Auckland Transport includes religious exemptions in Covid-19 vaccination policy

Thursday, 30 December 2021

Auckland Transport is the Auckland Council-controlled organisation that manages public transport in the city

Auckland Transport (AT) staff can apply for an exemption to its Covid-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.

From December 15, the council-controlled agency, which is responsible for transport projects and services in Auckland, has required anyone, including staff, to show evidence they are double vaccinated before entering any of its workplaces.

However, workers with genuine religious reasons for not wanting to be vaccinated could apply to AT's chief executive for an exemption, an AT spokesman confirmed.

Roxie Mohebbi leads a discussion about the Covid-19 vaccine with immunologist Dr Maia Brewerton and general practitioner Dr Api Talemaitoga as part of Stuff's Whole Truth project.

In the United States, people seeking religious exemptions from employers’ vaccine mandates sometimes face “sincerity tests” from employers checking they are not donning a cloak of phoney faith solely to justify not getting vaccinated.

The Congregational Christian Church of Samoa hosted a mobile vaccine clinic for the Pasifika community in the city. (First published September 5, 2021)

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People seeking religious exemptions from employer-imposed vaccine mandates would be unlikely to face sincerity tests in New Zealand, says employment law expert Olivia Lund from law firm Duncan Cotterill.

“An organisation could potentially challenge and seek evidence from that employee as to their religious belief,” she says.

“In my experience most employers won’t do that. They will accept it on face value, and will focus on whether they can make reasonable accommodations to allow this unvaccinated person to continue working.”

It may be unusual that AT’s vaccine policy specifically mentions religious exemptions, but Lund says employees can seek religious exemptions under any workplace vaccination policy that is not mandated by the Government.

“It would be under the Human Rights Act. An organisation must not discriminate against a worker for their religious beliefs,” she says.

Duncan Cotterill health and safety expert and partner Olivia Lund says Air New Zealand is leading the way in implementing a Covid-19 negative test policy and other businesses will be watching how it’s done.

If a worker asked for an exemption, their employer would be required by law to consider whether it could accommodate that worker's faith-based decision not to vaccinate without it causing unreasonable disruption to its operations, or posing an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of others, she said.

“What is reasonable will depend on the context of the situation, the type and nature of the work they are performing,” Lund says.

It could be easier for larger organisations, which might have more scope for redeploying staff than smaller ones, she says.

Lund says in early messaging to companies from Ministry of Health in guidance documentation, the ministry said it was not aware of any religion or faith-based organisation which was opposed to vaccinations.

Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris says many medicines have been developed after testing on human cell lines derived originally from foetal cells.

But, she says, when consulting staff on vaccine mandates, employers often ask about religious beliefs.

People wishing to challenge a refusal by an employer to give them a religious exemption under their vaccine mandate could go to the Human Rights Commission or the Employment Relations Authority, Lund says.

AT’s spokesman said under its policy, if an exception was granted, it was for a set period, and required the person covered to work from home.

Religion is clearly a factor in some people’s refusal to be vaccinated as religious icons have been held up in anti-vaccination and lockdown protests. This photo was taken during a protest in Christchurch on December 4.

The AT website says it is not covered by government-imposed vaccine mandates, like that imposed on teachers, which have the Government has successfully defended in court.

The Human Rights Commission says on its website people who choose not to be vaccinated due to their personal beliefs cannot get vaccination exemptions in relation to Government mandates.

The Pope may support Covid-19 vaccinations, but not every Christian agrees.

Sincerity tests might be a tough task for some religious people to meet, according to v accinologist and associate professor Helen Petousis-Harris from the University of Auckland.

Where Christian religious opposition to Covid-19 vaccines has arisen in the US and United Kingdom, it has been as a result of a moral objection to the vaccines being developed with early-stage testing involving “cell lines” grown from cells originally taken from human foetuses.

Pope Francis says getting vaccinated is an act of love to protect the vulnerable people in our communities.

But Petousis-Harris says there is no foetal cell content in Covid-19 vaccines.

“It's not manufactured on any foetal cell lines either,” she says.

But anyone wishing to claim sincerely that that is the reason they will not be vaccinated might be challenged on whether they have consented, or would consent, to take other drugs that have been tested on the cell lines they object to, she says.

“Almost all medicines, with very few exceptions have during development at some point have involved a human foetal cell line,” Petousis-Harris says.

“You’d really want to be avoiding pretty much all drugs, all medicines.”

“The common over-the-counter meds, the anti-inflammatories, these kinds of things, pretty much all would be included in your objection, if you were going to be consistent,” Petousis-Harris says.

She says religious groups like the Catholic Church had made clear statements of support for vaccinations, including rubella, which was grown on a human foetal cell line.

“The Catholic Church’s position is that they should avail themselves of the vaccine because it saves lives,” she says.

In August Pope Francis told the faithful: “Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable”, and late December, the Vatican mandated that all employees be vaccinated, or show proof of having recovered from Covid-19.

“There isn’t any particular religion I know of that objects to vaccines,” Petousis-Harris says.

“You could only be claiming that this is your own choice, and this is your religious belief.”

Religious objections to the Covid-19 vaccination have not directly featured in Ministry of Health monthly surveys on vaccine hesitancy.

Nor have they sparked petitions to Parliament as in the United Kingdom where Molly Ellen Moran petitioned Parliament saying: “We should be free to go where we like without being discriminated against for our religious beliefs”.

She has not yet got the 100,000 signatures she needs to prompt Parliament to consider debating the issue.

Here Parliament has had eight petitions on Covid-19 vaccinations, but they either opposed vaccine mandates because they reduced personal freedom, called for modifications to the mandate system, or asked for people to have a choice of vaccines.