Backing sterilisation will bring more blue votes (probably) than urging help for mum with a record

So how long will this go on for, and how many state-run children’s homes will be needed to cope with the consequences of Oriwa Kemp’s fecundity?

Oh – and by the way – will the aforementioned Oriwa Kemp ever get a chance to demonstrate that maybe she can bring up her children without the need for state intervention?

Those are among the lofty questions tackled over the Grumbles’ breakfast table this morning, while we ploughed our way through the Sunday newspapers.

Oriwa Kemp, if you don’t happen to know it, was banged up for a while for cruelty to Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie.

Ombudsman canes the school that surrendered its authority to a gang of six bullies

Here's how to restore authority to schools.

It looks like wimpy staff at Hutt Valley High School let six bullying brats run the show a few years back and terrorise other kids.

An Ombudsmen’s Office report – Stuff says today – reveals “chilling details of systemic violence at the school, intimidation and abuse”.

It also dossiers a history of failure to punish culprits or acknowledge the seriousness of their crimes.

Alf is tempted to wonder how many staff could be mustered to combat the trouble generated by – how many louts were running amok?

Oh, yes. Six.

And if the staff were losing the battle, what stopped them dialling 111???

We may muse on these matters on the strength of the aforementioned Ombudsman’s Office report, that says pupils at the school were subjected to torture, extreme violence and sexual abuse.

When hens get a better deal than kids, the answer is to hand child welfare to the SPCA

Bugger...when the SPCA took charge of child welfare, our well-being was handed over to Child Youth and Family.

Alf has an idea (and a damned good one, too, even if he says so himself).

It’s aimed at getting a better deal for at-risk kids after a United Nations committee expressed concern over shortfalls in the rights of New Zealand children, including “staggering” infant and child mortality rates.

Alf is not too strong on this bollocks about giving children more rights, now that too many of the brazen little buggers use the rights they know they have to commit serious crimes and assault their teachers.

But he is bothered about cases like that reported yesterday and today about a badly abused girl whose parents face a raft of charges.

It seems the girl has been thrashed for a long time.

Margaret Mutu, Maori and child abuse – if money is needed, it must be a govt problem

Alf despairs of our Maori leaders. Or some of them.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett faced an iwi leaders meeting the other day and invited them to help deal with child abuse by identifying mothers who let “mongrel men” into their homes.

She also asked them to think about coughing up their own funding so abused children could be placed in iwi instead of state care.

This was greeted by some of the buggers as agreeably as Hone Harawira would greet a Pakeha boy or girl friend brought home by his offspring.

Professor Margaret Mutu went wobbly at the thought of Maori money being used to help Maori kids.

Frankly, Alf thought Paula was much too ingratiating, warbling about it being “an honour and a privilege to speak to leaders of such influence”.