Sooner or later Humankind as a whole is going to have to realize that in a finite world we cant go on endlessly increasing our numbers.
Put in another way Humankind as a whole has a very real overpopulation problem.
If we dont start to limit our numbers then the planetary system will do it for/to us in unspeakably dreadful ways. And on a humungously enormous scale.

The very real concept of ecological footprint has a relentless and inescapable logic to it.
How many extra planets would it take for every one on the planet to live in a McMansion with 3-4 cars in the driveway?

great article - agree completely

This is an awfully simplistic way to look at things. To start with there is no mention of the current child endowment payments available, which are tax-free and can add up to significant amounts on an annual basis.

To introduce policies to encourange more women full stop to have children will simply mean more poorer women having children. I suggest that financial capacity is not the major reason why middle-class women have fewer children.

If we dont meet rplacement rates ourselves, then we import people, as we are doing now. This provides a workforce that payes taxes to support our aging population.

The argument about ferrying kids around to different sports activities is spurious. If its too hard on parents, take turns with other parents - you dont have to watch EVERY match little Johnnie plays. Or, make all your kids choose the one sport (this is how it was dealt with in my family).

Might I also suggest that the issues raised re private school fees is pretty out there too. All parents get some level of childcare assistance, but for the higher income families (you know, the educated ones with less kids), its pretty minimal. Then compare the costs of average private school fees to childcare fees. I doubt there is much difference unless you are trying to send your kids to Kings or the like, or they are boarding. Certainly sending my kids to the local Catholic school is going to be a LOT cheaper than childcare, even after the rebates.

Many people are having less children for a combination of reasons. One reason is a lack of job security. Another is an individualist self centred culture where children are an inconvenience rather than an asset. Another reason is the decline of marriage. A lot of these reasons come from the male side of the equation. A lot of Australian men cannot stand the thought of the responsibilty associated with looking after a child.

Regarding the comment about overpopulation. Australia is not overpopulated, our population does not have natural increase. Overpopulation is a problem in other parts of the world - India, Nigeria, Mexico etc.

Felicity asks:
"Are these women not deserving of government support to defray the cost of raising a child?"
The answer is that nobody deserves somebody else's money. Felicity's foundational premise is socialism: take from whomever to give to whomever. She simply masks the transfer with "government", as though the government gets its money from the money tree out back of parliament house. Typical socialist ploy.
.
.
And her implied corollary is the erroneous notion that persons must support the existence of mankind:

In the case where the mankind in question is simply a sum of all persons currently extant, such notion is redundant.

In the case where the mankind in question belongs to some future point in time and therefore is not necessarily constituted of today's persons, such notion is to subvert the infinite value of existing persons to the ethereal and erroneous notion that mankind as a phenomenon has an eternal, intrinsic, value. Given that every single person who will ever exist will expire forever, there is necessarily no intrinsic value in the corporate entity that is "mankind".

So Felicity needs to do a little more thinking, and then needs to encourage mothers who choose to have children, to pay for them with their own money.

If you are only going to have children when the Government support you I suggest forget about it. I have never heard of anything more ridiculous.Take a look at kids in Sudan and you might get some perspective. My parents never have never owned a home and raised five on a small income with little government support. I am glad they decided to have us.

The appalling state of public schools has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do we failed philosophies. When r we ever going to stop blaming the lack of funding for everything from broken down schools (spiritually) to not having babies.

One way to encourage women to have babies is to appreciate motherhood as a profession rather than a nuisance to the economic well being of the family.

Another simplistic article from a Liberal with training wheels on.

Why should people be tempted to have babies to collect the one off $4176 baby bonus when the baby is going to cost money for the next 21 years. The federal government funds each private school pupil to the tune $4700 per annum, leaving state schools to be funded by state governments.

Yes there are more elderly people than there are tax payers, but it costs money to raise children, think of all the schools and teachers society has to provide to educate our young. How many older people are self funded retirees who don't sup at the public.

Many of our young people are engaged in meaningless low paid work like shop assistants, coffee house waiting staff, call centre etc and if there is a shortage of labour these jobs can disappear with no real damage to our economy.

Australians can retire at 55 and enjoy an active retirement until they are frail. When they are frail they will need assistance to live. Will they need assistance for 3 months or 5 years?

We know that children need assistance for 5 years then schooling for another 13 years be able to be independent members of our community.

I do like children but vilifying the elderly is poorly thought through, emotive and wrong.

Its good to see that fathers got a mention in the article, although it was in brackets as “(or fathers)”.

In the age of gender equality and choice, it is also good to see that there is equal emphasis on paternity leave for fathers, and not just maternity leave for mothers.

