receive up to $25 an hour for their caregiving work.
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