I would agree that there does seem to be some bias against single mothers as compared to married mothers, but the situation is becoming rather grave if current trends continue.

“Between 1986 and 2001, the number of one-parent families in Australia increased by 53%.”, and “One-parent families increased to 762,600 in 2001, from 499,300 in 1986. This increase was largely associated with an increase in the number of separated and divorced people.” http://www.spinneypress.com.au/211_book_desc.html

Now combining this with an ageing population (where in future years there could two people working for every one person retired) then it leaves the working person in a position where they have to earn more income to pay more taxes to provide the welfare payments for other people. Because so many people are paid by the hour, they will have to work longer hours to pay those taxes, and still have money left over to provide for their own families.

So unless the population suddenly stops ageing, or unless upward trend of more single parent families is reversed, it eventually means less family time for those working.

The welfare money has to come from somewhere.

“When it comes to addressing the labour shortage, Peter Costello expects single mothers from welfare-dependent households to perform a public duty not required of their more highly resourced married sisters.”

What “public duty” is this now? Working to support your family?

Wow! Novel.

This reads like a bit out of classic labour party manifesto of 1950’s… (and some claim the Liberals are fixated on the 50’s)

I guess the first and foremost mistake is to think that any taxation system is “fair” – it is not, cannot be and never will be.

The next error of assumption is that any system of taxation impost is intended to be “fair” – only in the “minds” of the “social levellers” does such exist – but the practice has been tried and failed miserbably.

Far from blaming the tax system for not being fair – maybe the author who do better to spend her time on researching the circumstances which

A: result in individuals

Failing to accept responsibility for their “lot”,
Avoid developing their skills,
Remain oblivious to opportunities,
Lack the determination to follow through with any plan,
Expect the state to support them as their parents did when they were children

OR

B those people who think and act the opposite of A (above)

Those people who feel they are “disadvantaged by circumstance” and deserve perpetual nurturing by the state note –

We deserve what we are prepared to work and commit effort to.
Work includes investing time in skills development and personal planning – then you will be “doing it” smarter (for more reward) and not harder.

The taxation system is not there to feather bed and "engineer" social norms. It is there to collect the necessary taxes for government programs. The individuals, who are the workhorses of the system, regardless of their socio-economic status are all best served by minimising the tax impost and being left to spend the residue of their personal effort on what matters to them – less limited by the social engineering whimsy of the levellers.

The difference between the stay at home parent in the intact family and the stay at home single parent is that someone is choosing to earn the income which allows the former to stay at home. Do we want a society where the government forces people to work as opposed to the government not supporting those who choose not to work.

The taxpayer does pick up some of the bill by way of FBT, is it part of the proposed cuts to single parents who will not support themselves?

Being a parent carries with it responsibilities, one of those is financial responsibility for yourself and your children. If you are able to meet the financial responsibility by sharing the load with someone else then great but the expectation that the taxpayer should carry the load is not reasonable.

I do agree that we need to address the practical issues which make single parenting difficult (better access to before and after school care, more access to shorter working weeks otherwise structured like full time jobs etc).

Robert
There can be changes to work hours etc, to help accommodate working parents with school age children, although I was partial to the idea mentioned by the Prime Minister last year (or maybe the year before) that school hours could be increased, and the students spend this increased time on sport or physical activities at school. This to me would be better then paid child care, where frankly the children can be put in front of a TV while waiting for mum or dad to pick them up, (as I have seen this type of day care).

However the numbers of single parent families is quite staggering:- “Between 1986 and 2001, the number of one-parent families in Australia increased by 53%. In contrast, the number of couple families with children increased by 3%.”

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/ea563423fdbffd30ca256d39001bc33c?OpenDocument

I believe that there are now nearly 500,000 single parent families receiving welfare payments, out of nearly 5,000,000 families with dependant children. Perhaps government is best to be fully investigating the reasons why there are so many single parent families, before these numbers increase further and add to more costs.

For every single-mother-bludger, there is a single father out there somewhere. Many of these single fathers have created more than one single-mother. Let's reel these guys in.