“It’s our strong preference that the government mandates that all persons entering a mall be vaccinated and temperature checked as well."
The head of one of Australia’s largest retailers has called on shopping centre owners and the Australian government to ban unvaccinated shoppers from malls around the country.
The retail billionaire, Solomon Lew, said on Thursday that once Sydney and Melbourne - the two most populated cities in Australia - exit lockdown, it would be his preference that shoppers are both vaccinated and temperature-checked.
The Premier Investments chairman told the
Sydney Morning Herald: “It’s our strong preference that the government mandates that all persons entering a mall be vaccinated and temperature checked as well. It has to be controlled at the point of entry.
“I don’t want to be in a situation where we’re saying to somebody, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you into the store’, then we have a security problem and they king-hit one of my people.
“The centre owners have an absolute responsibility to ensure that the venue is not only safe for the entire family shopping experience, but to ensure that our retail staff have nothing to fear by trying to earn a living working in retail stores."
Lew added that it was also his "preference” that vaccinations be made mandatory for retail workers.
“They really need to put the laws out there,” he said.
Lew's comments come as police in Australia's second largest city of Melbourne arrested more than 200 people after projectiles thrown by protesters injured two officers on Wednesday, during the third consecutive day of demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions.
