By: Mike Hosking | Thursday, June 07, 2012 9:23 AM

When it comes to giving courts the right to take children away from their abusive parents, you are dealing with the extreme end of it. Comparatively speaking there aren’t that many cases. Of far greater concern are the many kids who might not necessarily be hit or killed but simply born into a life that’s going nowhere.

The concept that anyone can breed has always struck me as a particularly odd one. In a world and society where tests, licences and permissions are required for virtually anything of any substance, we seem to have decided parenting is for anyone at any time. No test required, no brain power needed, no good will, no positive intent, no outward assurance of competence. The consequences of such a lax approach are all over the western world for all to see.

I don’t think there’s any disagreement that there are those who shouldn’t breed. It’s just what you do about it that’s the tricky bit. The mere fact that what Paula Bennett is espousing is so shocking to some it shows that the concept of the state or the state’s organisations increasingly encroaching into our lives proves that. Although I always look at these things from the point of view that if you’re advocating change, is it because what we currently have doesn’t work and if it is then the potential change takes on increased gravitas.

What we know for sure is that too many kids are abused, too many are killed and too many are born into homes of no hope. We have a massive system that’s supposed to deal with that. Services to help, to protect, to prevent. So you do what the Sue Bradfords do in situations like this and call for more funding for the same systems that clearly don’t work, or you do what Paula Bennett is doing and try something different, perhaps even radically different. Parenting should be a privilege, not a right.

And then you have the child’s part in this equation. Why does the right of the parent, who will do nothing but destroy their child’s life, outweigh the right of any child to have a half decent chance with parents who actually know what they’re doing and care about getting it right? Why is that equation allowed to be so skewed one way? If Paula Bennett’s making a mistake here, it’s not in the idea itself. It’s in limiting the idea to only the worst of the worst.

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