Howard’s Child Protection Babies
See this article, Baby boom link to rise in child-welfare cases at The Age web site.
What a great legacy for John Howard – his “baby bonus”, a grubby and cynical vote-buying exercise for the 2004 Federal Election has resulted in a mini- baby-boom.
It has also resulted in a more than 66% increase in interventions by the Child Protection Agency (from 600 in 2000-2001 to over 1000 last financial year). And that’s just from the first few batches of baby-bonus babies.
Perhaps the people who think a $3000 “bonus” (as introduced in 2004, now increased to $5000) is a good reason to have a baby are precisely the kind of people who shouldn’t be having babies.
“Cool, $5000 if i have a baby”. or worse, “Cool, $5000 if i make my girlfriend have a baby”. Great reasons to have a baby. Thank you, Mr Howard.
At least we now all know the answer to the question “How many abused and neglected babies is a vote worth”?
May 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Glen Turner is right about only one thing in his blog post commenting on this post – that there’s a low form of politics involved somewhere.
He’s wrong, though, in stating that it’s in my post. The low politics was in Howard’s vote-buying “baby bonus” policy in the first place – a transparent and cynical bribe to purchase votes from the stupid, without concern for the obvious and predictable consequences. The consequences didn’t matter, the ONLY thing that mattered about the policy was that it helped Howard win the coming election.
As for the consequences themselves, another article in The Age, Baby Bonus delivers heartache, describes the threats and violence that young women and girls suffer for the baby bonus.
Glen seems to think that my “Cool, $5000 if i make my girlfriend have a baby” line was absurd, merely some sort of politically-slanted hyperbole. Read The Age article above and make up your own mind about how absurd the notion is. It’s happening, in economically and socially depressed areas and communities around the country.
And, regardless of GT’s high opinion of the State, South Australia is no more immune to the problem than any other state in Australia.