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

They are fearful of their kids getting the diseases of which many people believe they're going to get from unvaccinated kids. I see discussions and debates on it every single day.

This is why so many lash out and get nasty - they blame the non-vaxers for risking getting THEIR kids sick, which IS misinformed.

By right I mean the right thing to do for everyone. We all have our own decisions that are right for US. Nor is it right for the government to force vaccination on anyone (I know they're not in this case but its been discussed). It should be each individual's right to choose, and have that respected.

I vaccinate out of fear. I'm not afraid to own that. I met a polio survivor in Vietnam. I have seen a sheep die of tetanus. I saw my mother weeping for the unborn child she lost 15 years previously.

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Bring back the 1950s I say! Where you had kids and paid for them yourself, with no middle class welfare system to help people buy completely unnecessary luxuries like big TVs, smartphones and those ridiculously big 4 wheel drives that have never even left the city!

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Yanno those 4WDs use significantly less fuel than the ridiculously big 50's cars don't you? And that a number of them are hybrid.

And I respect your choice and would never call you stupid :) I understand.

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Bring back the 1950s I say! Where you had kids and paid for them yourself, with no middle class welfare system to help people buy completely unnecessary luxuries like big TVs, smartphones and those ridiculously big 4 wheel drives that have never even left the city!

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... And when women couldn't work or study, even if they wanted to because it was dear husband's job to supply every woman's ultimate fantasy: a new frigidaire or (heavens to Betsy) even a washing machine. YES! *claps hands cheerily and reaches for the hair curlers*

Luckily in the 1950s the male average wage was high enough to cover all those costs and still afford Mrs Housewife's weekly benzodiazepam supplies!

The words 'heavens to Betsy' really should be used more in modern vernacular... :hide: I love it...

It's just not as simple as "they earn more, they can save more".

I financially support a family of 4 - we cannot pay the mortgage on PPL at award rates, and so I took the baby bonus and went back to work as soon as my full pay leave (privately negotiated with my workplace, and they were generous and agreed to cover my full pay on the understanding I was coming back full time and permanently) ran out.

A woman in my industry at another company took two weeks. Two weeks. She also supports her family, but her work place does not have any paid parental leave other than what legislation demands. She was glad that she went into labour on the weekend, so that didn't "eat into" the leave (her annual leave, I might add) she had saved up for it.

She and I were in the same position - do we sell our homes, rent, and keep the money in the bank in case we can't get back to work? Or do we just go back to work? In case something goes wrong?

I was able to negotiate something with my work, she wasn't.

Yes, having a baby is a personal choice. As is having a mortgage. But if I can make the choice of having a career I love, which pays a good wage - on which I pay a lot of tax, HECS repayments, insurance, and which I work very hard at - why should I not be able to take a reasonable amount of time off to spend with my new baby, establish breastfeeding, properly recover from the pregnancy and birth, etc?

The whole thing at the moment is designed with the assumption that the husband (yes, husband, not partner, father etc - the assumption IMHO is husband) takes a week or two off, and then rushes back to work, and the family just needs a little bit to tide them over until the little wife pops back to her menial job, on her hohum pay, probably on a part time basis - and so the award won't be a big difference.

That does not cover all of the households where the Mum is the primary (or in my case, sole) earner, or the households where there is a single mum.

If the payment is linked to the actual having-a-baby thing, like the Baby Bonus clearly was, that's one thing.

If (as suggested in the productivity committee's reports, etc) it is supposed to keep the household going and encourage the woman to go back to work, that's another.

If it is supposed to replace the woman's salary so that she can not feel pressured to rush back to work before healing, bonding with the baby, establishing breastfeeding etc - then it should do that, whether she's on $25K or $150K, and whether she works 10 hours a week or 60.

This isn't about people on higher salaries having big TVs and flashy cars and excess. I find that kind of talk quite judgmental.

Well said PN.

Just for once it would be really nice to have a thread that talks about parenting payments that doesn't mention big TV's flashy cars etc.

Or that those low income earners sit home on their buts living off other people's taxes.

