Malcolm Turnbull pushes childcare ban on unvaccinated kids

An Australian government plan bans unvaccinated children from childcare centres and preschools across the country. The push is part of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s aim to boost vaccination.

"If a parent says, 'I'm not going to vaccinate my child,' they are not simply putting their child at risk, they are putting everybody else's children at risk too,” the Australian leader explained. Turnbull has stressed the importance of vaccination, saying it’s an issue that concerns life and death.

The "no jab, no play" policy is already being implement in several states, but Turnbull believes that there is more to be done, thus calling for nationwide legislation. The law requires that a child must be vaccinated in accordance with the per-age schedule under section 4 of A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999.

Since the policy has been implemented in 2016, an additional 200,000 children received vaccination. The "no jab, no play" policy denies welfare payments to parents whose kids are not vaccinated.

In 2014, New South Wales government amended laws to ban children who are not fully immunised to enrol at childcare facilities. Victoria and Queensland embraced the same policy, but centres in the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania or the Northern Territory did not follow the same path.

The push for a national approach was positively received by public health experts. They argue that parents and the community have a responsibility to ensure that children are protected. Dr Stephen Duckett, health program director at the Grattan Institute, told Fairfax Media that extending the existing state measures to the other states and territories is a good thing.

President of the Australian Medical Association, Michael Gannon, explained that the young ones are at risk of catching infection because they have not developed basic skills of hygiene yet. Based on an Australian Child Health Poll, almost 2,000 parents suggested that 5 percent of children were not fully vaccinated.

Gannon, however, stressed that there should be an essential division between childcare and primary education. He assured that he would never want to see unvaccinated kids being denied access to a formal education. “We believe that unvaccinated children are already at a disadvantage. We would hate to compound that disadvantage by depriving them of a formal education," he said. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also supports the national approach, saying he applauds the prime minister for his efforts concerning the anti-vaccination brigade.