Authorised workers, letterbox deliverers urged to carry worker letter

With eight Greater Sydney LGAs – Blacktown, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool and Parramatta – in a hard lockdown, authorised workers and letterbox deliverers from these areas are encouraged to carry an authorised worker letter with them at all times.

The Real Media Collective has provided a letter template and is encouraging all effected member and non-member business owners to download and edit for their own purposes – the template can be found here.

It is applicable for any authorised worker living in a locked down areas across the country that needs to travel for essential, authorised work.

The Real Media Collective CEO Kellie Northwood says all authorised workers should carry a letter to help them if they are stopped by police on their way to work.

“We have to support our workers and being stopped by a police officer or any authority can be intimidating, so arming your teams with this letter is really an appropriate assurance for them,” The Real Media Collective CEO Kellie Northwood told Sprinter.

“We have had some incidents across the country where we have spoken directly with police at the time to assist walkers and workers, whether it is myself or Charles (Watson), when we are able to communicate with them we have all the legal articulation, and someone standing on the side of the road feeling intimidated may not.

“So we really want to encourage the use of this letter.”

Currently workers living in the eight Sydney LGAs mentioned listed above who cannot work from home, but are employed by companies undertaking exempted activities (see below list), are able to leave their LGA to attend work. Some workers may also require a COVID-19 test to leave their local government area. More NSW Government information on testing, can be found here.

The NSW Government has provided a list of exempted activities – the full list can be found here. But here is a guide of the ones that relate to our industry:

Manufacturing

  • production and manufacturing of food, beverages, groceries, cleaning and sanitary products
  • food and fibre processing and manufacturing
  • manufacture of food and beverage packaging
  • manufacture of coffins and caskets
  • manufacturing of medical equipment, consumables and personal protective equipment
  • manufacturing of telecommunications equipment and infrastructure

Transport postal and warehousing

  • freight, logistics, postal, courier or delivery services (including food logistics, delivery and grocery fulfilment)
  • distribution of food, groceries and sanitary products for sale by supermarkets, grocery shops or other shops that predominantly sell food or drinks
  • warehousing
  • road transport

Avoid illegal protests

The other point Northwood is making is that workers across the country be encouraged to avoid illegal anti-lockdown protests.

To help push this point, she wrote a letter to industry last week. It can be found here.

“We did have a few incidents of workers across the industry attending the first protest and then talking about attending and talking about going with other colleagues to the next one that was scheduled so that is why we wrote a letter encouraging everyone to stay home,” Northwood said.

“I think our industry should be very proud that we haven’t had a a significant outbreak like other industries have, we have done very well, we have adhered to protocols and we should be proud of that. We don’t want to be attending public gatherings and other things and then we have an outbreak in our industry.”

National Cabinet vaccine roadmap out of COVID

Last week, National Cabinet agreed to a new plan, which takes into account Doherty Institute COVID-19 modelling and federal Treasury analysis, to tie vaccine thresholds to phases of re-opening.

Currently, Australia is in the Vaccinate, Prepare and Pilot phase but once 70 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated, the model will shift to the next phase. This will include ongoing low-level restrictions with effective track and trace and with lockdowns unlikely but possible and targeted.

The third phase kicks in when over 80 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated with minimum ongoing baseline restrictions adjusted to minimise cases without lockdowns, and highly targeted lockdowns only.

“National Cabinet provides a good guide of what we are all trying to achieve. We totally support getting the jab and we’ve got our publishers putting it in their magazine and we are encouraging printers to print these notices and put them in their packs,” Northwood said.

“We’ve told the government a growing list of major companies in our industry which employ close to 33,000 people are prepared to become vaccination hubs and that is growing.”

Ai Group CEO Innes Willox welcomed the target but said industry now needs to brace itself for disruption for at least the next six months when lockdowns are a component of formal national policy.

“We need an end point for this disruption no matter the take up rate.  Once everyone eligible has been offered a vaccine we need to move to the next phase and not be held hostage to vaccine hesitancy and opposition,” Willox said in a statement.

“The opening needs to be accompanied by a streamlined testing system, ending the closure of our international border and an end to states shutting off our internal borders.

“Our economic recovery depends on all our leaders sticking by their agreements – something they have found impossible to abide by to this point.”

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