Alan Jones calls to test prospective parents to avoid using kids as 'instruments' for drug money
Shock jock Alan Jones has made a bold suggestion that prospective parents should gain qualifications before they have children.
He told listeners of his Monday morning radio program a test should be in place to avoid addicted parents using children as an "instrument to get money from the taxpayer, and spend it on drugs".
The comments came after a NSW mother reportedly addicted to the drug 'ice' and her partner with a history of family violence are maintaining custody of their baby despite eight other children having been taken away from them.
The pair, from Blacktown, in Sydney's western suburbs could be allowed to keep their ninth baby in a radical new NSW government child protection scheme that includes a full time care worker in their home allowed them to hold onto their child.
The pilot program is being trialled in a bid to reduce the number of children in the foster care system.
Before birth, the child, now believed to be seven months old, is one of more than 2000 unborn babies across the state each year to be identified as “at risk of significant harm”.
Despite this, the infant has been placed with its family.
“We are going to have to bite the bullet and introduce certain qualifications for as to when people have children,” Jones said on his program.
“You can have them, but you can’t use them as an instrument to get money from the taxpayer, and spend it on drugs.”
Children of two of the nine couples involved so far in the new child protection scheme have been taken into care, while seven, including the Blacktown baby, have been allowed to remain with their parents.
The couples have a carer living with them part-time, and received parenting therapy sessions, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard said it was an "unfortunate" reality that some parents “know more about dope than they do about the food necessary to keep their babies alive”.
He said in some households, a combination of domestic violence, drugs, and alcohol were “recipes for disastrous lives for children".
But he acknowledged taking children from their parents was not always a simple solution.
“There is absolutely no question that removing a baby from a mum is no guarantee that baby is going to have a positive future,” Mr Hazzard said.
“Sadly, too many children in foster care end up with very negative lives.”
A health coordinator for the Western Sydney District Kylie Hughes told the paper: "We had someone in their house with them for 40 hours a week assisting them with their interactions with the baby (and) observing them and ensuring that there was no more violence."
The new child protection scheme comes after news of a teenager, dubbed "Girl X", died of drug overdose and was left open to predator abuse by state care system.
Last month, a NSW coronial inquest into the 15-year-old girl's death found she was raped by foster carers while living in an inner Sydney shelter.
The court heard "Girl X" had been dragged into the world of drugs and crime at just 14 years of age and was "failed" by the state care system.
