From the beginning of next year, ‘conscientious objection’ will be removed as an exemption category for child care payments and the Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A end-of-year supplement.

Immunisation requirements for the payment of FTB Part A will also be extended to include children of all ages.

Currently, vaccination status is only checked at one, two and five years.

Moruya GP Martin Carlson said he was not so sure it was the right approach.

“I believe in the value of vaccination,” Mr Carlson said.

“All children should have the opportunity to be immunised, and should not be put at risk by people not having their children vaccinated, but I am not 100 per cent sure that this is the right response.”

Eden-Monaro MP Peter Hendy said parents who vaccinated their children should have confidence that they can take their children to child care or into the community without worrying that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others. 

He said while vaccination rates in Australia had increased, vaccine objection rates for children under the age of seven had also increased steadily, especially under the conscientious objector category.

“The vast majority of FTB families meet the current immunisation requirement at relevant age points (around 97 per cent),” Dr Hendy said.

However, more than 39,000 children aged under seven are not vaccinated because their parents are vaccine objectors.

This is an increase of more than 24,000 children over 10 years,” he said.

“The Government is extremely concerned at the risk this poses to other young children and the broader community, including Eden-Monaro.

“The choice made by families not to immunise their children is not supported by public policy or medical research, nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of child care payments.”