Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and the publication by his Department of an interdepartmental group study. I particularly welcome his speech as I never believed I would ever hear a Minister state that he considers "lone parents a valuable resource" for the country. He must have had in mind the trouble poor President Putin is having persuading the Russian population to have children. Perhaps the Minister should send him a copy of his speech.

I have been involved with Cherish, an organisation set up about 30 years ago by single mothers for single mothers, since it was founded. Now known as One Family, it focuses on the problems experienced by lone parents. I will definitely bring a copy of the Minister's speech to a reunion for the founders of the organisation which will be held early next month because some of them will be astonished by its contents.

The report contains much useful information. All of us want lone parents to participate more in the life of the country and we must try to remove hurdles preventing them from doing so. Senator Cox, for example, expressed the hope that it would be possible to organise networks to enable lone parents to get a night out. This would be an important step because we know that what is best for the lone parent is also best for the child.

This is a useful report. Given that one must not consider a group of 80,000 people a homogenous group, I was pleased to read on page 78 the suggestion that individualisation of the social welfare system is important. We should first address the problems faced by a small group of lone parents, namely, men and older women, many of whom are widowed or divorced. Some men I know who are in receipt of lone parent's allowance left the workforce because they believed the trauma suffered by their children at the time of the death or departure of their mother was so serious that their best option was to stay at home and prioritise the needs of the family. This is the reason I am slightly concerned about proposals to introduce arbitrary age thresholds for youngest children. I hope a flexible approach will be taken to this matter because those who decide to stay at home may have good reason to do so. We do not know the circumstances of the family disturbance in individual cases. The social welfare service, which is earning much more praise than it used to for its approach to individuals, should determine the reason people who may have had good jobs decide to stay at home. It is important that this small group of lone parents be considered first.

Teenage lone parents make up a separate, relatively small group. Despite the stereotype of lone parents as being 15 year old girls who are pregnant for the second or third time, the number of teenage lone parents is small and is declining. Five years ago, teenagers gave birth to approximately 3,000 children, a figure that has fallen to approximately 2,500.