WELLINGTON (New Zealand) - A CONTROVERSIAL mayor of a regional New Zealand town has proposed a solution for the country's child abuse problem - pay problem parents not to breed.

Michael Laws - the mayor of the Wanganui District Council on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand - previously stirred up controversy by calling the late King of Tonga, a 'bloated brown slug'.

'There is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born,' Laws wrote on the New Zealand radio website where he broadcasts as a talkback DJ. 'These 'parents' are known to authorities... and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed.'

Mr Laws goes on to write: 'it would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care.' The mayor believes 'there are too many people who should not have children.'

Mr Laws also wrote 'that most welfare beneficiaries are good parents' but it was the problem ones who should be offered money not to breed.

His 'solution' has been branded 'draconian' and 'totalitarian' by the country's child health advocates who are calling for him to stand down as a city mayor. 'I just find it such a disgraceful attitude,' Child Poverty Action Group director Janfrie Wakim said. -- AAP