SA's own Dan Quayle

SA's own Dan Quayle

By Penny Farrow

ADELAIDE — Single women are "going around getting pregnant to rort the system", according to state Liberal backbencher Joe Rossi. He has also been quoted by a suburban newspaper as saying that single women should be sterilised after their third child and that family breakdowns are the cause of social problems.

Melanie Sjoberg, Democratic Socialist Party and women's activist, told Green Left that "sole parenting is often a result of broken marriages or relationships, which is often the result of violence". Rossi seems happy to point the finger, she said, while ignoring the social crisis which is resulting from the government's austerity policies.

Another of Rossi's proposals is that rowdy young people be automatically fingerprinted because they could be involved in crimes such as graffiti or car theft.

His attitudes have provoked outrage from women's groups, welfare organisations, the state Opposition and even Liberal Party members.

From GLW issue 151