In Australia, Immunize Or Lose Benefits

An anonymous reader writes with news of a plan from the Australian government to cut down on the number of kids who aren't vaccinated. The new scheme will deny family tax benefits to parents whose children don't pass immunization checks. Quoting: "The FTB supplement, worth $726 per child each year, will now only be paid once a child is fully immunized at these checks. Families are already required to have their child fully immunized to receive Child Care Benefit and the Child Care Rebate. Children will also be required for the first time to be vaccinated against meningococcal C, pneumococcal and chicken pox. Children will also be immunized against measles, mumps and rubella earlier, at 18 months instead of the current four years of age."

Comments

Sooner or later

[Vinegar Joe]

People are going to learn to do what they are fucking told when the government fucking tells them.

"pay and reward"

[SuperKendall]

"Society isn't going to pay and reward them to exercise that right."

You do realize that first the taxes are taken from the family, the only question is how much of THIER OWN MONEY the government decides to hand back...

At least that is my reading of "Tax Benefit". If the government is truly handing out other tax payers money instead, they should be able to place whatever onerous restrictions they like upon it.

Re:Double Standards

[bky1701]

"On a side note, becoming anti-vaccination simply to make a political point is an unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to someone telling you what to do."

Up until this point, in my mind, the argument was more about the effectiveness and "side effects" of vaccination. Now we're entering human rights areas and that is where my position needs re-evaluated. I cannot support vaccination if this sort of argument is the outcome. Public health is secondary to human rights, just like security, and if I need to oppose vaccination to oppose to support human rights, I will.

"But to take a view just to stick it to the man means that you're leaving your reasoning at the door and allowing emotion to make up your mind."

Then why is it that all the emotional arguments here are the ones advocating all sorts of absurd ways to force vaccination? "Protect my kids," "you have no right to do things that could indirectly hurt others," etc. All the same things we've heard flaunted as reasons to censor the internet and spy on people who have committed no crimes. When it comes down to it, the repercussions of a few people not being vaccinated are realistically tiny. However, the repercussions of "social good trumps personal rights" are much more wide-reaching. What I can't understand at all is why the argument suddenly becomes meaningful when applied to vaccination and not any other number of things it is applied to. You did not really answer that, other than to again point it out.

This law is perhaps sane and reasonable; those who are supporting it here are not. Dare I say, this shows all the same problems in the technically-minded progressives that exist in the regressive right. Give people some boogeyman they can hate and they will back any kind of irrational argument and violation of personal rights to fight it.

What are obviously needed are some sane people who, while not against vaccination per se, will stand up against this absurdity. That is the position I am now taking, because this kind of crap cannot go unquestioned.