Childcare and medical organisations have welcomed the federal government’s decision to strip parents who are conscientious objectors to childhood vaccination of family tax and childcare payments.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Sunday parents would no longer receive payments worth up to $15,000 a child from 1 January 2016.
“The choice made by families not to immunise their children is not supported by public policy or medical research nor should such action by supported by taxpayers in the form of childcare payments,” Mr Abbott said.
“The Government is extremely concerns at the risk this poses to other young children and the broader community.”
Although Australia’s overall childhood vaccination rates remain high – about 97 per cent – the numbers of people who are registered conscientious objectors has risen in the past ten years.
Over the past decade the number of children aged under seven who are not vaccinated because their parents are conscientious objectors has risen by 24,000 to 39,000.
The change to family tax and childcare payments will need to be agreed to by Parliament but has the support of the Opposition.
“Labor supports promoting the safety of our children,” Opposition leader Bill Shorten said on Sunday.
“We believe fundamentally in the science of vaccination.”
From the start of next year people who are registered conscientious objectors will no longer receive either of the two childcare payments – the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate – or the end of year supplement to Family Tax Benefit Part A.
Families claiming the end of year supplement for family tax benefits will also have to have their children vaccinated at all ages from the start of next year before receiving the payment.
At the moment, children’s vaccination status is only checked at the ages of 1, 2 and 5 years.
People who have medical grounds for not vaccinating will continue to receive government payments.
But people with religious reasons will have their eligibility tightened. They will only continue to receive childcare and family tax payments if they are affiliated with a religious group whose governing body has a formally registered objection recognised by the federal government.
The Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison, said there was only one religious organisation recognised by the government.
Mr Morrison refused to name it for fear of advertising it to conscientious objectors.
The Australian Medical Association and Early Childhood Australia both backed the tightening of eligibility for payments but called for greater public education to promote the benefits of vaccination.
“It’s reasonable to try and tighten the way we try and get people to have their children vaccinated,” the president of the Australian Medical Association, Professor Brian Owler, said.
“We need to keep the message going all the time because there are new parents every year so the message must be repeated over and over again. People have become so complacent because they have never seen these diseases.”
The chief executive officer of Early Childhood Australia, Samantha Page, said “continually trying to engage people” who were determined not to vaccinate their children was important.
“It’s time for a campaign on vaccination. We need to have the vaccination message so strong and so out there.”