Perth has one of the worst child immunisation rates in the country, with the suburbs of South Perth and Subiaco the worst performers, according to new figures.

Best performing suburbs Broome - 99.2pc Kalgoorlie - 96.6pc Newman - 96.1pc Worst performing suburbs South Perth - 80.6pc Subiaco - 82.4pc Maylands - 83.4pc

The report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) revealed about 93 per cent of Australian five-year-olds were fully immunised in 2015/16, an improvement on previous years.

But Perth — in the north and south metropolitan areas — lagged behind at a rate of 91 per cent.

"We focus particularly on five-year-olds because that's when the (immunisation) schedule is set to be completed," AIHW spokesman Michael Frost said.

"We found improvements across most local areas, but some of the areas with the lowest rates were north coast New South Wales at 90 per cent, and Perth North, Perth South and Gold Coast all at 91 per cent."

The postcodes of South Perth and Kensington had the lowest rate in WA at just 80.6 per cent, followed by Subiaco, Shenton Park, Daglish and Subiaco East at 82.4 per cent.

The affluent western suburbs of Nedlands, Dalkeith, and Crawley were also among the bottom 10 postcodes in Western Australia.

"We have to do better," Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller said.

"There are areas that are down in the 80s and that's not good enough — these are diseases that can be fatal for little children," he said.

Dr Miller said there were a number of reasons parents might not want to immunise their children.

"It's probably a combination of bad publicity around the anti-vax movement putting doubts into people's minds," he said.

"And people having a busy life, particularly when the economy turns down we see less people making time for doctors appointments."

Regional centres leading the way

Country WA is in line with the national average and Broome had the second highest rate in Australia at 99.2 per cent.

"I think that some of our areas, such as the western suburbs of Perth, could do with a lesson from Broome," Dr Miller said.

"Country people tend to be better connected with their local health facilities and certainly we've seen in Aboriginal communities and remote regional areas there are very high penetrations of appropriate immunisation and that would bring the average up."

Immunisation rates of five-year-olds in the north metropolitan area of Perth have improved by 1.4 per cent since 2012/13, and by 2.2 per cent in the south.

Nationally rates have improved by 1.4 per cent since 2012/13.

Dr Miller said it was too early to tell if the Federal Government's "no jab, no pay" policy was working.

The policy, which was introduced in January 2016, withholds family payments worth up to $15,000 per year to parents who fail to have their children vaccinated.