Labour to cut tax benefit for parents who choose not to vaccinate

[BellyBelly]

Whooping cough is scary. I love this article about it though:

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/20...-humphries-md/

“We’ve had over 90% baby vaccination rates for whooping cough vaccines for over 11 years…since 2000, AND they’ve included even more shots since then for the adolescents at the time… and yet more, after 2000… AND here we are with whooping cough in EVEN higher numbers than it was before 1960? Don’t you think that’s absolutely astonishing? …Australia, which has had over a 95% whooping cough vaccination rate since 2000, is having the largest outbreak in their history since pertussis vaccination started. The same is happening in USA, and their rate of vaccination is even higher than Australia. So what do you think is happening there?” – Hilary Butler

[nothing2lose]

I don't get the FTB supplement because I choose to work. In fact, I don't get any government benefits (except Medicare) because I choose to work. If I wanted to get them, I guess I could choose not to work. To me it's no different with vaccinating. Make the choice to vax or not based on your beliefs, etc, and be prepared to accept the consequence of your choice.

If you are going to be swayed by a bonus payment from the Government (that could cease to exist altogether from one budget to the next), I'd question how strong your anti-vax beliefs are anyway.

[Phteven]

It's a pretty good way to distract people from real electoral issues like the re-introduction of work choices, selling out to big business and excessive cruelty to refugees.

[Schmickers]

I don't get the FTB supplement because I choose to work. In fact, I don't get any government benefits (except Medicare) because I choose to work. If I wanted to get them, I guess I could choose not to work. To me it's no different with vaccinating. Make the choice to vax or not based on your beliefs, etc, and be prepared to accept the consequence of your choice.

If you are going to be swayed by a bonus payment from the Government (that could cease to exist altogether from one budget to the next), I'd question how strong your anti-vax beliefs are anyway.

What upsets me is that this is not the immunization payment. It is a family tax benefit payment. The message here is that the government thinks that families who choose not to immunize their children should not receive the same relief from tax add those that do. It's quite mind boggling to me.

What next? Mandated oral contraception for teenagers to reduce the rising rate of teen pregnancy? Mandated behavioral modification drugs for school aged children to reduce disruption in the classroom for children with ADHD? Allowing the government to mandate the way we care for our children above and beyond the need to protect then from the risk of serious harm or neglect is a terrible precedent to set.

[nothing2lose]

But you have a choice. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. That money is available through the largesse of the Government. It's not a right. It's a bonus. If it's the government policy to have universal vaccination, then it can't be surprising that it may not extend its largesse to those who reject that policy.

It doesn't effect me either way, but if it did, and I had made a conscious choice not to vax, then I would have to accept that the ramification of my choice would be no supplement payment.