Generalisations are stupid. And never help anybody in a discussion like this.

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Bring back the 1950s I say! Where you had kids and paid for them yourself, with no middle class welfare system to help people buy completely unnecessary luxuries like big TVs, smartphones and those ridiculously big 4 wheel drives that have never even left the city!

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You sound like a ****ed off father daring to think he has a right to say how child support payments are used.

People deal with a decrease in income all the time without compensation from the government. An example - my aunt & uncle were both in the unfortunate position of being unable to work due to health reasons and a car accident respectively within a few months of each other. They had to go onto disability pensions. As a result of this, their savings dwindled and eventually the modern 4 bed, 2 bath, double garage home they rented became unaffordable and so they moved into a 2 bed, one bath shack that looked like it would fall down around them because that was all they could afford. Should they have been awarded a higher disability pension because they were renting a more expensive home? No I don't think so and I don't see why PPL should be any different.

I am the higher income earner in my family. We chose for me to return to work early and DH stay home to care for DS for his first 12 months. For DD, We decided I would stay home for 6 months, & DH for the second 6 months. We used our savings to maintain our lifestyle for it both times (the baby bonus is held in a separate account for the kids as I have never agreed with the payment). And I can promise you we have always earned far less than $150K. We had a mortgage and a car and childcare and food to pay for... and still managed to save by not overstretching our incomes and planning ahead. We knew we wanted kids so we planned for it. I don't see why other people should pay to support my lifestyle choices. By my lifestyle choices I mean paying my mortgage & living expenses - not buying me a new TV or fancy car or brand name kids clothes that never get worn.

Anyway back to topic. I agree that the choice of vaxxing/ not vaxxing is based on fear. Fear of the disease, fear of the side effects of the vaccination. The choice is really to do with which one you fear more. I made my choice based on fear of the disease and my belief that the government & doctors would not deliberately cause harm while understanding that the side effects do exist and governments & doctors do get it wrong sometimes. I believe I made an informed choice but I also admit I did not spend weeks on end reading fine print of research papers. Had I decided differently I would forgo the FTB Payment as that would be my choice.

I worked for an international aid agency for over seven years. One of the reasons I had my DD vaxxed is seeing and working to reverse the consequences of children and adults living in a country with no immunisations each and every day. We just don't realise how blessed we are to live in a country that has a well established vaccination program.

The other reason is growing up watching my sister who had whopping cough for months and months as an infant and had two emergency tracheotomies as a result.

I earn 35-40% of our household income. We live within our means - but our means include my income. We have decided (this week anyway!) that we won't have a fourth child and one of the major factors in that decision is that we can't afford for me to be off work on unpaid maternity leave. I might stop working, but the mortgage still needs to be paid, the bills will continue to arrive and the school fees won't suddenly dry up. We can support our lifestyle in the long term, without government assistance, but we can't cope without my wage in the short term. I don't think that it is reasonable to consider downsizing the house and uprooting the kids from school for that short period that we would be unable to continue to meet our financial responsibilities. As for the 'save for it' plan - we don't have the financial capacity to save 12 months of school fees for three children in advance. It is simply not possible for us, and I doubt it is possible for many middle income families who have made the same parenting choice that we have to educate our children in the private system. As I said, we live within our means, but our means is inclusive of my income, as well as DH's. If the government is offering to support middle income earner's in the short term to enable them to make the same choice as low income earners - i.e. to have another child - then I am all for it.

I don't actually agree that having a baby is purely a personal choice. It entails personal choice, but it's bigger than that. People, and thus children and, indeed, parenting are social goods. They affect all of us, so we all have an interest in how people are raised and we all have a responsibility to contribute to improvements where we can. It's a fine line, certainly, between interfering and supporting, but it's a necessary balance.

So, anyway, I think it makes very good sense to offer financial support to parents who take time out of the workforce to care for their children - the assumption being that this is better for the children, and thus better for all of us. And likewise, if you support the notion of vaccinations as an imperative of public health, then it makes sense to promote them. I'm not convinced this is a very good way of doing it, but anyway.

