Outspoken ACT MP David Garrett has suggested sterilising parents who abuse their children, and rewarding them with $5000 in return.
The MP’s hardline comments have embarrassed his ACT colleagues, who say it's not party policy.
The comment has even forced Prime Minister John Key to rule it out as a future Government initiative.
ACT leader Rodney Hide had previously backed Mr Garrett, but today he and the party left him isolated saying the comments are his, and his alone.
Mr Garrett refused to front today, but did not back away from his statements, which said “it has become a well-worn cliché that one needs a license to own a dog, but not to have children."
"Should it be possible to reach a point where a person is made physically unable to reproduce further?”
He also stated:
“If - say - $5000 was paid to the likes of both parents of the Kahui twins if they chose to be sterilised…how much is it costing the state now to care for the children Macsyna King has had removed from her - $5000 to each of them is ludicrously cheap by comparison.”
The Government - which embraced Mr Garrett's three strikes policy - was distancing itself from his sterilisation plan.
“It sounds like a pretty radical idea and frankly it’s not on the Government's agenda nor do I think it’s likely to really work,” says Mr Key.
Labour Leader Phil Goff attacked Mr Garret, saying his comments went against the fundamental beliefs of the ACT party.
“The ACT Party is the party that says we should keep the state out of people's lives but here is Mr Garrett saying in our society who is sterilised and who shouldn't be,” he says.
Mr Garret is well known for speaking his mind and while he says what some believe, it makes many others uncomfortable - increasingly those in his own caucus - who have been left embarrassed by his latest musings.
