Kids roaming Perth streets are proof of pathetic parenting

Anyone who does not know where their 10-year-old child is on any night of the week, especially in Perth, is not fit to be a parent.

More and more people in Perth are, like I am, becoming completely fed up with the continual myriad of excuses given as to why the Western Australian Police is forced time and again to become babysitters to this sad sub-culture that has been created in our city and state.

There will always be the terribly sad cases where young children feel they are safer on the streets than in their own homes. But the majority of children being picked up and looked after by police are roaming the streets because their parents just do not care enough and are more interested in their own social lives than their actual children.

WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan says that when it comes to the issue of kids roaming Perth's streets, his officers could encounter three types of parents.

"Some are interested and want to solve it. Some are interested but won't solve it because they don't want to put in the time. And the third group may be interested but they can't solve it because they aren't capable of doing it."

WA Police officers also say that when they pick up these children off the streets, the parent is either completely surprised, the parent does not care or, the saddest thing of all, police cannot find a responsible adult from that child's family that they can release the child to.

Given his position, the Commissioner cannot really say what needs to be said as he has to continually tread a fine line of political correctness. As a columnist, political correctness does not have to apply.

Parenting is more than just a means to collecting more welfare from the government. To be a parent you actually need to be setting an example to the children you have created.

Having three kids to three different men and, vice versa, having three kids to three different women by the time you are 21 and being on welfare having never worked or paid tax is not the way to go because the odds are there will be even more kids to come from even more partners and the cycle will never stop.

Being a grandparent at 35 is not something to be celebrated in any society. It is symptomatic of a system breakdown but people fear actually saying this given the verbal abuse and threats of legal action that would result from the truth being said.

The bottom line is the sooner the hard decisions are made to stop paying these people to have a child, one part of the problem will be solved.

These are people who are smart enough to work out that by breeding a child they get free money from the government that essentially all of us are paying for.

The bottom line is the sooner the hard decisions are made to stop paying these people to have a child, one part of the problem will be solved.

We are picking up the slack for their lack of parenting, we are picking up the slack for their selfish decisions and we are continually enabling history to repeat itself because we are too frightened to actually say that what they are doing is wrong on so many levels.

There are so many services out there to help in the parenting journey that there should be no excuse for those who don't take up these services and don't work at improving their parenting skills.

Let's stop making excuses for these people and start actually laying the blame where it lies – the selfish people who happily breed but refuse to parent.

Welfare is a very appealing option for some people who do not want to play their part in getting out and getting a job to help themselves get back onto their feet.

We all remember the uproar when the federal government's 'no jab, no pay' policy introduced earlier this year that threatened the welfare payments for families that fail to vaccinate their children.

The so-called conscientious objectors opposed to vaccination were outraged claiming their rights were being infringed, despite knowing that their selfish choices put the rest of us at severe risk.

But, what actually happened when those same people suddenly realised their welfare was at risk? Bingo, you guessed it! Amazingly, not only have vaccination rates gone up but anecdotally doctors say since the start of this policy children are more likely to be immunised.

So, now that Australians are actually getting the better outcomes in vaccination rates and helping to protect our future generations from preventable diseases, when will we face up to the even bigger welfare challenge to stop simply paying people who breed but don't parent?

Like the Police Commissioner, who has always been interested in the youth of WA, most of us want another great generation of West Australian children to come through and be allowed to experience opportunity and a bright future. But the silent majority again has to pay the price for the bad parenting or complete non-existing parenting of a small but stubborn group who refuse to pull their weight.

Police officers have now been authorised to 'virtually arrest' children as young as ten who are roaming around Perth city after 10pm on weekends.

These children may have not committed a crime but the invoking of this law by the Commissioner means they can be taken into custody if they are considered at risk of being victims of crime themselves, or at risk of breaking the law.

It is shocking that vulnerable kids are being rounded up from the city's malls and carparks to be delivered to a safe house run by Mission Australia because their parents are just not around.

Commissioner O'Callaghan and his wife foster four children.

He publicly shared a heartbreaking story this week that he had gone to pick up one of the kids he fosters from a party only to meet a young child who asked the Commissioner if he could get a lift home because he lived 20km away and knew that his mum could not be bothered getting out of bed to come and get him.

I wonder how quickly that woman would be able to get out of bed to collect her child if she was told her welfare would be stopped?

Karalee Katsambanis is a mother-of-three and a journalist for more than 20 years. Listen to her on 6PR's PerthTonight with Chris Ilsley between 9pm-10pm on Mondays.