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I made my choice based on fear of the disease and my belief that the government & doctors would not deliberately cause harm while understanding that the side effects do exist and governments & doctors do get it wrong sometimes. I believe I made an informed choice but I also admit I did not spend weeks on end reading fine print of research papers. Had I decided differently I would forgo the FTB Payment as that would be my choice.

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Very similar here: I am aware of and have researched the diseases, the immunisations, the statistics, the risks, the pro-argument and the con-argument, and have decided that I want my children fully vaccinated. If I had come to the decision that I did not want my children vaccinated, then I would forgo the FTB payment.


Re the PPL tangent (not just Rowellen, but the significant portion of the thread on it - I think it's been an interesting and enlightening debate) I just think that what would be "fair" depends on why it's there.


If it's there as welfare, to help people live day by day, and the payment is there for you to be a parent, then I can understand the logic of people getting the same amount of money. The fact that last week Mumma A was a doctor, and Mumma B was a teacher and Mumma C was a sandwich hand may be irrelevant - what they were last week has no bearing on what kind of a mother these women will be, and therefore arguably should have no impact on what their payment should be.


If it is there as an incentive for working women to feel free to stop work, have some time off with their baby, and then return to work after a reasonable period of time with the baby, then I understand the logic of it being a replacement of wages, to actually provide the intended effect of enabling the woman to realistically be able to do this. And yes, how much they actually earn is relevant to the equation - this isn't about it windfall, if it's about salary replacement.


It depends on what the intention is. I wasn't expecting 6 months paid leave at full salary (and I sure didn't get anything like that!) but you know what? If it was on offer, I would have taken more time than I did. Still not six months, but maybe 3, maybe 4. I'm not going to whinge if they don't though, as it's not something I feel entitled to - it would be a perk that I have lucked out on, based on what the Government of the day is trying to achieve.

Sorry if this has been covered, I've read many responses but not all.

Just on a practical note, would "medical grounds" include for example, if my child caught chicken pox before she could be vaxxed for it? (Which she did, because her big sister's CP vax didn't work and she caught it and infected the rest of us... ). Does the dr notify this through the standard process? I know they do when your child is vaxxed, and you get the immunisation statement in the mail, but now we're technically behind, so I just wondered what to do about closing the loophole. Not overly concerned about the entitlement (although I won't sneeze at it - goes towards a rare holiday in our family), but more about having it clearly stated that DD2 is not in need of the CP vax.

Preschool is already confused about it, because she hasn't had it and despite me knowing she's immune because she's had the virus itself, they aren't sure whether she should be excluded or not if there's an outbreak (it's a private preschool so they can do this). DTMS? Don't get me started on what common sense would say... :rolleyes:

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Sorry if this has been covered, I've read many responses but not all.

Just on a practical note, would "medical grounds" include for example, if my child caught chicken pox before she could be vaxxed for it? (Which she did, because her big sister's CP vax didn't work and she caught it and infected the rest of us... ). Does the dr notify this through the standard process? I know they do when your child is vaxxed, and you get the immunisation statement in the mail, but now we're technically behind, so I just wondered what to do about closing the loophole. Not overly concerned about the entitlement (although I won't sneeze at it - goes towards a rare holiday in our family), but more about having it clearly stated that DD2 is not in need of the CP vax.

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Yes, having CP makes you exempt from needing the vax. I'm pretty sure that would be covered as a medical exemption and you need your doctor to sign the form for you submit for an exemption from the CP vax to make you 'up to date' on the immunisation schedule.

Sorry that the humour in my previous post wasn't as evident online as it was in my head. My point was that wouldn't it be nice to live in an economic climate where all these payments were unnecessary because (a) people lived within their means and (b) it was much easier to live within your means. The lines between necessity and luxury are so blurred these days. On one hand Internet access is a luxury. You don't need it to survive. But on the other a lack of it puts people at a distinct social and educational disadvantage.

Wish we could have these discussions without the anger...