Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect - "Gayby" is Born!

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

The childcare rebate is a pretty solidly middle class benefit.

Really? Lots of working poor in Australia. Not from my experience in the area I worked in

Many parents in the service industry. Factory jobs, students etc had their kids in daycare.

Edited to add, but yes very much a middle class benefit. The only one we get (besides paid parental leave) as it's not means tested (well one part isn't). Although looks like families earning over 250K will be getting it cut dramatically.

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

It's only Family Tax Benefit A and childcare benefits. Lauren's FTB A, however, would be about $8000 per year, a substantial sum. And they are starting to check on boosters too, not just on immunisations for under 5s, so even though the older girls had their infant and toddler vaccinations she would have to get them their chicken pox booster and eventually their rubella shot to keep qualifying.

A lot of the people I know living alternative lifestyles are flipping out about this. I do think it will pass parliament though - there's a lot of sympathy here at the moment for the family of a newborn who died of whooping cough after being exposed to an unvaccinated adult.

It will pass and quickly too. It has bipartisan support.

Lilith, what are they saying? Are they more concerned about family tax benefit than the childcare rebate?

[lilith]

It will pass and quickly too. It has bipartisan support.

Lilith, what are they saying? Are they more concerned about family tax benefit than the childcare rebate?

Definitely more concern about FTB than childcare rebate, they are mainly homeschoolers on parenting payment - if they use care at all it's generally community preschools, which don't qualify for childcare rebate.

They seem to see it as a conservative government persecuting them for living a "natural" lifestyle removed from the capitalist grid. The anti vaxers I know (including my sister) tend to be registered conscientious objectors and to think that that should be enough to keep their family tax benefits. Even my mother, who vaccinated her children, supports me vaccinating mine and who had to terminate a wanted pregnancy in the mid 80s cause she caught German measles, thinks it should be a personal decision. I don't know if principals will stand when a substantial portion of a family's income is on the line, but it may..

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

^ apparently they can't join a fake church either to get religious exemption.

Funny they are so outraged now at the evil socialist govt yet so willing to have accepted money from the government.

Edited to add Lilith are any/many saying they might actually immunise now? For some people I imagine it's a significant part of their income the FTB.

[lilith]

^ apparently they can't join a fake church either to get religious exemption.

Funny they are so outraged now at the evil socialist govt yet so willing to have accepted money from the government.

Edited to add Lilith are any/many saying they might actually immunise now? For some people I imagine it's a significant part of their income the FTB.

Not yet, but we will see when it becomes law. I don't see how some of these families would survive without full FTB

[August]

I work in a very low socio-economic area and a lot of my clients wouldn't vax their kids because they just wouldn't remember, it's not important etc. There's no moral objection, it's just low priority in their lives. But if you threaten to take away some of their money, they'll be first in line to get it done!

So I don't think this will impact on the conscientious objectors with their bizarre ideas about big pharma and government conspiracies (the latest - flu vax is government controlled genocide. It must be true, Food Babe said it!!).

But if it means that some people prioritise their kids vax a bit higher, then it's all good in my books!!

They would be the largest proportion, wouldn't they? Herd immunity-wise, the selfish gits might not need to be convinced if a little financial incentive can get the merely forgetful on board.

Ah food babe. All that nitrogen the airlines are pumping into the cabin must have affected her brain.

[Cactus]

I note the Christian Scientists will keep their existing exemption, and will remain eligible conscientious objectors. Who wants to bet their membership will skyrocket? :lol:

[August]

Chrstan Scientist are not anti vax

A quote from Mary Baker Eddy, discoverer and founder of Chrstian Science:

“Rather than quarrel over vaccination, I recommend, if the law demand, that an individual submit to this process, that he obey the law, and then appeal to the gospel to save him from bad physical results.â€

.

Besides, there are only 1356 of them in Australia.

I read an article recently and the only anti religion was Dutch Reformed Church.

