1. Ice addict parents who had eight children taken away from them have a full-time care worker in their home to help them keep their ninth child.
A couple addicted to ice and living a life marred by violence and neglect have had a full time care worker appointed to them to assist them in their home to help them keep their ninth child, a baby boy.
The NSW scheme has been called a “radical new child protection scheme”, reports The Daily Telegraph.
The baby boy was identified as being one of the more than 2,000 unborn babies across NSW each year “at risk of significant harm” before birth.
Western Sydney Local Health District Kylie Hughes told The Daily Telegraph the couple lost eight children because of drugs, alcohol and domestic violence issues.
But through the scheme, with the help of the full time worker in their home they have retained custody of their newborn baby boy, who is now seven months old.
“We had someone in their house with them assisting them with their interactions with the baby (and) observing them and ensuring that there was no more violence,” she said.
Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard said some parents “know more about dope than they do about the food necessary to keep their babies alive”.
2. Community struggles to come to terms with the death of two children, allegedly at the hands of their father.
The community of Yanchep is struggling to deal with the murders of two children aged 5 and 3, allegedly by their father Jason Craig Headland.
Locals gathered to lay teddies, cards and flowers at the home where the bodies of Zaraiyah-Lily, 5, and Andreas, 3, were found on Thursday night. It has not been revealed how the siblings died.
Their 35-year-old father is under police guard at Royal Perth Hospital with a self-inflicted injury.
Top Comments
1. They need to be sterilised!
I will be in the minority in saying this but I support the PPL changes (in principle - I haven't yet read a full article recently on exactly what the proposed legislation says, only what was discussed a few months back).
I don't believe the current system was ever meant to be anything more than a safety net. My kids aren't that old, but I had them before the government had any kind of PPL. I worked in private enterprise and was not entitled to anything more than getting my job back after 12 months of (unpaid) leave. I would have loved a government scheme then! To then be cranky nowadays that you only get one PPL instead of 2 (which is what taking from the employer and the government is doing) is, dare I say it, a bit greedy?
Maybe people in the public service don't realise this but most people outside of the government service don't get any kind of PPL from their employers - the gov scheme was meant to pick up those people and give them some support to take maternity leave. It was to make things more equitable. Those people will still be covered, as I understand. I think when they originally drafted the legislation for that they weren't imagining people would try to get both. Now those people screaming poor because they can't get both are akin to a toddler screaming because they were offered a lolly and took two and now been told 'hang on, you were only supposed to take one. Don't be greedy!'.
That said, I think that they should probably shift the start date out by about 6 months to make sure that currently pregnant people aren't affected - if someone is only a couple of months from their due date they have probably made plans and are going to be pretty stressed by this. Bring in the change that should always have been the case, but do it with enough notice that people who aren't pregnant yet can make appropriate plans for their future time. People should be allowed to go into things with their eyes open.
As I said, this won't be a popular opinion....!