OPINION: Six things wrong with Gary Johns's suggestion

I'M USUALLY a pretty easygoing person, but some comments from some people just take things too far. Like former MP Gary Johns.

I'M USUALLY a pretty easygoing person, but some comments from some people just take things too far.

Like former MP Gary Johns who has thrust himself into the limelight by suggesting people on the dole should be taking contraception.

There are many things wrong with Mr Johns's argument, but here are just a few:
 

1. It's widening the gender divide

Johns suggested that women must be implanted with a contraceptive rod to receive the dole.

Ok, so maybe there's no readily available temporary contraceptive for men, but this is still creating gender divides and it's silly.

What about the men who will still be fertile as ever, who is going to stop them? Will they have to wear some kind of chastity belt?

Or is it only ever the woman's fault and sole responsibility? Takes two to tango, right?
 

2. It's blatantly insensitive to people's beliefs

Not everyone is okay with this form of contraception.

Should people have to choose between religion or belief and money?
 

3. Won't it actually make the kids worse off?

Woman gets pregnant while on the dole. Then what?

Would Johns give her the choice between abortion and money?

And what if she has the baby? No money? Know who suffers then? The innocent child, that's who.
 

4. It's widening the rich vs poor divide

Johns's suggestion gives us the idea that all people on the dole are rorting the system.

Very glass half empty outlook there, Gazza.

Of course there are always, always people who abuse the system, but everything in the world has a group of people who'll abuse it.

Some people shoplift, but we don't arrest everyone who walks into a store, do we?
 

5. It tells us love isn't important, just cash

A poor parent isn't always a bad parent and a rich parent isn't always a good parent.
 

6. It's no one's right to tell people when they can and can't have children or impose conditions

Some people have a whole bunch of kids. Some people (actually nowadays many) have none. Some have a couple.

Some have them young, others when they're older.

It's a personal choice and should never be anything but that.