Or is there, with the previous sex discrimination commissioner saying that Australia can't afford paternity leave for fathers, and the baby bonus being paid to the mothers only.

davo, the choice not to have children is not based on self-centredness or selfishness. It's a choice about whether you even want to bring a child into this quite often unpleasant and unkind world. Or it maybe a choice about whether at a particular age whether you could be a vibrant and energetic parent for your child and in my case it was going to be unfair to the child to be an "old" parent when they are just starting their life.

Billie, many of us have started our working lives scrubbing dishes, working in packing sheds, picking fruit etc doing so called dead end jobs, but we didn't care - it was work and that is what mattered. We knew if we worked hard we would eventually get a good job. Young ones these days cannot afford to be picky. They need to realise that you can 't get it all straight away, that we all started from somewhere and that this is life.

I'm amazed at the financial assistance that parents get from the government: baby bonus, Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Support, various tax breaks etc etc etc and parent's think they are hard done by. Good grief.

Zahira, There are no more tax breaks than the ones that you specifically mentioned (eg family tax benefit) for families. Childcare rebate used to be a tax break, designed to help working parents, but the "its not fair" brigade got that changed so that all parents working or not get additional childcare support, and its no longer a tax break.

HRS, the baby bonus (or maternity payment) is paid to the carer of the child. Usually its the mother that fills out the paperwork, but the father is entitled to if he is going to be the carer, as are grandparents and those who adopt children. Also in most cases the leave to look after a baby is referred to as parental leave, and covers either mother or father.

Billie, self-funded retirees get plenty of tax-breaks, which is the equivalent to supping at the public teat. Think of all those pensions the over 60's now get tax-free. I dont disagree with you viewpoint entirely, but make sure you look at the big picture first.

runner, a stoppage with looking at motherhood as a profession is that marriages are now so unstable. Its a big risk for both the mother and her kids for her to not be reasonably self-supporting. I could get enough tax-free money from Centrelink to support myself and kids with hubby's income as well, and be a full-time mum, but the risk that things will go wrong... it would remove a lot of my ability to stand my ground on a moral issue or a child-raising issue. At the moment I would rather work and have more choices open to me and my kids, than be bound by circumstance and leaning on the public purse for support.

Liberty, if you think Felicity is socialist, then what on earth would you consider, oh, I don't know, the Norwegian government?
You're talking about someone who thinks the ABC should be privatised, and that WorkChoices doesn't go far enough.

Over populated is when the countries resources cannot meet the population needs for particularly those items of the natural environment for which there is no alternative is proposed by economists.
Land, water, being two.
The productive capacity of Australian lands is declining as is the actual area available for production.
Water is also declining at east to the Southern part of Australia, the wheat belt, Goyder’s line will run just West of the dividing range to Queensland border, in the South around Adelaide latitude, and in the West an equal West move of the Line running N-S, the implication of Global warming. Though maybe the energy cost can be born for supplying people ‘s needs and coping with the pollution such cannot be said for the needs of Agriculture. The north seems problematical for broad acre crops.
Sure we can gain money by export of minerals for a time and buy what is needed, even water? At present we ‘help’ the world in land by producing food crops and this is likely to decline. So what as mineral exports or payment as nuclear dump can makeup a shortfall of money from exports. Realist Foreign policy would argue we cannot worry about others, yet many including Keelty see coming shortages as producing pressure on our defences since we say who comes here.
Mary White in I think 1999 produced a book, ’Listen My Country is Crying’ detailing some of the hurt we have inflicted on our environment, sure this is not the coast. However if Global warming is correct and science says it is this too will cry or at least drown.
Can we have a sustainable economy, Natural capital and the Australian Natural Edge would like to try.

Little Johnny: Mummy why did you have me?
Felicity: Well because “A declining birth rate signals the onset, in the long term, of two bad economic problems. First, our economy will face the incredible task of paying for a burgeoning health and welfare budget brought about by an ageing population, but with a smaller workforce. Secondly, if our economy continues to grow in the same way it has over the past 10 years for the foreseeable future, our economic capacity will be further constrained by a smaller workforce.”

Why can’t people admit that they have a child simply because being in a close relationship with a child is a very enjoyable experience? Why do they have to try an ennoble it with all manner of silly rationalisations. Could it be that they feel guilty about drawing from the public purse to support their experience?

Why is this experience any more deserving of government support than any other experience?

Sure raising kids is a great joy but let’s keep it in perspective and call it for what it really is. It is a choice and not an obligation and as Liberty says it should be an economic choice as much as any other type of choice. If you want this joy then you pay for it.

Can't we really come with some new thinking in this century than 'Economic GROWTH equals success which can only be achieved by population growth, which can only be achieved by exhorting women to have more babies'?

