"People on welfare shouldn't have babies" - The Australian; opinion

*Update below.

Oh look, it's a middle aged grumpy white man telling the women of Australia what to do with their bodies. How quaint. His name is Gary Johns.

Jokes aside, this bloke is actually serious. Not to mention that he hasn't the faintest idea what he's talking about.

For example, he asserts:

It is not a human right to raise a family at someone else’s expense. Welfare rights are not human rights; they are gifts of other taxpayers, granted under very specific conditions. The Australian

I wonder how long it's been since he read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has a few things in it that go right against his outrageous assumptions. Here's a couple: 

Article 12. 
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. 

Article 22. 
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.   

Then he asserts that there's this huge outrageously high number of doom with nearly a quarter of women with kids "on benefits". 

We now know there are perhaps as many as 60,000 children born each year to women who are on a benefit, which is almost 20 per cent of all Australian births. The Australian 

Does he even know anything about welfare benefits for kids in Australia? What does he think "women who are on a benefit" means? It's from the social services minister and as always a cursory reading of such language doesn't suffice.

I'd guess she's talking about any kind of welfare benefit. As anyone knows who's bought up kids on a shoestring, if you work but are low paid you fall under a threshold and are entitled to Family Tax Benefit. This goes all the way back to Keating, where men would work all year and get a huge tax return at the end of the financial year (claiming his wife and child as dependents) and blow the lot. Keating made it so the woman could get it throughout the year as a fortnightly payment to help with the regular day to day bills. 

In fact the family can still to this day chose to get it at the end of the financial year instead of fortnightly if they so desire. My point here is that the so called welfare "benefit" is funded by the person who works; it's their end of year tax return. It's not even a gift from other taxpayers as is claimed in the article. That's how it worked with my late wife and I, as she was on the DSP being chronically ill (part payment as I worked) but got the fortnightly payments through the year instead of me getting a big tax return at the end of it. I'd have been very insulted if someone told me I didn't deserve the tax back because my wife and I had a child when she was on "benefits".

As well, how many single mothers work and are on low pay, therefore qualifying for the Family Tax Benefit? 

All of these people would be included in the 60,000 quoted by the social services minister as being "on a benefit"?

The picture is filled with a tapestry of human life and situations. It has nothing to do with the black and white world described in the article. 

Just typical of The Australian though. Don't worry about all the corporate welfare handed out to the fossil fuel industry. No, gotta have a go at the less well off, poor and vulnerable. How dare they can afford to eat! Society needs global warming, not a population that can feed itself! 

Some on the Left were outraged because they believe that beneficiaries have rights. It is not a human right to raise a family at someone else’s expense. Welfare rights are not human rights; they are gifts of other taxpayers, granted under very specific conditions. The Left frets about overpopulation and argues for restricting childbirth in the name of saving the world from climate change in 100 years. It appears not to worry about the unsupported child to be born in nine months. 

My libertarian colleagues are squeamish about compulsion. They need to be reminded that it is not compulsory to take a benefit. Their hope, a world in which there are no benefits and charity alone steps in to help the unfortunate, is impractical. Stopping welfare may stop intergenerational welfare but it would not stop intergenerational poverty. The welfare state is here to stay. I am a supporter, but it has a downside. It helps to create the next generation of dependent citizens. 

When someone chooses to take a benefit, it is reasonable for taxpayers to place conditions on the benefit. The condition lasts only so long as the person is on the benefit. If someone is on an unemployment benefit they should be searching for work, not starting a family. If someone is on a study benefit, they should be studying, not starting a family. If someone is on a parenting payment they should be bringing up their family, not adding to it. 

I applied to a previous regime to find out the number of children born to women on benefits in Australia. The typical response was: “the department does not keep that data”. That, of course, was duckshoving. Having almost completed the book I had one last shot at finding out. Graciously, new Social Services Minister Christian Porter had the department provide an estimate. 

We now know there are perhaps as many as 60,000 children born each year to women who are on a benefit, which is almost 20 per cent of all Australian births. As eminent Australian economist Deborah Cobb-Clark, who has studied intergenerational welfare, remarked, “Will there be enough policies levers if it is not all about income or education?” I’m here to tell you that we’ve done all that, and it doesn’t work: middle-class professionals soak up most of the money. The Australian 

 I have to really laugh at the "choosing to take a benefit" thing. It's not a matter of choice, unless you call eating and paying rent a choice. What planet is this nut on? 

*Update:

On a more personal note. My late wife and I met ages ago and fell in love straight away. I moved in with her and her 13 year old son. She'd already had chronic illness for many years but that didn't matter to me as we loved each other. After some months she fell pregnant after an operation (the anesthetic negated the pill) and the doctors were concerned about going ahead with the pregnancy due to her illnesses. She decided though, because of the way we felt about each other, to go ahead.

It was an incredibly difficult pregnancy, with multiple emergency trips to the hospital. The hospital eventually admitted her two months before the baby was due, and did a planned Cesarean one month before the due date. It was a delicate matter balancing the medical needs of my wife and unborn baby.

Well our daughter made it into the world, albeit a bit on the small side. My wife's illnesses continued and later found to have worsened due to the pregnancy. But she was a toughie and battled on for years after that. And nothing could take away the miracle daughter we had, born in love. 

The mere suggestion by somebody that she should not have had this child because she was on benefits is absurd and an insult to our humanity. 

Gary Johns, the author of the above article, should stop preaching to others and get a fuckin life.