Tuesday 29 September 2015

Still paying no-hopers to breed

There is no polite way for me to say it. As taxpayers we are forced to pay no-hopers to breed.

And as welfare campaigner Lindsay Mitchell has made abundantly clear over the years (in language far more polite than I can muster here) the financial encouragement to breed has encouraged more breeding of increasing numbers of children with no hope and little future apart from one sucking off the state tit.

Indeed, why would we be surprised that child abuse, as she points out this morning, goes hand-in-glove with benefit abuse.

So given that context, why the uproar that Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley has belatedly begun talking about finding ways of stopping the most fertile beneficiaries from producing more unwanted children. “Unfortunately,” says Lindsay Mitchell, “Tolley is being somewhat timid.”

Every year, one in five children born will be benefit-dependent by the end of it.

In the 6 months to March 31, 2015, 6,347 babies were added to an existing benefit.

In that context Tolley's ambition looks lacking. But still upsetting for some.

Why on earth should it be? Why, if the welfare of women and NZ’s children were really important to them, should that number not “be applauding the Minister for at least  having the gumption to publicly ask why some women keep having babies when they are incapable of providing for them or worse.”

Why not?

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