If a woman doesn't have many babies can't it mean that she is mindful of, say, the state of the world she is bringing her children in or her financial capacity to adequately rear her children - no, she is selfish and self centred. Not thinking of the economy or the aging population.

I won't even start on the issue that it is very often men who don't want children or limit the number of children his partner has. Mindful as ever of his hip pocket. On his part it is sensible, isn't it?

Get off it. This planet is bursting with humans. If only economic growth means success and this is only possible through population growth, in case some haven't noticed, this planet is bursting with humans, yes humans, wanting to increase our population. The last thing we need is encouraging more babies.

[[[[The appalling state of public schools has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do we failed philosophies.]]]]
Correct.

Encourage women to have more babies? Ridiculous!

The Australian fertility rate, closer to 1.8 than 1.7, has not been in sudden decline. Most women are still in their breeding age, and have been contributing about half (migration the other half) of our million-per-four-year population increase. That will continue to be the case for almost another generation.

Peter Costello’s mantra of having three children is a ratbag of an idea. Felicity McMahon is in fairyland with her support for it. Replacement (2.1) could have been an excusable argument – but not advocacy of accelerating numbers to look after the previous generation. On that basis, with fertility rates at more than 2.1, each generation would have to accelerate its own fertility rate. Up and up – the sky’s the limit. With total fertility above 5, do Zimbabwe and Uganda point the way?

“Our economy will face the incredible task of paying for a burgeoning health and welfare budget brought about by an ageing population”. A furphy if ever there is one – the task is far from incredible. Very old and very young both impact on health and welfare budgets. The young more so than the old, especially when all of the impacts of nurturing and education are accounted for. Our self-esteemed Federal Treasurer has been unable to cater for the present proportion of young, yet he would increase that burden – and Felicity McMahon supports his concept!

We are currently addressing skills shortages by immigration. Perhaps the cost of training our young people was an incredible task. It does seem that the Federal Government is having difficulty in finding adequate funds for education of present numbers of the young (and don’t pass the buck to the states). Yet there is irrational advocacy for more.

Mothers, children, fathers, need environments fostering healthy development. A stable population adjusted in numbers and lifestyles to the reality of climate and landscape would be ideal. We have increased numbers until we’re wrecking the place. Time to gradually downsize until there is reasonable balance. The economy will just have to fit in with reality.

People aren't having babies because of the lousy public schools? Is there any evidence for this? I doubt it. More likely, it is simply fantastic nonsense spewed by a Liberal hack.

To be blunt, the government and the country would gain much more in encouraging smaller families i.e. up to three (at the most) instead of the football sized families that become a massive drain on the economy even before the children begin work. To give an idea of the shear cost on the public purse, here's an estimate on a married couple with 6 children, the eldest is 11 and the youngest 3 months. The husband is working and earning $1100 gross per fortnight. The breakdown is as follows Parenting payment partnered $171.80, FTB A $872.76, FTB B $125.02, Large Family Supplement $40.32, Rent Assistance (for rent paid at $260 per week) $140.00. Total income for the fortnight is $1349.90 which equates to $35097.40 clear in the hand - not to mention the $5000 bonus that this example family received for the latest addition and $3000 for the previous addition. All else being equal this lifestyle choice would receive over 16 years (which is when ftb cuts out for the first child) $561,558.40 - just over half a million dollars. So, roughly each child over a 16 year period would cost the Australian government $94304.00 - not to mention the cost in health, education etc etc etc. So this young person has to be a fully participatory member of the work force for quite some time, before he or she even begins to pay back what was given to their parents to support them in this world. Incredible. And all this for a lifestyle choice!

So before we go roughshod into this archaic thinking of populate or perish, lets have some decent thinking into how we are going viably educate, support, keep healthy in all ways, these children. We also need to assess the subsequent impact on the natural resources of land for housing, water, fuel, etc etc etc. We can't even support what we've got already, how on earth are we going to support even larger tribes of veracious appetites for the next 16 (minimum) years.

Womens choices? .... "WOMENS" choices?x500

Talk about red rag to a bull.....

Gooood grief. That alone is enough to consign the mentality of the author into the social waste basket.

NEWSFLASH.. "having children is not about "WOMENS"....choices...its about FAMILY choices.. or jolly well should be. 100% of the time.

It takes 2 to make a baby, and as surely as day follows night it takes more than ONE to raise one. (and keep your sanity and peace)

YES.. HAVE MORE BABIES.. "families" have more babies. Men..WITH Women.. TOGETHER... have more babies, as families.

YES.. have more babies because we are not reproducing enough to even replace ourselves at present. (we=western nations generally)
Aside from the obvious "We are dying out but just don't know it yet" there is also the more dangerous "We are demographically becoming weak and once we reach a certain point it will be too late to fix it"

Phanto’s got it exactly right. Nobody should have a baby for the country, for Peter Costello, for $5000, for Kevin Rudd, for your mother-in-law or for anybody or anything else. You should have a baby because you really want to have that relationship and share your life with your child.

