Tony Abbott has announced his intention to introduce a "no jab, no pay" policy that denies parents of unvaccinated children access to child care subsidies. Backed by Australian Medical Association (representing 27,000 doctors) the new legislation would mean that thousands of families could lose payments, with the government estimating about 39,000 children under seven have not received immunisation because their parents are vaccination objectors.
While some people will see it as their parenting right to leave their children unvaccinated, Social Services Minister Scott Morrison said it's not fair for taxpayers to subsidise parents who choose not to immunise and are therefore putting not just their own, but other parents' children at risk.
'The overwhelming advice of those in the health profession is it's the smart thing and the right thing to do to immunise your children,' Mr Morrison said.
The government says the number of parents opting for the 'conscientious objection' vaccination exemption for payments has more than doubled over the past decade, but the 'no jab, no pay' policy will remove it as an exemption from January 2016.
There is a very small minority of objectors to vaccinating children (apparently taking to the change.org website to voice their concerns), and this is largely due to misinformation, scaremongering and unsubstantiated stories of vaccines linked to other illnesses and syndromes such as autism, which has been proven to have no founding.
Most objectors are actually objecting on the basis that they don't want their children to receive "unnecessary" medication and believe that by taking a holistic approach to medicine they can boost their children's immune system enough to combat these serious diseases. Naturally boosting your children's immune system to beat off general bugs and germs is one thing. Relying on homeopathic medicine and vitamins to beat serious diseases such as chickenpox, mumps and German Measles is another thing entirely.
Vaccinations have been developed to keep us all healthy. They have all but wiped out major child-killing diseases from our developed society, but they can only be effective if almost everyone is vaccinated.
They not only protect our own children, they protect other people's children as well, including babies and unborn children - because of course pregnant women can also be highly susceptible to contagious diseases.
It's no wonder then that some parents are refusing to send their children to child care centres that have children of conscientious objecting parents enrolled. Wanting to protect not just their children who attend the child care centre, but their children at home as well.
The World Health Organisation says immunisation rates for measles must be above 93 per cent to prevent its spread. Julie Leask of the University of Sydney said: "I think what these figures say is… you can't rely on herd immunity in your region".
Vaccines prevent deadly diseases, there is no question about that and ongoing vaccination is key to making sure these diseases don't get the chance to ever take hold again.
Not accepting children without vaccines is not designed to exclude or discriminate, but simply to protect the children and teachers and also to protect those unvaccinated and therefore unprotected kids.
Join our discussion:
Should parents be denied benefits for choosing not to vaccinate their children, or is this taking it a step too far?
