A Panacea for Australia's COVID-19 Crisis? Weighing Some Legal Implications of Mandatory Vaccination.

Although Australia's rates of infection, illness and mortality from COVID-19 have been relatively low, they have escalated with the rapid transmission of the Delta variant. Restrictions imposed on people's liberties to curb the spread of the virus in several Australian States have engendered economic hardship, mental health challenges, and collective exhaustion and impatience. Several vaccines have been developed and approved for use in Australia that have proven effective in reducing the likelihood that the vaccinated will contract COVID-19 and, if infected, transmit and suffer serious illness and/or die from it.

A way through the dark and thorny thickets? The adjudication of "serious injury" under the narrative tests in the Transport Accident Act 1986 (Vic) and the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 (Vic).

The so-called "narrative" test provides the means by which injured persons who satisfy the statutory and common law definition of "serious injury" may bring proceedings for common law damages under s 93 of the Transport Accident Act 1986 (Vic) and s 134AB of the Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic) (or, for injuries after 1 July 2014, under ss 324-347 of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 (Vic)). These are among the most litigated provisions in Australia. This article outlines the legislative and political background to these provisions, the provisions themselves, and an account of the statutory and common law requirements needed to satisfy the provisions.