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Free contraception for young beneficiaries

18:24 Mon May 7 2012

AAP

Teenage beneficiaries will get free contraception in a move to stop them having kids while on welfare (Thinkstock)

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Teenage beneficiaries will be offered free long-term contraception in a move to stop them having more babies while receiving a benefit.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett on Monday announced the government will spend $1 million to pay for doctors' visits and long-acting reversible contraception for beneficiaries aged 16-18.

The funded contraception will include intrauterine devices, injections and implants, which will later be extended to the wider beneficiary population.

"We certainly have concerns about subsequent children and children being born particularly to those on welfare, and we see the access to contraception as actually being a barrier, in particular the cost around it," Ms Bennett says.

She says while Pharmac funds the "great percentage" of contraception, "there's still a cost and that's seen as a barrier".

There will be no obligation or incentive for young people to take up the contraception.

The largely youth-focused welfare package, announced on Monday, includes an extra $77.6 million to move about 14,000 16- and 17-year-old beneficiaries into education or training, and a $75.9 million increase over four years in funding for youth service providers.

"For the first time, the Ministry of Education will share information with the Ministry of Social Development to track and pick up these young people," Ms Bennett says.

"This is unashamedly targeted at those 16- to 18-year-olds. They are the ones most likely to stay on a benefit longer, they are the ones whose children are most likely to be disadvantaged.

"We are targeting more money, more services and I think it's the right place for it to be."

Other changes include an emphasis on getting beneficiaries into work.

The domestic purposes benefit will be replaced with a new sole parent support benefit, and sole parents with children over five will be expected to return to part-time work, while sole parents with children aged over 14 will be expected to work fulltime.

Do you think free contraception will stop teenage beneficiaries having more babies? Have your say below.

User comments

Well since we live in a country that is currently ruled by a goverment that only cares for the $$$ and people with the $$$, I wouldn't believe this new incentive for a second this is not about trying stop teen pregnancy they know that this cannot be avoided, unless they are actually going to handcuff a girl and force her to be sterilized. NO!! this is about giving society someone to blame for the fact that they work hard and their taxes are being stolen by the masses out of there pay packet. Wake the hell up, beneficeries are only a minority of people who recieve part of out taxes and while we blindly sit here crying about people sitting on benefits the goverment is stealing the majority of our taxes for their own back pockets and dodgy dealing, better yet while we are all still trying to blame the lower class of society, the goverment is busy selling our assetts of to overseas buyers and investors, thats the real issue right there not teen pregnacy. NZ wil become a corporate Country

I give ten points to the national party for fixing up this gravy train of a life style. how come solo mums( whatever age ) carryon getting pregant and having kids when they dont have the means to support the ones they already got? they go back to winz and say gimme--gimme--gimme, and my taxes go to support these feral kids, and that needs to stop. i also think that there should be a mandatory requirement to name the other person that help make this child ,so that I R D can help gather contrbutions towards the balancing of the books. the male in that situation would then think twice about whats going to happen for the next 16 or so years.. thank-you.

I don't like the National party or anything it stands for - but I must say I support this move - with one caveat being that when they start on contraception - that taxpayer should not pay for any more children from that individual. There are far to many ( and im not saying all ) who are using a child as an income and that is not the purpose of a child.

Free contraception to prevent beneficiaries having too many children seems like a good idea however I feel that rather than giving free contraception, the government should force beneficiaries between the ages of 16-18 with any number of children into the job market. I understand that given the current situation of the country, there are few job vacancies however, I have noticed that there are many jobs that don't require a higher skill set or education that could be filled by the unemployed youth which are currently occupied by elderly people. This seems like a radical idea to me, but wouldn't a younger person with greater strength, memory retention, reflexes and overall dexterity be more productive to a company than an older person? Wouldn’t the fact that these 16-18 year olds have mouths to feed be incentive enough for them to be productive and retain their jobs?

in theory it is a well thought out idea but, for females under i think its 21 now are able to get free contraception from there doctor. this isnt stopping people from getting pregnant so what makes the government think that this "free contraception to beneficaries" shceme is going to work? i personally know someone in her late teenswho got pregnant while on a benefit and and she thought it was cool because it meant not going back to work as fast. the problem is no teenagers getting preganant because there too lazy to use contraception its majority of them getting drunk and having unprotected sex thats the problem.

What "genuine couples" are there at 16-18 especially ones that want kids?! Finally they are doing this, I'm sick of my tax paying for stupid teenager who couldn't keep their legs crossed long enough to find a condom. Yes I am being harsh but as a 20 year old I'm sick of most of my hang time with my friends being taken over by screaming kids, I wasn't dumb enough so why were they

but what about the 18+ alot of my friends are having children one of my friends kids are 8 months old and shes ten weeks preg with her second child and on the benefit it should be given to a larger range and with the pill and the jab added in alot of girls have fears of inserts wich will stop them from getting and are affraid of needles like my self i dont have enough fingers to count how many of my 18-20 year old friends or people i knw that are pregnant, you shouldnt have to go to the doctor just to get them to print a piece of paper for you to go to the chemist you should just be able to go to a chemist and get repeats of your pill it saves time and money alot of girls cant be bothered going to there doctors coz it means they have to get there and then sit and wait to be seen then be seen for not even 5 minutes then have to go to a chemist and then wait for there pill why not cut the doctor out completly

Interesting that now Paula Bennett decides to make contraception free for teenage girls. In some respects this is like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. If only this had been made available many years ago maybe my daughter would not have bought 8 children into the world, none of which are living with her. These children are well loved and with their fathers, my husband and I are raising the youngest. It makes me wonder why Paula Bennett is just targeting girls. It does take two to tango and boys should be offered free condoms as well. Each has a responsibilty to ensure that unwanted pregnancies don't happen.

Well, more money spent on restricting NZers. Yeah, there are some individual cases where this would be effective, but there are also the genuine couples etc. who see having a child as an extra incentive to fund their child's future. I think this is a very fine line since it's a lot of money to be spending on it, and the easier way around it, would be to make easy contraception available at the WINZ offices and open up more connections with Family Planning Centres. I mean, it'd be nice for couples to be able to walk into WINZ and be able to pick up condoms or a female equivilent that is nice and relatively easy to use with no questions asked, instead of beneficiaries having to pay for those types of protection. The reason being, at the end of the day, welfare can't control our emotions and personal lives especially on this personal of all personal topics. We need freedom and well researched knowledge on this subject. Give beneficiaries that, and easily available protection, done.

Nice one 'nightmare' harsh but true, and quite possibly needed, you need money to have kids, anyone with half a brain knows that. Too many people with no money, having kids and getting the govt to pay for it. Stupid cycle.