Parents who fail to get their children vaccinated in Australia are to be denied state benefits, including Child Care Benefit, the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has announced.

The controversial ‘No Jab, No Play and No Pay' policy will see some families being denied benefits worth around $11,000 AUD per year, which is just over €7,800.

Until now, parents have been able to refuse vaccinations on religious, philosophical and personal grounds, which is known as ‘conscientious objection'. However, from January 1, 2016, this conscientious objection ‘will be removed as an exemption category' for payments including Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate.

Meanwhile, immunisation requirements for the payment of a specific Family Tax Benefit supplement ‘will be extended to include children of all ages'. Currently, vaccination status is only checked at the ages of one, two and five years for this benefit.

"Existing exemptions on medical or religious grounds will continue, however a religious objection will only be available where the person is affiliated with a religious groups where the governing body has a formally registered objection approved by the government. This means that vaccine objectors will not be able to access these government payments," Prime Minister Abbott explained.

He insisted that this new policy will ‘tighten up the rules and reinforce the importance of immunisation and protecting public health'.

"Parents who vaccinate their children should have confidence that they can take their children to child care without the fear that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others," he pointed out.

Australia currently has vaccination rates of over 90% among children aged one to five years, however vaccine objection rates for children under the age of seven have been increasing in recent years, particularly under the conscientious objector category.

"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. The government is extremely concerned at the risk this poses to other young children and the broader community," Prime Minister Abbott said.

He added that the choice by some 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'.

For more information on vaccination in Ireland or to help keep track of your children's vaccinations, see our unique Child Immunisation Tracker here