@Suseonline, you seem to be under the impression that all large families on welfare use their income to provide all the necessities of life for their children. Yes, there are couples raising children on welfare, but in my area they aren't married and they certainly don't only have the one permenant partner for an extended period. I know mothers who received more than the average wage through Centerlink payments, cheap housings, government rebates etc. and rest assured, their children in many cases receive the bare minimum for existence. Much of the money goes on cigarettes, alcohol drugs and gambling. Then let's not forget cable tv, air conditioning 24/7, and iPhones.
However, those issues are not my main concern. What really distresses me is the number of step fathers many of these children have to endure. And yes, I mean endure!
Do some research on all the known cases of sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse,neglect leading to severe illness or death, and death itself. I think you will find, that in the vast majority of cases a stepfather was involved, either directly or indirectly. Occasionally it's a stepmother but on the whole it's the male partner who is the risk factor.
What Johns is alluding to in this article is the fact that our welfare system not only enables, but encourages women to produce children they cannot care for. And yes, I personally know women who deliberately get pregnant as soon as their youngest child is approaching school age, just to avoid the necessity of having to look for work.

Craig Minns ' What defines an ideal parent - of either gender?'

An interesting question!

I would say that an ideal parent is one who provides unconditional love and safety for their children. They need to be able to provide adequate shelter, education, clothing, medicines, food and drink.

They don't need to be wealthy at all (although it would sure help if you have several kids!).

Big Nana, I am well aware of all the social problems out in the community, as I work among them. I just don't see what marriage has to do with the equation?
Marriage has never protected many kids from neglect and child abuse, and there are also many well -functioning homes where there are single parents, step-parents and unmarried couples too.

There will always be promiscuous men and women in any society, whether they are married or not.
Paedophiles will always find a way to access kids, whether that is in the form of step-fathers, fathers, grandfathers, priests, scoutmasters, school teachers or swim coaches (with many of the aforementioned married).

The main issue here is to ensure the children are cared for by the rest of the community.
If that means coming down harder on ALL deadbeat parents, then I am all for it

In my view parenting itself is an ideal no parent achieves. We all try (ideally) but we all fail. There are just too many variables for parenting to have an ideal effect.
A better question is perhaps, 'what defines an ideal culture?'.
A culture, in as much as it can be described as formative, has arguably far more influence than parents do. Parents are in all likelihood indistinguishable from that culture, and much of their influence on their children is unconscious and automated, rather than ideal in any genuinely inspired sense.
In general, I would say parents are the problem.

Big Nana,
True enough. Kids aren't a burden to people who don't put any effort into raising them, it literally costs them nothing to have kids.
I had this conversation with my daughter, explaining that the kids she was hanging around with in the city instead of going to school weren't cared for, that their parents wouldn't know where they were, ever and what's more didn't care because they were off chasing the shard or down the pub gambling.
Suse,
Yeah but what can you do with people who are technically mentally retarded or have acquired brain injuries and are hopelessly addicted to drugs, alchohol and gambling?
A lot of these people are physically and mentally burned out by age eighteen, what do you do with crystal meth addicts like the woman who killed her kids in Cairns?
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/state/castaway-kids-parents-use-meth-children-casualties

Big Nana,

"Poirot, whilst practising Catholics are forbidden to use contraception, they are also forbidden to commit adultery ie sex outside marriage. If they can commit one sin I'm sure they can commit another with a clear conscience."

I expected that response.

The proposal one imagines is for some kind of legislation which allows the govt to dole out welfare with certain conditions attached.

In a situation where a couple are applying for welfare, who are married, faithful (ie, not promiscuous), practicing Catholics - would that be covered by Mr Johns' proposal?

So a happily married Catholic couple go strolling into Centelink to apply for the dole...all goes forward up to the point where they are informed that they can only receive the dole if the missus practices contraception...(sorry the Billing's Method won't do)

If legislation was passed giving authorities blanket power to withhold the dole if women refused to use contraception, would that only apply to single women and/or married women who aren't Catholic....or all women?

If a woman is funded from the public purse and falls pregnant that is her business. Her children on the other hand are funded by taxpayers, we have every right to say NO to funding her offspring and expect the father to pay for his "jollies". So many on OLO seem to be happy to spend the hard earned cash of others. I quite like the idea that you get to have a say in how our money is spent rather than listening to those so keen to give our money to those who don't earn any! Imagine if we reach the stage where charities "require" us to donate to causes they we don't support. Oh, I forgot the UN.