Thousands of Queensland cops join Palmer-backed vaccine lawsuit
More than 3100 law enforcement personnel and staff have signed on to a Clive Palmer-funded class action against the Queensland Police Service over a COVID-era vaccination mandate, with the law firm behind the action making a final appeal for others to join.
Sibley Lawyers director Justin Sibley, whose firm represented current and former QPS employees, said there were potentially thousands more who could come forward before the Friday deadline.
“At the time the vaccination mandate was introduced in September 2021, there were around 18,000 QPS employees, meaning a significant number of people may potentially be eligible to participate in this class action,” he said.
“Given our experience protecting frontline workers since mandates began, I’m not surprised by the number of police and staff vaccinated under duress. Hopefully everyone who is eligible will come forward, and those that haven’t still have time.”
Palmer, through his mining company Mineralogy, was funding the class action.
The mandates were a contentious requirement during the pandemic, but health authorities declared them to be scientifically justified.
Unlike many in the community, police officers were considered essential workers and, as such, were able to move more freely during the COVID lockdowns.
Then-police commissioner Katarina Carroll introduced the mandate, which was to last five months, in September 2021.
“The dynamic nature of policing means frontline officers interact with large volumes of people and move around to all corners of the state,” she said at the time.
“It is important the Queensland community has confidence and feel safe when interacting with their police.
“While we respect individual choice and we will engage closely with our members as we implement the directive, our overwhelming obligation is to ensure we have safe workplaces and a safe community.”
Officers and staff who did not comply faced suspension without pay and, potentially, the loss of their jobs.
Other government employees, such as teachers, faced similar mandates. However, when the Palaszczuk government lifted those mandates in June 2022, the QPS mandate remained in place as it was a commissioner’s directive, not a government mandate.
The QPS directive was revoked that December.
In February 2024, Supreme Court Justice Glenn Martin found the QPS directive was unlawful under the Human Rights Act.
Rather than ruling that workplace vaccination requirements themselves were inherently illegal, Martin found the directive unlawful because Carroll failed to properly consider human rights advice during the decision-making process.
Sibley said the episode had turned police “against each other” and had damaged the QPS’s strong cultural bond.
“Many police and staff complied with the directions because the alternative was to be suspended without pay and then terminated,” he said.
“Police and staff, many with years of experience and exemplary service records, had their pay cut off just before Christmas of 2021. Those who had held out briefly could see that the threat of suspension without pay was real.
“The reality was that many employees who had legitimate medical advice not to be vaccinated were refused applications for exemptions.”
Sibley said the majority of class action participants nominated that they were in the “vaccine coercion group” – officers and staff employed between September 7, 2021, and December 12, 2022, who received jabs after the relevant directions were issued, but would not otherwise have received those doses.
Almost 200 had nominated the “vaccine refusal group”, which included those who refused vaccinations altogether and were liable to disciplinary action.
Sibley said others had nominated for the “refused medical exemption group”, whose applications for medical exemptions were refused.
“The class action is now at an important stage, with a September 18 deadline for people to either opt in or opt out of the class action,” he said.
A QPS spokeswoman said the service would be unable to provide comment “due to pending proceedings”.
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