Improving education about immunisation is a better way to get people to vaccinate their children than threatening to withhold their welfare payments, experts say.
The Federal Government announced yesterday it is cracking down on parents who refuse to vaccinate their children in what Prime Minister Tony Abbott is calling a No Jab No Pay policy.
It will now hold back childcare rebates worth up to $15,000 annually for those who do not comply.
Health advocates say it is the right thing to do to prevent infectious diseases spreading.
Australia has vaccination rates of more than 90 per cent for children aged one to five, but more than 39,000 children aged under seven are not vaccinated because of their parents’ objections — an increase of more than 24,000 children over the past 10 years.
Some fear vaccines cause autism, despite the claims being repeatedly disproven.
According to pro-immunisation groups, the highest rates of parents not immunising their kids are found in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs and the northern coast of New South Wales.
“It’s based on fear and misinformation, and perhaps a sense of entitlement,” surgeon John Cunningham said.
Exceptions will be made for those people who object to vaccinations on religious grounds, but they will have to registered as members of an official religious body.
Pro-immunisation groups said they were yet to find any genuine religious groups who were anti-immunisation.
But some health experts are not so sure the new policy will actually increase the immunisation rate.
Dr Julie Leask, a public health expert at Sydney University, said many people who were not vaccinating their children were doing so because they missed medical check-ups and had a lack of education.
“The best way to increase our immunisation rates is probably through a raft of other measures that target the families who are not up to date unwittingly, rather than punishing those who are dead set against vaccination,” she said.
To register a conscientious objection, parents must take a Medicare form to a doctor to receive counselling about immunisation.
The doctor has to then sign the form, which must be sent to the Federal Government.
‘People get information from sources that aren’t reputable’
David McCaffery and his wife Toni are passionate advocates for childhood vaccination.
Six years ago they brought home their baby girl, Dana, from hospital in northern New South Wales.
“She was born perfectly healthy; brought her home in an area where there’s low vaccination rates,” Mr McCaffery said.
It should have been a time of great happiness but instead Dana caught whooping cough and died within a month.
The McCafferys’ other children had been vaccinated against the disease but Dana did not get that chance.
David and Toni McCaffery believe parents who choose not to have their children vaccinated are being misled.
“Those people have a choice to vaccinate or not,” Mr McCaffery said.
“But it needs to be based on factual information that clearly states how dangerous these diseases can be and how vaccination helps prevent it.
“And a lot of people get that information from sources that aren’t reputable.”