Not Just Immunity: Vaccine Perks Span Free Flights, Rides and Maybe Tinder Dates

Here are the top news stories this week in Australian business and politics: Vaccine hesitancy, the limitations of “Covid-Zero” and climate victories.

As a reluctance to get Covid shots threatens to prolong the pandemic in countries around the world, companies with the most to gain from life getting back to normal are pitching in.

Dating site Tinder is rolling out incentives such as profile boosts for users who’ve been jabbed. Uber and Lyft are offering free rides to anyone on their way to get vaccinated in the U.S., while United Airlines is offering vaccinated frequent fliers the chance to win free trips for a year.

And now Qantas is joining the push. The Flying Kangaroo is considering giving flight vouchers, air miles or loyalty status credits until the end of 2021 to people who’ve had a shot.

Australia’s vaccine rollout is “the key to keeping our domestic borders open and safely restarting international travel,” says Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully.

As nations like the U.S and U.K rapidly reopen thanks to widespread vaccination programs, the seven-day lockdown in Victoria shows yet again the risks of a slow rollout.

While our zero-tolerance approach to the virus has spared Australia the spiraling infection rates and terrifying death tolls seen elsewhere in the world, the strategy risks leaving us prone to further flare-ups unless we pick up the pace of vaccinations. Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are in a similar boat.

And with hotel quarantine remaining our Achilles heel, there’s little prospect of reopening international borders until a more robust system is in place.

My colleague Jason Scott explores how the outbreak in Melbourne is testing our “Covid-Zero” strategy yet again.—Edward Johnson

Climate Victories

The climate movement celebrated a couple of big wins this week, with Exxon forced to revamp its board and Shell ordered by a Dutch court to slash emissions faster than planned.

That run of success paused in Australia, however, where campaigners lost their bid to block a mine expansion by one of the nation’s largest coal producers.

A group of eight teenagers and a nun, Sister Brigid Arthur, had sought an injunction to stop Environment Minister Sussan Ley from approving the expansion by Whitehaven Coal. They argued the government has a duty of care to protect Australia’s youth from the future impacts of a warming planet.

While Judge Mordy Bromberg acknowledged the government does indeed have a duty of care, he said the campaigners had failed to establish that it had been breached. The ruling paves the way for Whitehaven to seek final go-ahead for the project that will produce as much as 10 million tons a year of mostly metallurgical coal, used in steel-making.

The teenagers behind the case claimed a victory of sorts, saying the government’s responsibility to protect young people from the ravages of global warming has now been established in law. Next, Bromberg will examine submissions from the teenagers and government to formulate orders on how Ley should exercise that duty in her pending approval of the mine.

My colleague Matt Burgess takes a closer look at the tide of lawsuits from the U.S. to the Philippines seeking to press governments and companies to make faster efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.