Yuyutsu from a philosophical perspective I don't see that this particular situation is all that different to a myriad other situation. You go into something under one set of conditions and those conditions are changed by someone else or by circumstances.

I'm not aware that there was ever a specific contract to continue the old payment structure. Other people cop hits to their ability to fund the raising of children from a variety of things such as interest rates that change because other people are spending lots, jobs that disppear, slack times in an industry, increased costs earning your income (loss of free carparking where public transport is unworkable for example). The list could be endless.

Whats the cutoff line for saying one circumstance deserves protection from change and another does not?

The real downside in a lot of this is generally government interfers but does not do it well. They want single mums out to work on one hand, on the other they will make it very difficult or expensive to be able to park near a workplace (and public transport is often really substandard in a bunch of ways). We get government putting increased regulation on childcare which drives up costs for mostly little improvement in kids well being. On the one hand we don't protect people from external factors that make it very difficult to make ends meet, on the other hand the government ties peoples hands behind their back with interferance which limits their ability to find their own solutions.

Regarding this decision, from memory I think that the age where parents can legally leave a child unsupervised for a while is 10, eg an age where a kid might be able to make their own way home from school. Perhaps a better age to set as the cutoff for the changes than 8 where the need for out of school hours supervision is still a legal requirement.

R0bert

Kate that link went to a "Page Not Found".

You're still not addressing the issue. If it was really about children, you could pay for it yourself - you and everyone who agrees with you, and that would be the end of the matter. You're rejecting that solution, so please spare us your false pretences to moral superiority, being a more caring person, etc.

The basis of the article was the value of choice and equality and treating people with dignity. But what you and Petra are specifically arguing for is that people should not have a choice, and that they should be forced whether they ever consented or not, that they should be treated like objects to serve others' ends. You have never justified this, never addressed the immorality of using unnecessary force or the social injustice of thus creating two unequal classes of privileged and exploited, never explained why a political solution is better.

You've also never explained who is this "we" you keep referring to. Obviously it doesn't include everyone who disagrees with you, and why doesn't it include the whole world?

Until you've addressed these issues, like Petra, you've lost the argument. Posting links to the SMH that share your assumptions only makes your case worse, not better.

Let's face it. The only reason is because you hope to rely on the State's "might is right". Admit it.

Dear R0bert,

When I was 6 I walked every day to school and back, on my own. It was about 1km away, through my street, a couple of others, an open field (which by the end-of-the-year turned into a building site, so I had to walk around) and a forest.

We didn't have many things, but we used and enjoyed what we had and the environment so much more. Everything used to be simpler then, but things have changed for the worse. The reason, plain and simple - more people.

Technology was developed in order to compensate for the increasing number of people, but then in a vicious cycle, technology allowed more people to live, so their number kept increasing, requiring ever higher-and-higher technology just to survive, such technology that requires centralisation, that cannot be produced by a single household or by a small community - nowadays even by whole nations, forcing everyone on this planet to depend on each other, thus requiring draconian regulations that take away our joy of living. Now children can no longer play outside in the fresh air and grow to be responsible for their physical well-being, but instead brought up glued to little electronic devices while their parents have no time for them because they work harder and harder to serve those machines.

So where do governments come in?

Politicians are moms and dads too, they too feel that something goes very wrong, but they need to keep their job to survive, then to maintain the standard of living they get addicted to. They feel that the social-structure is impossible and must collapse, but every politician is frantic that it wouldn't happen on their own guard. While in other countries governments encourage breeding more children to be used as cannon-fodder for their wars (also a result of over-population), in Australia they need them as cogwheels in their ever-burdened economic machine.

Since giving birth in today's cities is already an act of cruelty, Julia now designed the NBN, to encourage breeding them in the far country, ultimately exporting the city misery to them as well.

Hasbeen it takes two to tango - those 14 percent of children you refer to weren't the result of immaculate conceptions, so why blame only the women?

It is not the screwing around I mind Candide, its screwing a bloke who had nothing to do with it, to pay for the results of her screwing around.

At least if one is going to have to pay the fare, one should get the ride as well.

There was even one case where the feminist lawyer claimed that because the poor bloke had been paying for the kid for 5 years, he had accepted the kid as his & should continue to pay.

Jardine, I know it's a pointless exercise, but your call to all the 'oppressed' to decry 'unjust' government intervention in the lives of ordinary people, should not go without challenge.

>what you and Petra are specifically arguing for is that people should not have a choice, and that they should be forced whether they ever consented or not, that they should be treated like objects to serve others' ends. You have never justified this, never addressed the immorality of using unnecessary force or the social injustice of thus creating two unequal classes of privileged and exploited, never explained why a political solution is better.<

In tribal communities, of which we were all a part not so long ago, tasks, produce, joy and sorrow were all shared, the strong supporting the weak, talents appreciated, and survival of the tribe paramount. But, there were, and are still, bullies - not wanting to share, mocking and even beating the weak. Are you such a bully, Jardine, or do you just not appreciate the benefits of our extended 'tribe' and its necessary mechanisms for 'sharing'?

What shall we limit next? Public education, or healthcare - pay your own way or else? (Like the USA perhaps?) Public housing? Pay up or live on the street? Public order? Form your own vigilante group, carry a gun, and live behind a cyclone fence? Transport? Shall we go on?

We have some who live outside the mainstream: homeless, street-kids, criminals, drug addicts; the 'hunters' who pray on others, and the 'gatherers' who rake the common refuse. Freedom, of a sort, but ideal?

When you rail against government intervention, Jardine, you rail against the foundation of our 'free' society. Why single-out Single Mums and Dads? (Don't forget the dads!) Who to crucify next? Bludgers, malingerers, druggies? They too have a choice, don't they?

Society has a responsibility to the children, irrespective of the 'sins' of the parents; and crime prevention is better than cure.