The news that South Australian police today removed and hospitalised six children from a state housing trust home that sometimes holds 21 people comes as no surprise to the majority of citizens. We know perfectly well that such homes exist. We view the charging of the mother with criminal neglect as a positive step.

Families and Communities Minister Jay Weatherill commented that it is not the responsibility solely of child protection agencies to protect the children of such families but is rather everyone's responsibility including neighbors and the wider community. That statement will strike a very raw nerve with a great many citizens who are sick to death of having politically convenient arguments thrust in their faces.

The average parent does a good job of raising their own children under what are increasingly difficult circumstances. They personally do far better than to have a dozen children who go unclothed, unwashed and unfed. They know perfectly well that the more responsibility they accept on behalf of what they regard as 'ferral' families, the more those families will neglect their own responsibilities, leaving it to someone else to solve their problems and meet their obligations for them. The average parent knows also what is even worse, that helping those disaster families will without doubt cause them grow and multiply, and that they are a primary source of trouble and criminal behaviour.

We are told that crime is a community problem and it has to be solved within the community. The only possible interpretation of that statement we can ascribe any common sense to whatsoever is that crime is largely a function of certain individuals within certain types of micro-communities.

We want to know why it is then, that we are being told we must act in a fashion that will encourage the growth and multiplication of micro-communities that are well known to be breeding grounds for criminal offenders.

Politicians such as Jay Weatherill are trying to have it both ways. Either we are working to eliminate conditions under which offending becomes prevalent or we are not. Insisting that we ought to act in a fashion that that encourages those conditions to grown and multiply exposes their government's approach to crime control as hare-brained.

If that government truly believes their own spin about the origins of crime they will spare nothing whatsoever in direct intervention to prevent disaster families from growing, thriving and perpetuation the cycle of child abuse. They have flagged the problem. They must now provide strong, decisive leadership to stamp it out or they must shut up.