Russell Broadbent (Monash, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our government's no jab, no pay policy, which withholds the family tax benefit part A supplement and childcare subsidies from families who choose not to vaccinate their children in accordance with the national schedule, is unreasonable, unethical and unconscionable in a country like ours. This policy is the only law in the world that ties a person's access to social support payments to their compliance with a medical procedure. Welfare payments are being used as coercive leverage against parents' personal health choices, targeting parents least able to absorb the loss of payments. It punishes young families, single parents and low-income Australians, who are already doing it tough. Coercion is not a good policy; it's lazy and unethical governance. It erodes trust in public health and undermines informed decision-making—two cornerstones of safe and ethical health care. How is questioning your doctor about vaccines—'How safe is it? What's in it? Has it been tested?'—seen as a radical and extreme concept? Surely, having a conversation to weigh up risks and benefits and choosing to decline a medical product without facing fear of financial reprisal from your own government would be an automatic human right. We must be better than this. We must stand for informed consent not enforced compliance. Health decisions are personal, not political.

Repealing no jab, no pay is not an antivaccine position; it's a pro-choice, pro-ethics position. The government should never hold your child's welfare hostage to your informed medical decisions. Where is the Human Rights Commission on this issue? (Time expired)