Childcare payments stopped to parents who fail to vaccinate kids

EXCLUSIVE: More than 142,700 irresponsible parents have been cut off from receiving childcare payments after they failed to ­vaccinate their children.

The hardline policy on vaccination has bipartisan support.

MORE than 142,700 irresponsible parents have been cut off from receiving childcare payments after they failed to ­vaccinate their children.

The federal government has exclusively revealed to The Saturday Telegraph the extraordinarily high number of Australian parents who have not ensured their children are fully immunised, exposing them to dangerous illnesses.

Parents of 142,793 children under five years old were cut off from receiving up to $15,000 in taxpayer-funded childcare payments following the ‘No jab, no play’ campaign championed by The Sunday Telegraph.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said he was ­“delighted” the government’s new policy had worked, with almost 200,000 more children receiving vaccinations for diseases like hepatitis, tetanus and whooping cough since the laws were introduced in January 2016. The hardline policy has bipartisan support.

“This data shows the policy is working and we encourage objecting parents to reconsider their position which is not supported by medical expertise,” he said.

“This policy is safeguarding the health standards of the general community and ­protecting our infants against hideous illnesses.”

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Mr Hunt said parents had the right to be vaccine objectors but they would be cut off from the Child Care Benefit, the Child Care Rebate or the Family Tax Benefit Part A end-of-year supplement.

In NSW, the suburbs with the highest number of parents who refused to immunise their children were Richmond Valley, Manly, Sydney’s Inner City, the Eastern Suburbs and Mosman.

In Manly, nearly 16 per cent of children had not been immunised while in Mosman, 13 per cent of children had not received their full jabs.

The lowest vaccination rates were ­recorded in the Gold Coast Hinterland and in Adelaide City, where only 78 per cent of children whose ­parents ­received the childcare ­rebate were immunised.