Our priority is to get kids out of poverty – that’s why our Best Start payment includes the children of beneficiaries; they shouldn’t bear the brunt of their parents’ misfortune.
Misfortune? What does that mean? Bad luck? An accident?
When one in five babies is either born onto a benefit or arrives there shortly after, how much of an accident is it?
Obviously some children will have a temporarily unemployed parent. Or a parent who has been abandoned. I accept some parents may have suffered a degree of misfortune.
But when nearly 11,700 of the babies born last year were welfare dependent by the end of December, I can only conclude something beyond bad luck is the cause.
I don't want to 'beat-up' on parents on benefits, but if we don't understand the nature of the problem, how will we ever address it?
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