"I think there will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated if they want to fully participate in all the activities we normally enjoy."

On 14 December 2021, an ABC News article reporting on the easing of COVID-19 restrictions quoted South Australia’s Police Commissioner and State Co-ordinator Grant Stevens as saying:

“I think there will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated if they want to fully participate in all the activities we normally enjoy.”[1]

At the time, the Marshall Liberal Government had imposed COVID-19 vaccination mandates through Directions issued by Commissioner Stevens under South Australia’s Emergency Management Act 2004.

Under these mandates, many South Australians who refused COVID-19 vaccination faced serious penalties, including loss of employment and other restrictions on their lives.

Now, nearly five years later, SA Health has confirmed to me:

“Valid consent is required before the administration of every vaccine and was a well-established routine practice prior to the commencement of the COVID-19 Vaccination Program.” (Emphasis added.)

But how could ‘valid consent’ be obtained by practitioners from people presenting for COVID-19 vaccination under coercive vaccination mandates which threatened their livelihood?

The timing is striking. On 14 December 2021, ABC News reported Commissioner Stevens saying there would be “an incentive for people to get vaccinated” if they wanted to “fully participate in all the activities we normally enjoy”.

The following day, 15 December 2021, the Australian Government published its Handling consent refusal by people presenting for vaccination guidance.

That guidance defined informed consent as an individual’s “voluntary” decision and instructed practitioners:

"A patient must provide informed consent prior to vaccination."

“If a patient has not provided informed consent, you should not vaccinate them, even if they are mandated to receive a COVID-19 vaccination to perform particular roles or enter certain settings.”

Meanwhile, the Marshall Liberal Government in South Australia was imposing coercive vaccination mandates, through Directions issued by Commissioner Stevens, under which refusal carried serious penalties.

South Australian doctors, nurses and pharmacists were administering the Australian Government’s COVID-19 vaccines to people under the Marshall Liberal Government-imposed mandates.

Didn’t anyone in authority see the obvious conflict? How could 'valid consent' be obtained by practitioners in such coercive circumstances?

I have now put this question directly to South Australia’s current Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Blair Boyer, following the response I recently received from his department about dissemination of the Australian Government’s Handling consent refusal by people presenting for vaccination guidance.

For the public record, my recent email to Blair Boyer is reproduced below.

Given the broader public interest in these questions, other parliamentarians and office holders have been included as witnesses on this correspondence.

The full email thread can be accessed here.

10 August 2026

Subject: Re: SA Health confirms valid consent required for every vaccine

For the attention of:
The Hon Blair Boyer MP
Minister for Health and Wellbeing

Copied to:
Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Ageing
Senator the Hon Anne Ruston, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care
The Hon Michelle Rowland MP, Attorney-General
Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash, Shadow Attorney-General
Senator Malcolm Roberts, Senator for Queensland
Senator Alex Antic, Senator for South Australia
Senator Ralph Babet, Senator for Victoria
Ms Claire Clutterham MP, Federal Member for Sturt
Mr Jack Batty MP, State Member for Bragg
Professor Anne Duggan, CEO, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC)
Professor Carolyn Hullick, Chief Medical Officer, ACSQHC

Dear Minister Boyer

Thank you for the response from your department (see email thread below) confirming:

“Valid consent is required before the administration of every vaccine and was a well-established routine practice prior to the commencement of the COVID-19 Vaccination Program.” (Emphasis added.)

But during the COVID-19 response, the South Australian Government imposed vaccination mandates under which many people in South Australia faced serious penalties if they refused COVID-19 vaccination, including the loss of employment and restrictions on participation in everyday life. These vaccination mandates were issued as Directions by Police Commissioner and State Co-ordinator Grantley Stevens under the Emergency Management Act 2004.

On 14 December 2021, ABC News reported Commissioner Stevens as saying:

“I think there will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated if they want to fully participate in all the activities we normally enjoy.”[1]

How could ‘valid consent’ be obtained by practitioners in such coercive circumstances?

Your department’s response to me refers to the Australian Government’s responsibility for the COVID-19 Vaccination Program and its associated guidance. However, it was South Australian practitioners – doctors, nurses and pharmacists – who administered that Australian Government program to South Australians, within an environment of coercion created by the Marshall Liberal Government’s vaccination mandates, issued as Directions by Commissioner Stevens.

The Australian Government’s Handling consent refusal by people presenting for vaccination guidance, published on 15 December 2021, which your department referenced in its response, states:

“Informed consent is an individual’s voluntary decision to agree to a healthcare treatment, procedure or intervention, such as a COVID-19 vaccination, in its entirety, after the individual has been provided understandable, sufficient, appropriate and reliable information about the intervention, including the potential risks and benefits.”

The guidance further states:

“A patient must provide informed consent prior to vaccination.”

“If a patient has not provided informed consent, you should not vaccinate them, even if they are mandated to receive a COVID-19 vaccination to perform particular roles or enter certain settings.”

It logically follows that a practitioner cannot ethically proceed with the medical intervention without valid voluntary informed consent.

In light of the above, I request your response to the following questions:

• How does the South Australian Government reconcile the coercive COVID-19 vaccination mandates, imposed through Commissioner Stevens’ Directions, with practitioners’ personal, non-delegable obligation to obtain valid voluntary informed consent before administering every COVID-19 vaccination?

• As raised in my original email to you, I again ask whether SA Health received the Australian Government’s Handling consent refusal by people presenting for vaccination guidance, published in December 2021. If so, when was the guidance received and what action, if any, was taken to communicate or distribute it to practitioners delivering the Australian Government’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program under the Marshall Liberal Government’s COVID-19 vaccination mandates?

Given the broader public interest in these questions, I have copied other parliamentarians and office holders as witnesses to this correspondence.

I look forward to your early response.

Kind regards

Elizabeth Hart
Independent researcher on medical ethics and vaccination policy
vaccinationispolitical.net

Reference:
1.Nick Harmsen, Eugene Boisvert and Sara Tomevska,‘South Australia on track to further ease COVID-19 restrictions by the end of the year’,ABC News, 14 December 2021.

Acknowledgement:
ChatGPT was used as a reasoning partner and drafting tool in the preparation of this correspondence, with pressure testing by Claude. All content was initiated, developed, directed, and refined by the author.