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Public health efforts to lift childhood vaccination rates can be supported or undermined by media representations of parents. Polarising representations neglect the large range of ‘middle-ground’ positions people occupy, potentially alienating parents. In recent years, Australian public health actors have tried to better engage journalists to avoid this. As these efforts have unfolded, the main national immunisation policy lever has become more punitive. This paper examines whether Australian newspaper representations of parents have changed, by comparing 153 newspaper articles from two periods: 1997-1998 (prior to the development of a public health lobby targeting the media; when the first national childhood immunisation policy was introduced) and; 2015-2016 (5 years after advocacy groups began working with the media; and when the national policy took a punitive turn). We analyse patterns and shifts (between 1997-1998 and 2015-2016) in the portrayal of parents as complacent, alternative, hesitant and as choosing. Australian newspaper portrayals of parents are broadly aligned with the policy targets of the day. In 2015-2016, there was less negative representation of parents who occupy the ‘middle-ground’ between vaccine acceptance and rejection. However, coverage of alternative parents (vaccine objectors) intensified in quantity and negativity. Concurrently, there were new (minority) portrayals of vaccine objectors as invisible, and as victims being denied choice. This signals that reporting may simultaneously align with national policy targets and destabilise public health efforts to avoid polarising misrepresentations of parents, characterisations likely to undermine trust in public health. Rather than ‘blame the media’, this analysis illuminates conflicts within public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]