Daffy Duck,

I'm not sure what on earth your post had to do with anything. Daffy by name .....

Big Nana has had vastly more experience that I have but I do recall one family in the settlement where we lived, an often-absent father, a casual mother and seven kids, all born after 1962. Of those the two daughters both had their first kid at fifteen; of the five boys, I think four are dead, and maybe the fifth as well. And maybe at least one of the daughters as well - after all, she would be 47 by now which is pretty old in the welfare population.

I remember the mother - who had passed foster care of at least one kid over to a niece - happy as a lark, pushing a pram around the streets with a flagon in it, sitting there comfortably like a baby would, while her niece wiped her baby's arse and boiled her bottle. Halcyon days !

Joe

Daffy Duck, the patriarchy is a conspiracy theory, women's rights under law have existed since the 12th century in our society, in the U.S the death penalty for rape was only abolished in the 1970's and men as a group have never sought control over women's bodies and anyone who tried as an individual was punished, harshly.
What's clear is that most of us would discriminate against some women having control over their bodies, not all women, people who behave themselves would have nothing to worry about.

@halduell Good article that explains well the background of the population and anti-immigration movement including Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich is not a demographer and according to demographers in the USA he misinterpreted population growth as being due to increased fertility, when in fact it's about improved standards of living and longevity (youth populations will be about the same at end of the century as today, 2 billion, @runner SBS doc I assume is Rosling who actually is an expert).

However, the article fails to mention the fulcrum of the movement John Tanton http://tinyurl.com/2e9pfr4 (who originally was in Planned Parenthood), an old collaborator of Ehrlich's, often the Scaife Foundation or Colcom, supports his network of organisations. Tanton also has a 'journal' The Social Contract Press TSCP http://tinyurl.com/q6xsbuy What a surprise! Mark O'Connor of SPA has contributed to TSCP as have Bob Birrell, Katherine Betts and various other Australians (who've had their names redacted).

In addition to Australian contributors to TSCP, much of our ugly politics/media have been influenced by same white nativist sympathies (Tanton was an admirer of the white Australia policy) from the USA via neo cons trying to scare the hell out of everyone ...... and split the Democrats.... like Tanton's FAIR Federation for American Immigration Reform, who opposed any immigration reform by both Democrats and GOP...

Craig Minns

‘How could we do it better?’

I don’t see much wrong with introducing a blanket Centrelink policy that caps welfare benefits at three children. This would mean that any male or female, who has more than three children born TO ANY PARTNER, receives benefits for three children only.

It may be a very mild version of ‘social engineering’, but it would be inexpensive to administer and nowhere near as personally invasive as ‘no contraception, no benefit’. Neither is it as draconian as cutting a woman's benefits altogether, simply for being an undesirable mother.

Jay

‘Socialism and Darwinism go hand in hand, since when has the right accepted Darwin's theories’

Socialism is not at all Darwinian and Darwinism is not the same as the Theory of Evolution – which is what much of the fundamentalist Christian Right rejects. The ideology that took Darwin’s name (without his approval) is based on ‘survival of the fittest’ – a term that Darwin didn’t use.

Darwinism should really be called ‘Spencerism’, because ‘survival of the fittest’ was a misinterpretation of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection by the ultra-right wing philosopher, Herbert Spencer. Very much a product of the British imperial hubris of his times, Spencer had a nasty habit of categorising humanity into hierarchies of worthiness and putting people most like himself at the top (as do many right-wing OLO commenters today).

HAS ANYONE BOTHERED TO ASK THEMSELVES THE FOLLOWING

- IF our nation finds itself with a problem of too many unemployed people/families; insufficient ‘dole’ thus issue of ‘how to reduce dole incentives’ arises such as ‘No Contraception, No Dole’ etc.
- WHY have we had over the last 40 years and still continuing now, a migration program of such massive proportions that Australia’s population has ties itself by 5 or more over those 4 decades, considering we seem to have an issue with over-population of the welfare check recipiets?
In simple terms: WHY DID WE NEED TO INCREASE OUR WORKER/CONSUMER POPULACE OVER 4 DECADES FROM 5 MILLION TO OVER 20 MILLION TODAY IF WE KNEW WE WOULD NOT HAVE THE JOBS TO SUPPORT THOSE 15 MILLION EXTRA PEOPLE [DID NOT NEED TO BRING] TODAY LIKE CURRECT SITUATION SUPPORTS? IN FACT CONSIDERING THAT A LARGE SECTION OF THOSE WHO MIGRATE HERE END UP AT SOME TIME RELYING UPON THE WELFARE INSTITUTIONS LIKE DOLE OR AUSTUDY ETC. AND A FEW NOTABLE ETHNIC COMMUNITIES EVEN HAVE A COMMONLY RECONGIZED ISSUE WITH LARGE [70% OR MORE] PROPORTIONS OF THEIR COMMUNITY BEING ON WELFARE.

- I wonder if even the most fervent Nozickian type libertarians [i.e. every individual for themselves against every other in total war – true Hobbsean jungle chaos] would have the guts to dare to treat all groups involved with high percentages of dole recipients, from lower-class Anglos to poorer any ethnic group especially Lebanese Muslims, Vietnamese, Sudanese as well as the Indigenous Aussies whom number about 2% of our nation of which 80-90% of them are on welfare
HuH