The government here is incredibly tough on welfare fraud and overpayments.

As well as criminally prosecuting people who make false claims, it aggressively pursues people who are accidentally overpaid by administrative error.

But as welfare agencies have access to tax office records i would think it would be almost impossible to cheat and get away with it for more than one financial year.

There was an interesting case a few years ago that i followed pretty closely as i was working as a legal secretary at the time and had access to law journals. The Australian Taxation Office was claiming that a drug dealers profits were legally income, no matter how they were derived. They ended up getting a judgement that he had to pay tax on it and also charged him with welfare fraud and he also had to repay the benefits he had received during the period he was dealing.

i don't think anyone, no matter what their political leanings, would argue that welfare
payments should go to anyone who wasn't in genuine need.

And to return to the point of this post, teen mothers without a supportive partner or the education required to get a job that would cover child care and also support them and their child are about as needy as people can get.

i have qualifications, a good work history and child support payments from my ex husband, a well off professional. And i still find it hard to find work that will make ends meet after child care payments for my three pre school age children.

The only way for teen mothers to get independent and educated is to have assistance in the early years, be it from state, charity or family.

But prevention is better than cure, and while i would never advocate forcing any drug on anyone, programmes to encourage teenagers to use contraception can only be a good thing in my opinion.

True, an implant won't prevent STDs. But a lot of teens are obviously not using condoms anyway. In fact the statistics here show that teenage use of condoms is down to pre 80s levels as the threat of aids isn't viewed as as serious as it was a generation ago.

If it's a choice between teens contracting sexually transmitted diseases AND getting pregnant AND potentially passing the diseases on to their babies, or just getting STDs, i know which i would choose.