A second point, but not nearly as important, is that the two premises for increased birth rates are wrong.

“First, our economy will face the incredible task of paying for a burgeoning health and welfare budget brought about by an ageing population, but with a smaller workforce.”

As many have mentioned, the task is not incredible, it is easy compared to raising children. Secondly the economic problems of an ageing population are trivial compared to the economic problems of depletion of fossil fuels, degraded land, dwindling water supplies and increased pollution, all of which are harder to solve with a big population than a small population.

“Secondly, if our economy continues to grow in the same way it has over the past 10 years for the foreseeable future, our economic capacity will be further constrained by a smaller workforce.”

This is straight from Costello’s copybook. The lie is that per capita wealth does not grow with a growing population only the overall economy of the whole country. That makes Costello look good but does nothing for the average punter. In fact he has to work harder to get the same income according to the Productivity Commission. Besides that lie, the "economic capacity" of Australia grows with increases in productivity, increases in the skills of the population, not just raw numbers. If we spent the Baby bonus on training and education we would see a real increase in per capita wealth. The average guy would get richer and have a better, more sustainable lifestyle.

Of course, the average guy getting richer and having a better, more sustainable lifestyle is not a suitable policy goal for any political party.

ERICC said: (quoting Costello)

“First, our economy will face the incredible task of paying for a burgeoning health and welfare budget brought about by an ageing population, but with a smaller workforce.”

DEMOGRAPHIC/POLITICAL CODE.
Ericc.. it might also be a dimension of this quote, that it expresses a concern that in order to solve the 'aging population/shrinking workforce' situation; migration needs to increase.

If Migration increases, a demographic issue arises. "How might this change the cultural texture of Australia"? Well.. Cronulla is probably the standout example of what can go wrong.

Then there is the political aspect. "How might this alter the political balance"? Migration ALways has a political aspect. Coalition tries to emphasize 'business migration' while labor emphasises 'Skills' migration.
If you follow the 'predisposed voting patterns' of each group, you will, I believe find a political flavor :)

CONCLUSION. There are good reasons for us to have more children.

1/ Its a joy to bring a life into the world.
2/ Replacement of ourselves.
3/ Maintain demographic balance.
4/ Retain Political harmony and balance.

If one sub group has a higher fertility rate, coupled with a strong sense of isolated identity, over time this will impact seriously and negatively on the peace we now enjoy.

BOAZ_David:

Why do we have to replace ourselves? You didn’t suggest why.

Demographic issues should not be resolved by having children. If the cultural texture of Australia is changing for the worse then we should challenge those who are responsible for trying to change it. We stand up to people who do not value basic human rights and frustrate their agenda in as many ways as we can. As soon as they break the law we prosecute them and we control their behaviour in the same way we have done with every other wave of migration to this country.

If they are attempting to change things for the worse by higher fertility rates then we are only encouraging them by giving them baby bonuses and paid maternity leave and all the other benefits we give to parents. If they are attempting to change things by isolating themselves then we do everything in our power to stop that even if we end up having to legislate against ‘cultural cocoons’.

We stand up to all those negative attitudes and welcome the positive ones as enrichment to our own culture.

In the same way the problem of political harmony and balance should not be solved by having children. If any particular group seek to upset the harmony and balance then we should challenge them with reason and logic and legislation if necessary. We do not sit back passively while they take over the country.

We do not solve these threats by ‘outbreeding’ those we disagree with. If we can only solve these problems by having children then it does not say much for our problem solving skills.

Boaz, as an outspoken Christian man, I find your insistence in dividing the Human race, supposedly created by God, into Us and Them strange.

I suggest you go back and read especially the New Testament and the teachings of Christ more thoroughly. Be guided by what it says, not by what you would like it to mean.

This thread is not about dealing with the irrational fear of those fellow humans you put in the Others category.

The government really has very little to do with the decision for a woman to have a baby. Culture is the most important aspect of fertility, in my own experience, at least. Until recently, having children was seriously out of fashion.
Many gen-x women have suffered terribly as a result of that stifling cultural pressure to delay, delay, delay. Gen-x men as a group have had a very great - and yet surprisingly unacknowledged - role in applying this cultural pressure, covertly or overtly preventing a fair-playing female from doing 'what comes naturally' (to her).
The baby bonus was only important as a lever to shift thinking about the importance of family in our individual lives. The apparently compulsory, near-universal, adoption of the pill has really made it difficult for many women to 'get their acts together'.
Gen-Y girls seem to be learning from the experiences of their older sisters, perhaps they will be more streetsmart when it comes their time?