[Cactus]

And yet successive governments have retained Christian Scientists' right to refuse (though it does not appear to be a strong part of their faith)

smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/vaccinationexempt-church-revealed-as-christian-scientists-20150414-1mkmj8.html

Having a non-immunised child would not preclude you from receiving FTB throughout the year (just the FTB A supplement at tax time). For Lauren, with four children not in childcare, the supplement would be worth nearly $3,000 - a significant amount of money to throw away.

[ladyaudley]

What annoys me most is that most anti-vax parents I know DO go in for a Tetanus shot because that's not human-borne and therefore they can't rely on herd immunity. Bloody hypocrites.

[August]

Now that is infuriating!

Although, I have to giggle that they have no choice but to get the diptheria shot too. Diptheria's way worse than measles.

[Anthroamy]

I am just delurking to say that today I discovered Lauren has domains registered in all of her daughters names, as well as in her own maiden name. She also has one called welcomehomeaustralia.org

statsinfinity.com/domain/z2FqCnGKVGuLpeq4nzcLAUGTVSLDnOVd_info.html

Bizarre, as most things are with her.

ETA: It looks like the welcomehomeaustralia.org one was used to coordinate for Rainbow Gatherings.

[happy atheist]

"Welcome home" is the motto (or whatever) of the Rainbow Family, so that makes sense.

I bought my kids' names as domain names so that no one else could. Anyone else with the same name as one of my kids can suck it. :D

I'm not sure why she'd buy her maiden name, though.

[sparkles]

We also bought a domain with my daughter's name ages ago to save it for a future site. Not all than unusual. It may be the ONLY think about the Sparkling One that isn't. If you're a somewhat public and/or figure who attracts attention it's actually a good idea to buy up domains in your name to prevent other people from creating sites in your name that have nothing to do with you. There are a lot of companies and public figures who've had to pay big money to buy up their own names because others had the foresight to buy them first.

[Anthroamy]

We also bought a domain with my daughter's name ages ago to save it for a future site. Not all than unusual. It may be the ONLY think about the Sparkling One that isn't. If you're a somewhat public and/or figure who attracts attention it's actually a good idea to buy up domains in your name to prevent other people from creating sites in your name that have nothing to do with you. There are a lot of companies and public figures who've had to pay big money to buy up their own names because others had the foresight to buy them first.

I had no idea! I knew celebrities often did that sort of thing, but not that it was a thing in general. I figured she was setting them up for a sparkling send off to their own self determined solo adventures at age 12, or some such :D Learn something new every day.

[ATC]

Someone over at GOMI mentioned that David was on last week's Beenleigh court listing and that it's the second time he's been listed during the past few months:

http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__external/CourtsLawList/BeenleighCourt.pdf

[happy atheist]

I hope our Aussie members are keeping an eye on the news to see if anything comes of these court dates.

[Miggy]

It's too old a case to make our national news. Someone in the local area might see something in a regional news paper but that's the best we can hope for.

[sea_gale]

"Chakka Barry Damian"‽

[ATC]

"Chakka Barry Damian"‽

Whoops, sorry, I should have added that the court list at that url isn't permanent.

It's updated each weekday, and only shows the appearances for that day. Previous listings are subsequently removed.

David Paul Fisher was on Friday's list, but the list at the link has now changed to today's appearances (4th May).

[sea_gale]

Whoops, sorry, I should have added that the court list at that url isn't permanent.

It's updated each weekday, and only shows the appearances for that day. Previous listings are subsequently removed.

David Paul Fisher was on Friday's list, but the list at the link has now changed to today's appearances (4th May).

Ah, I guessed that he had changed his name to something mental.

[Anthroamy]

Have we seen these videos before? It looks like they are from an old youtube account, when the blog was still the David Fisher Family blog.

youtube.com/user/dffblog/videos

[ATC]

Interesting...David is on the court list again for today (28th May) Court 4, 9am.

Still nothing in the mainstream media.

[threesevenfive]

I've spent the last several days wading through the sparkling blog, the threads on this page, and discussing the sparkle with several IRL friends.

And all I can think is - where did she go? I'm actually legitimately worried for her children.

[sparkles]

Someone upthread who belongs to a private group with Lauren said that she's still around, just not publicly. Whether this is a good thing or not, no one knows.