One Nation’s candidate for the seat of Pilbara in the West Australian election is standing by an article he wrote saying taxpayers should not support single mums who are “too lazy” to attract and hold a mate.
In the wake of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s 2015 comment suggesting living in remote Indigenous communities was a “lifestyle choice”, David Archibald wrote a Quadrant article nominating “lifestyle choices that could be defunded”.
“The first that springs to mind is single motherhood,” Mr Archibald wrote.
“These are women too lazy to attract and hold a mate, undoing the work of possibly 3 million years of evolutionary pressure.
“This will result in a rapid rise in the portion of the population that is lazy and ugly.
“We know what causes pregnancy these days, so everyone who gets pregnant outside of marriage is a volunteer. This is an easy one for defunding.”
Mr Archibald also used the article to suggest defunding the disability support pension and childcare.
“The 800,000 Australians on the disability pension. OK, not all of them. But a good proportion are able to drive cars, bash police and each other, go fishing and so on,” he said.
“Now comes federally funded childcare. This is a lifestyle choice. Looking after children is very labour-intensive.
“If society wishes to encourage childbearing, it should reward that with tax rebates to the childbearing pair and leave it at that.”
Stolen Generations a ‘myth’: Archibald
In another 2015 Quadrant article, Mr Archibald — who has described himself as “part-Aboriginal” — labelled the Stolen Generations a “myth”.
“Senator Payne swallowed the whole concocted Stolen Generations myth, hook, line and sinker,” he said in the article about Defence Minister Marise Payne’s appointment.
The Stolen Generations are recognised by Australian governments at the state and federal level as the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities, a practice carried out by European-led Australian governments and missionaries well into the 1970s.