Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the plan to the media on Sunday and it has bipartisan support.  

The plan states that parents will have their benefit payments taken away from them if they do not allow their children to be vaccinated. 

The Federal Government claims that some 39,000 children under seven across the country have not been immunised due to their parents signing a conscientious objection form. 

However there will still be an option for the decision to vaccinate to be contested on religious or medical grounds.  

The Goulburn Post encouraged readers to express their thoughts on the issue and within minutes our Facebook page as well as forum The Goulburn Dialogue lit up with responses.  

We also visited the Marima Medical Clinic on Tuesday afternoon and witnessed  immunisation nurse Andrea Hunter give little six week old baby boy Sebastian his routine vaccinations.

Ms Hunter said that she believed that children should be protected from fatal diseases and conditions. 

“I believe that immunisation is the best chance that we have got in protecting children,” she said. 

The Post’s ‘Because I Said So’ correspondent Candy Jubb also responded with some of her thoughts via our Facebook page.

“Vaccination is a contentious issue and everyone has their own ideas,” she said. 

“Educated or not, it doesn’t seem to matter. People form opinions based on what they want to hear the most.

“It’s a bit like shopping, where when you find the boots you want, and in your head you come up with positive arguments as to why you should buy them, even though you know you didn’t need them.

“My children have autism, and I’ve been asked a lot whether I got them immunised because ‘that’s when they changed, right?’ Parents want to believe that it came from somewhere else other than their own genes, and I don’t blame them.

“Also the chicken pox vaccine wasn’t introduced until the early 2000s, and so half of my children were immunised and half of them weren’t. My children are all immunised now.”

Goulburn man Scott Hartnett expressed his opinion that there needed to be further discussion on how the immunisations could be administered to children over a period of time. 

“I do believe there should be some form of mandatory element to vaccinations,” he said.

“There could be discussion on how those vaccinations are given, such as a spreading out of the shots, etc.I take issue with how they (the government) have politicised this issue and have once again divided the country.

“By referring to people on benefits, whether that be on a welfare allowance for a family tax benefit, you are identifying a group that somehow deserves demonisation.

“The effectiveness of said campaign is doubtful, if the parents involved sit above family benefit thresholds. So once again we have a campaign targeting the people below a certain income level making a dividing line between those who have, and those who haven't.” 

To express your opinions on this contentious issue, visit the Goulburn Post’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/GoulburnPost or The Goulburn Dialogue page at www.facebook.com/groups/Goulburngroup/884314674945747/?notif_t=group_comment.