I’m confused

If sole parents on the DPB do not name the other parent (the father) they stand to have the level of their benefit docked by $22 a week.

The Government has announced that there will be an increase in the level of reduction – to $28 a week, after three months of refusing to name the father.

Now unless I am missing something, this is a sensible thing to do. It is important that fathers do not get away with no responsibility for their children, and that the taxpayer is left with paying all the costs of raising a child, just because the mother wishes to protect the father from having to pay.

So what I am confused about if why Muriel Newman is attacking the increase. She claims that “there would be an increase in the number of men who knew they could father a child and walk away with no consequences”, when it appears to be quite the opposite.

Perhaps she is complaining about the risk of violence being an exemption to naming without penalty, but I presume this is the situation at the moment.

Anyone know more details about this?