No-jab, no-pay means families could miss out on up to $15,000 per year.
Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and Social Services Minister, Scott Morrison have this morning announced that indicated that parents who do not vaccinate their children may lose up to $15,000 in government benefits.
Abbott and Morrison said that they are scrapping the “conscientious objection” provision that allows parents who do not vaccinate their to still claim benefits such as Family Tax Benefit A, as well as assistance for childcare. A narrow religious objection provision will remain, as will legitimate medical exemptions.
For more: Child care benefits should not be paid to anti-vaxxers.
Minister Morrison said, “we want to make sure that our kids are healthy, that our families are healthy and when you put them into childcare you can have that confidence.”
“The overwhelming advice and position of those in the health profession is, it’s the smart thing and the right thing to vaccinate your children. [If parents don’t,] taxpayers are not going to subsidise that choice for them.”
The Prime Minister said that he hoped that the new policy would garner bi-partisan support from the Opposition, but he was “not taking anything for granted”.
The number of Australian children who have not been vaccinated has more than doubled in the past decade.
Approximately 39,000 parents have signed conscientious objection papers certifying that they are unable to vaccinate their children for “personal, philosophical, religious or medical,” reasons. By scrapping the provision, the government is expected to save $50 million a year.
The laws if passed will come into effect in January.
While these provisions may improve immunisation rates among communities accessing these payments, there are large pockets of poor immunisation rates in affluent areas who may be unaffected by these changes.
Top Comments
While I applaud this push to counteract the "anti-vax" movement, the
practical implementation of this policy has some serious problems.
My child is not eligible for medicare, as we are studying in Australia and are only temporary residents. We do not qualify for any childcare or family benefits in Australia, but need a Childhood Immunisation Register statement to enrol our child in a childcare centre. Now we need to wait 28 days for the statement to arrive in the mail, until we can prove his immunisation status. Australians can use the online service to print their statements, which is not an option for us. BTW, our child has always been immunised on time and I consider this blatant discrimination of temporary residents in your country.
IF they provide a list of ingredients of each vile to ensure that only the vaccine and nothing else is injected, and IF they allow vaccination one at a time and not as a combination, and IF they allow them to be done with a minimum of a couple of months apart, THEN I MIGHT think about inserting the very diseases they purport to prevent, into the blood stream of my children in the hope they don't die, become autistic or end up with brain damage, liver failure, etc. Feeding big pharma who control both the media and our politicians is not my idea of a democratic society. If we fall down the slippery slope of propaganda where we actually believe that EVERYTHING the so-called experts and the Government try to tell us is actually good for us, then we are going to end up in a New World utopia where we'll just swallow every single lie. Just like fluoride (a highly toxic chemical) in water is supposed to prevent cavities... Wakey-Wakey people, it's all complete bollocks!
So you would be happy for your child to be injected with a vaccine with no added preservatives to keep it clean? Vaccines are stored for a period of time before use, so the need to preserve them is important. I'm pretty sure if you asked your GP for an alternative vaccine schedule they would be happy to oblige, for an extra cost to you of course.
Vaccines are not injected directly into the bloodstream, they are intramuscular. Also check the stats on the amount of cavities children had in the 60's and compare it to now, no comparison, so yes fluoride is effective in preventing cavities.
Of course Governments tell lies and try to mislead sometimes, but the simple answer to that is check your facts, make your decisions on that, rather than just assuming that everyone is lying to you.