Galaxy Poll: 86 per cent of Australians want childhood vaccination to be compulsory?
Source: dailytelegraph.com.au
Australians want Prime Minister Tony Abbott to make childhood vaccination compulsory and close loopholes that allow vaccine refusers to put all children at risk.
An exclusive national Galaxy poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed overwhelming support to ensure every child is vaccinated.
The highest support for compulsory jabs is in South Australia, where 90 per cent support the call.
The poll shows 86 per cent of all Australians believe childhood vaccination should be compulsory. Only 10 per cent are opposed and 4 per cent are uncommitted.
“The majority of Australians — 86 per cent — are in favour of compulsory childhood vaccination,” Galaxy’s David Briggs said.
“This strong finding may be observed among men — 86 per cent — and women — 85 per cent — the young — 84 per cent — and the old — 86 per cent.’’
As reported last month in The Sunday Telegraph, in NSW and the ACT, 87 per cent of men and women support compulsory vaccination.
The Galaxy poll support for mandatory vaccination follows the successful No Jab, No Play campaign championed by The Sunday Telegraph that has prompted reforms to ensure kids attending childcare are fully vaccinated.
In Victoria and Tasmania, 83 per cent support vaccination of every child. In Queensland, an overwhelming 87 per cent back compulsory vaccination.
The Productivity Commission’s report into childcare recently adopted a tough line on vaccination, finding that childcare rebates “must be conditional on the child being fully immunised, unless care occurs in the child’s home”.
The results from the poll follows the tragic death of four-week-old Riley Hughes, the Perth baby who died from complications arising from whooping cough.
Riley’s parents Greg and Catherine Hughes have campaigned to raise vaccination awareness since his death just last month, raising $45,000 for the Princess Margaret Hospital hospital that cared for their son.
Mr Hughes also granted the media permission to publish photographs of their son as he fought whooping cough to illustrate the “horrific’’ nature of the illness.
“At this point in time I was still having to deal with listening to his hoarse crying because he’d screamed for so long from sheer discomfort that he’d begun losing his tiny little voice,’’ Mr Hughes said.
“Every time he caught my eyes he would stop screaming momentarily and look at me with his incredible blue eyes, almost urging me to remove this anguish that befell him.
“As a father, I felt like a failure. I would have swapped places in a heartbeat.”
While Riley was too young to be immunised, his death has prompted reforms to fund free whooping cough vaccinations to pregnant women in the third trimester to help protect newborn babies.
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison has previously confirmed he was happy to consider reforms to toughen current protections.
“The commission makes some very important suggestions in this area. I am open to everything in the report. I am not ruling anything in or out,” Mr Morrison said.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has also strongly backed any moves to ensure more kids are vaccinated.
“This shouldn’t be a political issue, it’s common sense,’’ he said.
Source: dailytelegraph.com.au
Featured poll results on Daily Telegraph:
Editors Note: How truthful is this poll and how many voted because according to the poll on this page, 82% of people who viewed this article voted NO when asked if childhood vaccination should be compulsory?
