Post by ppyenews on Jul 3, 2007 23:46:37 GMT -5
Welcome to ‘Talkback Topic’ – I’m Phillip Pye.
An initiative that will allow the Government to quarantine 40 per cent of a family’s welfare payment for 12 months who wastes money on alcohol, drugs or gambling, or do not send their children to school has been discussed by the Federal Cabinet. The plan is to force parents across Australia to account for their children during school hours or face Centrelink taking control of their family assistance payments. Children identified as at risk will be the first to be targeted, with Centrelink intervening to ensure essentials such as rent, food and medical expenses are paid. The initiative is similar to the project about to be implemented in the Northern Territory as part of the Government's radical measures to tackle child abuse in remote communities, however the new intervention plan is supposedly racially, non-discriminatory.
There is without doubt, a key difference. Under the national plan, only bad parents will have their payments quarantined, as opposed to the Northern Territory welfare measures which will apply to all Aboriginal parents in a targeted community, regardless of their abilities. The plan will be reliant on Centrelink getting accurate data from state governments on school attendance, in other words, if your children are not attending School, Centrelink will be alerted. The first parents to be targeted will be those already identified by State Child Protection systems where there is a risk to the child but the child remains with their family.
Right at a time when the Howard Government is sending an army of officials into communities in the Northern Territory, its plan to force white families to be accountable for their children is an obvious attempt to blunt accusations that its Aboriginal plan is racist. The Government has also backed away from a claim by the architects of the plan in the Northern Territory that the aim of the checks was to uncover and treat cases of abuse in the Northern Territory's 22,000 indigenous children.
There is some good in the whole idea however. The fact is that there are children in Australia whose parents are guilty of neglect and abuse through their addictions to alcohol and other substances. The kids simply do not get the necessary care to enable them to grow emotionally and/or physically because their parent’s income which is predominantly via the welfare system is spent to feed drug and alcohol addictions. The kids are often left to their own devices giving them often a dim future and in this day and age it has to cease. The big question is however – how will it affect our crime rate? Will they who are quarantined financially turn more towards crime to feed their habits?
I’m Phillip Pye.
An initiative that will allow the Government to quarantine 40 per cent of a family’s welfare payment for 12 months who wastes money on alcohol, drugs or gambling, or do not send their children to school has been discussed by the Federal Cabinet. The plan is to force parents across Australia to account for their children during school hours or face Centrelink taking control of their family assistance payments. Children identified as at risk will be the first to be targeted, with Centrelink intervening to ensure essentials such as rent, food and medical expenses are paid. The initiative is similar to the project about to be implemented in the Northern Territory as part of the Government's radical measures to tackle child abuse in remote communities, however the new intervention plan is supposedly racially, non-discriminatory.
There is without doubt, a key difference. Under the national plan, only bad parents will have their payments quarantined, as opposed to the Northern Territory welfare measures which will apply to all Aboriginal parents in a targeted community, regardless of their abilities. The plan will be reliant on Centrelink getting accurate data from state governments on school attendance, in other words, if your children are not attending School, Centrelink will be alerted. The first parents to be targeted will be those already identified by State Child Protection systems where there is a risk to the child but the child remains with their family.
Right at a time when the Howard Government is sending an army of officials into communities in the Northern Territory, its plan to force white families to be accountable for their children is an obvious attempt to blunt accusations that its Aboriginal plan is racist. The Government has also backed away from a claim by the architects of the plan in the Northern Territory that the aim of the checks was to uncover and treat cases of abuse in the Northern Territory's 22,000 indigenous children.
There is some good in the whole idea however. The fact is that there are children in Australia whose parents are guilty of neglect and abuse through their addictions to alcohol and other substances. The kids simply do not get the necessary care to enable them to grow emotionally and/or physically because their parent’s income which is predominantly via the welfare system is spent to feed drug and alcohol addictions. The kids are often left to their own devices giving them often a dim future and in this day and age it has to cease. The big question is however – how will it affect our crime rate? Will they who are quarantined financially turn more towards crime to feed their habits?
I’m Phillip Pye.