Aussie PM rules out mandatory COVID-19 vaccine laws

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ruled out introducing new laws that would allow employers to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, reported Xinhua.

Morrison said on Friday afternoon that employers may wish to enforce a "reasonable directive" that staff must be vaccinated against COVID-19 but that it must be "consistent with the law."

It came after a meeting of the National Cabinet during which the government's top law adviser, the solicitor-general, briefed the prime minister and state and territory leaders on legal issues surrounding mandatory vaccinations.

Morrison said that there were some situations where employers could mandate vaccines but that the government would not introduce laws for wider mandates.

As of Friday about half of the Australian population was in lockdown in three states to prevent the spread of Delta variant of COVID-19.

The state of Victoria and some regional areas of the state of New South Wales (NSW) are the latest ones joining the ongoing lockdown gripping both the Greater Sydney and its surrounding areas, as well as part of the state of Queensland.

"We've met at a time when so many Australians are now subject to lockdowns because of the Delta variant of this strain, which is causing a third wave all around the world," Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

Paul Kelly, the nation's Chief Medical Officer, described the strain of the virus as a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

"What we do know is that whilst there is this other wave, vaccine works. Mostly the outbreaks in other countries, and including here and particularly in New South Wales, this is a epidemic or a pandemic of the unvaccinated," he said in the same press conference.

The National Cabinet on Friday agreed with Morrison's four-phase pathway out of the pandemic that will see an end to lockdowns after 80 percent of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

So far more than 21.3 percent of Australians aged 16 years and over are now fully vaccinated.

As of Friday afternoon, there had been 35,688 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of locally acquired cases in the last 24 hours was 308, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.