It is entirely typical of the liberal construct in this country that, when confronted by evil, the first responsibility is to make excuses for the evil-doer.Nothing represents this perversity better than the outrageous public response from politicians and the media to the killing of yet more children by their family/whanau. Last year, at least 16 New Zealand children were murdered or manslaughtered by their family. The Ministry of Health committee which gathered these statistics admitted that it had probably underestimated the number.
Two such children were two-year-old toddler Karl Perigo-Check and 22-month-old Haile-Sage McClutchie. The gang mother and her boyfriend have been arrested for Karl's murder; no arrest has been made in Haile-Sage's case. Why? Because the family has done a Kahui. Clamped up tight.
On the same day that these extreme family violence stats were released, a so-called Experts Panel released its report to parliament. It had been convened for the explicit purpose of advising the government on how to reduce the scandal that is New Zealand's child abuse shame.
The response was suitably pathetic. Share information between various government agencies, it suggested. Oh, and let's give some parenting courses to those animals who have already been found to have abused, maimed and/or killed their children. That might transform them into model mums.
When the real solution is so simple: never let these people breed again. Ever.
Abusers – male or female – have forfeited whatever arcane right existed to ever be parents. They lost that privilege the moment they beat, bashed and burned the defenceless innocent in their so-called care.
When I suggested last year that it was time to stop the abuse cycle by, literally, stopping bad people from breeding, there were similar howls of upset that accompanied Act MP David Garrett's thinking out. Garrett is in trouble – distanced and deserted by his own party – for endorsing the proposal of voluntary sterilisation for child abusers. The concept is supposedly radical. But it runs something like this: if there is a fair chance that a member of anti-social underclass is going to have children then incentivise them not to. After all, the most likely outcome is that they will raise children to be just like them – a blight upon society.
Although, that's the lesser evil. The greater possibility is that they will end up traumatised, maimed or dead. Giving such adults cold, hard cash not to create ceaseless work for police, health, social welfare and corrections authorities seems a sound investment to me.
That's a little liberal I know. My view is that any person convicted of serious child abuse should never be given the opportunity to care for children again. But the exact opposite incentive currently exists. We have established a welfare system that encourages the useless, the feckless, the violent and the downright evil to have children. In fact, the default position of our society is this: got nothing better to do? Have a kid. We'll pay you.
As a consequence there are vast tribes of lost children within our midst. Denied love, opportunity and a productive future by the very fact of their birth. And Child Youth and Family deals with these children of the damned every day. And is powerless to halt it.
Well, not quite. In the most extreme cases – and only after the abuse has occurred – it can remove the child from their dreadful parent or parents. Except the legal imperative is to later restore them, to the same family/whanau that created the abuse.
In the case of little Haile-Sage it is very much worse. CYF had already made the drastic call to intervene. Twice. Her parents had two toddlers permanently removed because of the culture and catalogue of violence and abuse that accompanied their upbringing. So the parents had a third child. Who was murdered.
Apparently CYF did not know that the little girl had been born. But it cannot be blamed. It is stretched well beyond capacity in dealing with the actual abuse cases it handles; let alone the ones yet to occur.
But still politicians and policy-makers don't get it. They think the little girl's mother is entitled to have more children. And everyone like her. And that's the issue: this crazy belief that bad people, having done evil, are entitled to be given the opportunity to do it again. Including New Zealand's most infamous parents: Macsyna King and Chris Kahui.
How ironic then that the chorus of criticism directed at Garrett was actually led by Kahui's defence lawyer. And by a so-called anti-violence group called Jigsaw. Which perhaps best describes their collective mental condition. Because the piece missing is their desire to protect children.
Meanwhile, Garrett has gone to ground. Hounded by headlines and trenchant television comment. He should be chiding both his party and his political allies that the real enemy is within. Those who do nothing to arrest New Zealand's blackest stain.
Those who believe that more experts and more ministry reports will make a blind bit of difference. Those that contend that reproduction is an inalienable human right.
Because it isn't. A society has a greater right to protect itself, and its most vulnerable, from malice and harm. At the moment, evil is begetting evil. That must stop. Sterilisation is simply the most efficient means to do so.
Sunday Star Times, March 7, 2010